8th August 2026
Letting Go of the Outcome – Amanda Duke
Don’t we all have UFOs (unfinished objects)? Go on, own up! Most of us have half finished work, or even half started work, which we hide away as we can’t quite work out what to do next, or have got bored with the project.
Well those of us who listened to Amanda Duke today will no longer feel unfinished work is something to be hidden or ignored. Amanda invited us to enjoy the journey and worry less about the destination.
Amanda lives in West Sussex and has been teaching school children for around 35 years as well as running adult workshops, and has only recently ‘retired’ to concentrate on her own work. She admitted that during those teaching years she produced very few finished items as her time was spent demonstrating and introducing her lucky students to projects and ideas, encouraging them to experiment with everything from paper and paint to fabrics, natural and commercial dyes and all manner of mixed media.
She said that initially it had been hard to let go of the habit of sharing short-time ideas and concentrate on longer-term outcomes for her own work. She said that when she is teaching workshops she encourages a relaxed, informal atmosphere while aiming to inspire experimentation, and thus building confidence just to ‘have a go’ without worrying about the outcome.
During her talk she gave us pictures and then words and askedus to consider associations – what the pictures conjured up, or what we understood by the words she gave us. For example, what did we associate with ‘process’ or ‘concept’? These were fascinating exercises prompting lively debate. She also encouraged us to consider some exercises she had given herself like interpreting ‘heat’ in a piece of work, or creating lines to reflect sounds or feelings.
Sadly Amanda’s long association with Prairie Gardens has come to an end as the owners are closing the site but although she is not running any workshops at the moment, she does intend to return to planning dates in the near future.
Amanda will undoubtedly have channelled a new way of thinking for all of us today, including through the quotes she shared from Rick Rubin and Picasso.
She asked what we thought we’d take away from today’s talk. For me it was ‘the journey is as important as the destination’ . Letting go of the perceived importance of the outcome allows more space for the enjoyment of experimentation.
