A crack in everything

My husband was away for most of the day yesterday, so I had lots of creative time.  As I think I mentioned earlier, I've been mounting the more abstract images that arise on wooden cradle/panels, so I was very excited when the image at left emerged; it was the perfect companion to two other pieces I'd mounted earlier in the week.

So I printed it off in an 8 x 10 version, glued it to one of the wooden cradles and left it to dry.  But I kept puzzling over that ridge going down the center: how could I make it more two-dimensional?  I finally found some yarn that seemed to work, so I glued that down and then poured coating over the whole construction.

But the glue/coating just made the yarn more obviously scratchy, and this morning when I came downstairs to look at the piece I hated the yarn.

I debated putting more glue over it, because the voice in me that's always terrified of "wrecking" things (and wants every piece to be saleable) was doing its best to keep me from ripping off the yarn and risking a wasted panel. 

So I sat on it for a bit to see what I really wanted to do, and what I really wanted to do was remove the yarn.  I had to first reassure myself that it would be okay if the piece was trashed -- I could always order another panel -- and then I gritted my teeth and ripped off the yarn.

When the paper started to come off, too (I had cut out the center section and applied it separately) I panicked and stopped, but after several deep breaths and more thought I decided to go through with it. (Isn't it amazing what resistance we have to failure?  All my guilt and fear mechanisms were being activated by the simple act of ripping off the yarn...)

But look!  This is what happened: the yarn released the glue's hold on the paper, so I was able to peel it back -- and I love the look.  What looked like it might be failure turned into a marvelous discovery.  What an important lesson -- and isn't this a perfect illustration of that wonderful Leonard Cohen verse -- "There's a crack in everything; that's how the light gets through"?