"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
~ Thomas Merton
For more than a year, I have felt a strong need to make art that begins and ends with my hands. What started out as a muffled whimper from my heart to make / draw / do art has developed into a full-blown burning ache in my soul. I've been so focused for so long on business goals that involve ad infinitum computer design and other work, and while I'm pleased as can be about where that steadfast focus has gotten me, it doesn't satisfy the creative fire inside waiting to breathe life into a purely hands-on endeavor.
When I look back at projects, crafts or gifts I've made in the past, I seriously can't remember what it felt like to make those things...sometimes I can't even believe it was me who made them b/c that part of my creativity has been untapped for like forever. It's like it vaporized or dried-up like a raisin b/c it went without use for too long. (Did you ever go so long without talking that you blurt something out to yourself just to hear your own voice?) Yeah, it's a little like that.
Don't get me wrong, fabric design and running a business require an immense amount of imagination (esp when you're doing your taxes), but sketching a design and making a repeat out of it is just not the same action-packed, thrillride as the days when I found myself surrounded by tin plate, dremmels, miter boxes, 2x2s, scroll saws, drills, paint, glass tiles, cork, cork, cork, a whole lotta time and no pressure.
I miss making. I miss doing. I miss action. I miss finding myself & losing myself all at once.
[Seeming contradiction coming...] Despite the yearning I feel, I truly enjoy sitting at my computer, plotting my next business decision and creating design after design for fabric or paper...my work has become my outlet, my hobby. I really have to pry myself away at times not only b/c I love it so darn much but also b/c the next level of success is right around the corner - and I want to get there asap! For now, I will have to find a way to satisfy my itchy-twitchy need-to-make within the context of designing and selling fabric. Maybe therein is where the true creativity will emerge.... we'll see next month when 6000 yds of my first organic wholesale collection comes knockin' at my door.
Are you in an artsy zone these days?
Do you ever wish you were doing something else?
