the broken

The brush bore the brunt of my creative angst today...

Dramatic, art myth-making line right there, no?

Well, the reality was more like this: I was drying the bristles on an old t-shirt on the floor of the studio, was holding the brush handle too far up and applied too much pressure. *Snap!!!* Surprised the hell out of me and I started laughing because it just seemed like such an odd thing to happen. I was kind of thrown for a loop and thought, "Huh, that doesn't happen". I don't know what to compare the feeling to. In that moment, I was still in my 'painting zone' and not quite in the world, so to speak, so the brush handle breaking seemed somewhat surreal and disconnected.

I think I've broken only one other paint brush in all the time that I've been painting. I've had some brushes fail from being poorly made, but it's very rare that I'll actually break one; I've spilled more paint than I have broken brushes.

So, I'm curious, has this happened to you? I mean, things break and fail all of the time in the process of making art, however, have you used something for a long time, have it fail in some way and have that moment of, "That was strange/wasn't supposed to happen even if this thing was old."