Joel Fisher: The Success of Failure

This article is rather encouraging and thought provoking. Many of the things Fisher proposes in this article are great, and unfortunately, at least in my own case, not included in everyday practice. I definitely believe in my work, if not in everyday life, that everything happens for a specific reason. That being said, in slow times it becomes very difficult to put that belief into practice, or practice what I preach. I was watching the Sally Mann documentary, What Remains, the other day and she basically summed it up saying, "Every photograph ups the annie". Isn't there a myth that most artists believe their best work is their latest? Anyways, I think that Sally Mann's comment relates to what Fisher is saying in this article concerning artists and their understanding, or rather implementation, of success. I also enjoyed Fisher's summation of the many ways a work of art, or many other things, fail in amounts such as, "Too aggressive, too augmentative, too arrogant, too arty, too big, too coercive, too confused, too cultured, etc." Fisher's article has certainly provided some different approaches to accepting, and celebrating my own failures, and possibly eliminating that word from my vocabulary. I'll be printing this article out and putting it on my bulletin board, due a slight inclination that I will need to read this one a few times over this semester.