Anthony Rella

Letting our beloved work face the light takes courage. Fear and doubt take hold when we're in the bud form, waiting for the light. We know that once people can see what we've done, we lose control over it. We have to face whatever their responses will be. It's good to take a moment and really acknowledge the fears, the doubts, the worries. You don't have to let it stop you, but you can just see it for what it is: a moment of uncertainty. The stories that fill into our minds before we take action.

What's delicate about the flowering phase is that, after all the heartache and effort we put into making a thing and preparing it to enter the world, now we see how the world receives it.

It starts to have its own kind of agency. What you create can engender all kinds of responses in people—it may excite some and offend others. Indeed, it may be deeply wanted and fulfilling to those who encounter it for years until some circumstance changes and suddenly they look at it with scorn and derision. Or vice versa—it may go unnoticed and dismissed until suddenly people realize they want and need it.

It's interesting that in this moment the social media mind seems to think that a creator has complete agency and control over the consequences of their creation. When you truly make something, however, you learn how little control you have. People take your work into their own hearts and minds and create meaning that you could never have imagined.

For me, that's the most exciting part of making anything. Once I've finished a piece, I don't really care about what I intended, I just want to see what others do with it. But it's also vulnerable, because people tend to hold us responsible for what they experience as a result of our work, for good and ill. That is the nature of having power—you gain influence and vulnerability at the same time.