I’ve made several pieces over the last couple of weeks as gifts for friends and family. A toad for my grandma, a golden retriever for my brother and sister in law, and a panel of the CDT starting point for a friend. I’ve spent about 50 hours on all three, and now that they are finished, I am scared to gift them.
When I look at these pieces, I see the flaws. I see how the panel border isn’t totally straight, that I could have chosen better colors for the mountains, that the golden retriever needed more squiggles on the back leg to better replicate the hair, and that the soldering is lumpy in places. The list goes on and on. I don’t see the finished pieces as a whole. I see every way they fell short of the version I had in my head, and every little thing I could have done better.
And the crazy thing is that I never logically expected them to be perfect. They were meant to be practice pieces that I could gift as a bonus. I am still a beginner. I knew there would be things I would learn from making them, things I would do differently the next time, and mistakes that would probably be obvious to me but not anyone else. But somewhere along the way, my perfectionism crept back in and I started hearing that little internal voice.
“This is the best you could do?”
“You should be better at this by now.”
“No one wants this. It’s better off in the trash.”
Then I imagine the worst case scenario in my head of the moment I actually give the piece to them. I see them pulling back the tissue paper, pausing for a second too long, and plastering on a fake smile while trying to act excited about something that looks, in my mind, like it was made by their toddler.
I imagine going over to their house months later and noticing the piece is obviously missing, and immediately knowing that it was, in fact, as ugly as I feared. That those imperfections I told myself were quirky and part of what made it handmade, and that they would appreciate the gesture and thought behind it more than something that looked like it was made by a machine, were all just things I told myself to feel better about my art.
I know I’m not the first artist to feel this way. I know I am my own worst critic. And I know that the people in my life value the sentiment behind the gift more than it being “perfect.” But it doesn’t eliminate the fear. And when I really think about it, while I do see the imperfections in these pieces, I know that I would be happy to receive them as gifts and still think they are freakin’ cool. I’m scared that they won’t see them that way, and that that would be enough to crush the little bit of confidence I have built up.
It’s my ego that’s ultimately at stake, and part of why I started this hobby was to quiet that part of me.
I didn’t want stained glass to feel performative or high stakes. I wanted it to be my escape, a creative outlet, something that calms and excites me. And for that to happen, I need to let go of the pressure I have placed on myself to make Notre Dame quality stained glass for it to be appreciated.
I can keep staring at the pieces, picking apart every crooked line and uneven solder joint, but eventually I have to just hand them over and let them exist outside of my control. I can’t decide whether they will think they are beautiful, whether they will hang them on their walls, or whether they will notice the things I wish I had done differently.