Objects of Devotion and the Joy of Making

Yesterday, I received a note from a student in The Keeper of Fragments workshop. She wrote not to complete an assignment, but because something had shifted for her—and she wanted to share it.

She said this:

“Instead of asking is this good, ask is this true?
This really spoke to me… it stopped me in my tracks.”

That moment is at the heart of what I’ve been exploring with Objects of Devotion.

We are so often trained to measure our work by its “goodness.”Is it skillful enough? Finished enough? Worthy enough? But what happens when we ask a different question?

Is it true?True to our experience, true to what we noticed, true to the pull that made us pick up that fragment in the first place.

Vera went on to say that she returned to a piece she had abandoned months ago—caught in the familiar loop of “Is this good enough?”

This time, something had changed. She finished it not with a sense of technical triumph, but with something deeper:

“Not so much the skill in execution but what it meant to me and how I expressed that.”

That is the moment when an object becomes more than an object.

It becomes a devotional act. Thank you, Vera, for this affirmation!

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Devotion Through Making

When I began this series on objects of devotion, I wasn’t thinking about perfection or product. I was thinking about the human impulse to make something with care.

• To gather fragments.
  To shape a face.
  To wrap, layer, and assemble pieces of meaning.

We use our hands not just to construct, but to acknowledge something:

• That we are here.
  That we notice.
  That we care.

In that sense, these works are not simply items for a shelf or a shop.

They are tangible manifestations of joy, of attention, of gratitude for being creative, meaning-making humans!

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When the Pupil Is Ready

Vera ended her note with a line that made me smile:

“The pupil was ready and the teacher showed up!”

But I think what really happened is something even more profound.

• The work showed up.
  The truth showed up.
  And she was ready to meet it.

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A Thought on On “Unfinished” Work

I’ve come to trust unfinished pieces. They hold a presence that completed work can sometimes lose. We’re quick to decide: it’s not working.
So we fix it, push it, resolve it—or set it aside with disappointment.

But what if “unfinished” isn’t a problem? What if it’s a form of listening?

These pieces—like my three “unfinished” ones shown below—still carry something intact for me. Not polished, not resolved, but true. The gesture is there. The intention is there. The feeling that brought them into being hasn’t been overworked or explained away.

They are already objects of devotion.

Not because they are complete, but because they were made with attention and care—because I followed something meaningful.

Sometimes the most respectful choice is not to finish them.

Keep them nearby.
Let them be.
Let time enter the process.

They may call you back. They may remain as they are. Either way, they are not failures. They are evidence that you showed up, paid attention, and made something true in that moment. And that is enough.

If you’re working on something right now—something unfinished, uncertain, maybe even abandoned—I’ll pass along the same invitation:

Instead of asking is this good,
ask is this true?

Then see what happens when you trust the answer.

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If you’d like to explore this idea more deeply, The Keeper of Fragments is the first workshop in my Objects of Devotion series. It’s self-paced, and you can begin wherever you are.

And if you do, I’d love to hear what you discover. ~~ Lyn