Failure is in the Eye of the Beholder
By Shoshana Zeldner
My mom always likes to say that she was in labor with me for a full week just so she could avoid giving birth to a Virgo. Well, she didn’t make it quite far enough. I was born on September 23 at 8:35 pm. While I technically am a Libra, I am still so close to the cutoff that I carry more of the classic Virgo traits than most Libras.
Or, I am just me. Some combination of my parents interpreted through the cosmic alignment of stars and planets. Whatever the case may be, I like to follow the rules, organize, and plan in advance to avoid as much unnecessary chaos as possible. I think through every possible thing that could go wrong so that the only option left is for something to go right. Failure is not an option.
Despite my love for order, I battle conflicting energies. One that challenges me to move beyond my comfort zone, and one that craves something predictable and steady. In work I have learned to successfully plan for a range of scenarios. Given the fact that I spend the bulk of each day at work, my professional life has reaped the benefits of this methodical approach.
But I still crave struggle, learning, challenge, and the feeling of embarking on an entirely new path. Although I consciously choose the adventurous path, I am utterly unprepared to fail in these scenarios. And most good adventures require some amount, even if temporary, of mishap or failure.
When I think about my innate adversity to failure I often think back to 2009 when I decided to quit my three part time jobs in Denver, Colorado and take classes at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, Israel. It was probably one of the hardest yet most rewarding experiences of my life.
After sending out a slew of emails to every professor listed on Bezalel’s website and exchanging a few emails with the only professor to respond (a painting professor), I felt confident I could enroll in any class that I wanted. I bought a plane ticket, quit my jobs, and left. Nothing went according to plan.
I spent the first week of my time in Jerusalem arranging meeting-after-meeting with the head of the sculpture program, begging him to let me take ceramics classes. Even getting a meeting with him was a massive undertaking. I thought my email from the painting professor saying I could take classes meant that I could take any classes but language and cultural barriers kept me from understanding the situation completely until I was sitting in his office.
I’d been looking for an apartment, and every place I contacted turned out to be a series of strange, inconveniently located, and uncomfortable living situations. The Hebrew classes I had paid for in advance were too elementary. They wouldn’t refund my money or move me to another class.
I remember sitting on the stone steps at Bezalel crying day after day, wondering why I had flown halfway around the world with so little structure in place. Not even recognizing the privilege that I held in that moment (that afforded me this very opportunity).
When a man broke into my hostel in the middle of the night, screaming and threatening another woman in the room, things finally started to change.
The next day, I convinced Bezalel’s head of sculpture to let me take a ceramics class. I befriended a German woman in my hostel who was similarly startled when the man broke into our room. She also happened to be studying at Bezalel and together we found a flat to rent and remain friends to this day. My ceramics instructor at Bezalel introduced me to a former student of hers, and I was able to establish my own studio space, not far from my flat. The Hebrew classes never improved but, through these classes I did receive a free trip to India from another student in the class (a much longer story for another time).
Everything changed.
Ceramic blouse created by Shoshana while living in Jerusalem and studying ceramics at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.
That was 10 years ago. I wish I could relive those days over again. Ultimately, everything fell into place, but I know I was incredibly fortunate. I took so many risks at once, that I opened the door wide for failure. When things didn’t go right, I really struggled. I didn’t have the coping skills that I needed and it was one of the hardest moments of my life.
But 10 years later, I still haven’t changed my approach to how I relate to or define failure. And in the face of COVID-19, I wonder if I have the coping skills to get through this pandemic in one piece.
With COVID-19, we are all experiencing something new, learning how to navigate this reality, and constantly being reminded that there is no right way. Everything is hard no matter what your personal situation. Some of us are being asked to do things we have never done before. The choices we have to make are different than before COVID-19, sometimes with fewer options, and often unknown.
My innate need for challenge and trailblazing encouraged me to explore the boundaries of my professional work by presenting artists on the virtual stage. I had no idea how hard this would be. I’ve never been one to love the limelight, but I can safely say that walking out onto a stage is easier (for me) than managing a virtual event. And I will never think about speaking to a room full of people as I once did before–I just didn’t realize that this act in itself is a privilege in a multitude of ways. The amount of things that can go wrong from behind the screens is mind boggling, new, unknown, and uncomfortable.
Last Thursday evening we hosted our first virtual Performing Arts Series event of the season on a new (to us) live streaming platform. This involved more work than I would have imagined. Within just a few weeks we conducted extensive research to identify the optimal streaming platforms for music, dance, and theatre; communicated with leaders across the School of the Arts to secure funding and buy-in; and then trained ourselves in an entirely new platform in just a few days. It sounds insane. My colleague and I worked tirelessly so that we understood how to produce a live event on this new platform in time for Thursday’s kick-off event. And once we learned the basics, we practiced over and over again.
At 5:30 pm on Thursday we held a sound check with our guest artist, Grace Kelly. At 6:00 pm we were live with more than 80 guests in real time. After the live performance, I came onto the screen with Grace for a question and answer session. This is where things went off course.
But, for the first time in my life, I felt prepared for the unknown. I was ready. I was calm. This was a new response for me and something I’ve only learned during COVID-19.
I wouldn’t have been ready for this moment if I hadn’t inadvertently practiced failing during the summer. In July, alongside the Departments of Art, Music, and Theatre and Dance, we developed a live streamed event series that showcased artwork made by students and faculty during the pandemic. The first event had a technical error that kept it from “going live” onto the correct webpage. I spent the first 20 minutes trying to pinpoint the problem. Initially, all I could see was failure and it took me a while to realize the event itself was actually still successful.
So, last Thursday, when Grace’s microphone, 3,000 miles away, didn’t work, I calmly considered a few possibilities and finally gave her a phone call. We carried out the live question and answer session through Vimeo but using speaker phone for audio. And it worked just fine. Everyone who was in the live event at that point, stayed until the very end. And we had a really insightful and inspiring conversation.
COVID-19 is teaching me how to see failure differently and how to be ok when things do not go as planned. I will still worry, stress, over prepare, learn, and troubleshoot in advance. But I am opening to this new uncertain reality in which I will not have all of the answers and this doesn’t mean I am failing. Instead, I am learning that the definition of failure is in the eye of the beholder.
Last Friday, after the virtual event, my boyfriend, Mark and I moved in together. This is a step we have wanted to take but logistically couldn’t take until COVID-19. Like any good adventure, this is incredibly exciting but also filled with so many unknowns. I am grateful that I am finally learning, in time for this very important adventure, that they rarely go as planned. This is not a sign of failure. This is progress.
Shoshana Zeldner speaks with award-winning saxophonist, singer, and songwriter, Grace Kelly during the first virtual Performing Arts Series event of the 2020-21 season.
Photos/Shoshana Zeldner.
Shoshana Zeldner is committed to developing arts programming at the University of Nevada, Reno that strengthens community and inspires creativity, participation and conversation. She is honored to manage three longstanding programs that collectively engage more than 10,000 individuals in the arts each year. In addition to producing the Performing Arts Series, Reno Jazz Festival, and Lake Tahoe Music Camp, she develops new programs and initiatives that represent all of the departments in the School of the Arts.
Shoshana supports strategic arts planning in communities across northern Nevada - as a board member of St. Mary’s Art Center (Virginia City), Sierra Arts Foundation (Reno), and as a member of the City of Reno’s Public Art Committee. In 2018, she was elected to serve on the national Emerging Leaders Council with Americans for the Arts. In this role, she supports the nation’s leading arts advocacy organization to advance the arts and arts policy on a national platform and help cultivate the next generation of arts professionals. In her spare time, Shoshana loves to make her own art. She enjoys spending time in the outdoors, practicing yoga, taking care of her beehives, and staying involved in her family's honey and gourmet food company.
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