The Ugly Back
Everyone goes to the museum to admire the pretty fronts of artistic tapestries, but the ugly backs face the wall and are rarely on display.
My wife decided she wanted to host a big family Thanksgiving this year. While we were in the process of cleaning up the house and putting our (my) clutter. Hapy observed that we seemed to be creating more of a mess during the clean-up process than we started with The stack of our (my) clutter needed to be broken down, spread out, and reorganized in order to evolve those disparate elements into a more tidy and orderly new mode.
I remember in my art school days that the teacher in my painting class told us to block out the subject in the canvas and add undertones and shadows upon which to build the prettier picture we’d (hopefully) end up with. I distinctly remember the instructor saying not to be put off by the painting’s muddy and muted appearance in these early stages, because it was merely the underpainting and to trust in the process in order to arrive at the more finished looking final layer.
When you look at a beautifully woven tapestry on the wall of a gallery, you’re viewing the finished result, the ideal that the artist wanted to show the world. When you look at the back of a tapestry, you see the hard work it took for them to achieve the final result.
Do a Google Image search for the backs of tapestries (you don’t have to do it, I did it for you and linked it below). You’ll see breaks from where threads snapped and needed to be tied together again. You’ll see knotted masses of fiber where a jam occurred or the colors changed and the artist needed to make a substitute or change before they could move on. Perhaps the weaver’s loom suffered damage that needed repaired. Maybe the delivery of wool was delayed and a their artist had to adapt on the fly in order to complete the work on time.
The pretty front is beautiful to look at, but the ugly back tells the real story of bringing an idea into reality and puts the hard work on display for all to admire.
Think about your last project and all the ugly behind the scenes work that went into producing that slick looking finished piece. Hours of editing copy to get your book published, hours of deleted takes it took in order to produce that 2-minute YouTube video, all the flubs and outtakes in your audio before you posted your latest podcast episodes, etc.
Admire the ugly back
Don’t be afraid to put your hard work on display and share all the wrong turns and mistakes you made along the way. It just might help the next up-and-comer who is mesmerized by the pretty front and stuck in the middle and the mess of their own ugly back.
Here is a link and some images I found in my “back of tapestry” search. Take a close look at them and you’ll begin to see their own imperfect beauty begin to emerge.
