I’d like to say I never need to ask for help, that I figure out every problem I have on my own. I think I used to spend lots of time trying to figure things out on my own. I just hated asking for help lots of times, and it didn’t serve me well. In the past year I’ve had a couple of experiences that reminded me of the value in asking for help.
A little over a year ago I was tasked with creating a rolling ball sculpture that was going to be displayed in the mayor’s office. The timeline to create the sculpture was extremely short, just days, and this is with me working a full-time job already. I had the entire piece structurally complete from one end of the other, but I was having teething problems. There was a large spiral that wound down and then merged directly into a coil. It was a really cool effect, but it wouldn’t work properly. Mostly it was fine, but on rare occasion one or two marbles would inexplicably just fall through from the top of the coil straight out the bottom. This isn’t something I could display with any sort of pride. With rolling ball sculpture, if it doesn’t quite work, then it doesn’t work, period.
After testing and tweaking and having only slightly better results, I realized time was too precious to lose any more of it. I needed help, fast. I posted to the Facebook group for rolling ball sculpture, describing my problem. In an instant I had builders from all over the world, some with years of experience, lending a hand. Ultimately I can credit Matt Gaulden with offering some key advice about the size of the coil. I had to cut out the coil and replace it, but it worked like a charm. Matt is a great artist who has a host of instructional resources for building rolling ball sculpture. You can check out his work and his online assistance here.
The sculpture, “Meer-col,” was a huge success at the mayor’s office. In fact, I was told by one of the office staff that it was such a big success they had to move it out of the common office area and into the mayor’s conference room, because “too many people were enjoying it.” Check out the video and see for yourself!
More recently, I needed to do some work on the blog. Time wasn’t as crucial, but it was definitely a case where sooner was preferable to later. My WordPress skills are miniscule compared to my sculpture skills. I wanted to do it on my own, and I’d intended to do it on my own, but I’d been intending for months, and it was obvious that it was going to take me too long to figure it all out by myself. I was out of my element. I went to my online group for working artists, asked for help, and Divinity Chan offered to lend a hand.
Divinity was a big help. She was very patient and listened to my desired changes. Patiently she walked through what she was doing, explaining how she was making changes and allowing me to take notes. We fixed errors and made improvements in a matter of minutes – tasks that would have taken me hours of precious free time to work through on my own. As she worked through the process she taught me how to make future changes on my own. “I’m all about empowerment,” she told me. Now I have not only an improved site, but the ability to make future updates myself, which is perhaps the most helpful thing of all. If your WordPress site is giving you a headache and you need someone to help relieve the pain, Divinity is an excellent resource. You can reach her at divinityatdivinitychandotcom. Divinity is also a wonderful artist, and I’d be remiss in not including a link to her excellent art work. You can see her vibrant paintings at DivinityChan.com.
I have had to learn a lot of skills to make my art, but one that has proven very valuable to me even before I started making rolling ball sculpture was the skill of asking for help. It’s all about practice. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Save yourself grief and needless frustration. Start practicing. The benefits are fantastic.