Covid-19….it’s the phrase that has permeated the minds of all humankind, forever changing our trajectories and way of life. It totally changed mine in a matter of weeks, cancelling all that had been planned and upending a business model that had been successful for 10 years. To figure out how to survive I had to adapt. I discovered that I already knew how to adapt and that I learned how to in an unusual way.
Most people know that clay begins soft and ends hard. It starts as a malleable, unshaped lump of possibilities and ends with the permanence of stone, unable to change, capturing a moment in time. In between those two stages lies a space in which one can create. You must initially act with instinct and what knowledge you’ve attained, making decisions and sticking with it until the end. If an act turns out unfavorable then you must observe where the piece went wrong and move on to the next one, taking with you the knowledge from the last mistake and imparting it into the new. It is in this process of working in the moment that I found my ability to adapt. I know that if I do not succeed I can go back to the start anew. Nothing, not even stone, has to be permanent. Failure informs success, and the act of working brings it to life.
- David Johnson
