Sunday, March 14, 2010

I Can Be Happy Without Being Gushy

I couldn't get these pictures from Bonnie's post off of my mind overnight. The second one looks, to me, kind of like the map of USA, as much as the marks on my cup on the left looks like the map of the central part of New Zealand and the Chathams, almost. I don't make wrappings for warps much, but these are beautiful on their own, and make great design units one can move around. Colors have been dancing in my head like clay-mation.

My mind keep wandering around and over and through Elaine Lipson's list on Slow Cloth. Not thinking, but being a spectator of her thoughts. I'm glad she mentioned beauty, because looking at fiber/textile "arts" around me, I see too much of the concepts and the creator but not enough skills nor beauty. (You could say that to newish art in general, though for me, less acutely.) I am dismayed every time the artist statement is much more interesting than the work. I'm also vaguely remembering Connie Rose's thoughts on Art Cloth.

Colors, cloth, and projects meander in my head, without bumping into each other or knocking each other out, like city folk making their way swiftly in the rain to wherever they are going, without looking at or acknowledging each other, but still seeing everybody.

In May 2003 I signed up for a correspondence course on design through the New Zealand national guild; we were to finished it by November that year, but I didn't until July 2005. As soon as I finished, that very July, I signed up for the merit portion of the course, where we are to work on independent projects but follow the processes we studied in the course; that was to have been completed by November that year, but I couldn't.

Meanwhile, tutor Alison came to Marlborough to run in-person workshops twice, and I went to both, but it wasn't until the second of these that I started to see glimpses of how far she wanted us to stretch our creative muscles. That was nearly two years ago. Since then, I've had these feelings of shame/embarrassment, of giving up as recently as last August when I finally threw away the course inflammation, mixed with a kind of momentum that can lead to confidence I can give it a go. And I've gone to a few short art and design courses to allow me to practice these processes.

It looks like I'm in the process of getting permission to submit my project.

Still no bumping or pushing in my head. Not even slipping or falling in the puddle.

As I said, I remain optimistic.

2 comments:

  1. "Course inflammation"? A Freudian typo?

    My sympathies; I've been there. I'm usually there, in fact.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ha ha ha, I didn't notice! And inflammation is not usually in my vocabulary, Lynn, but there we go!

    ReplyDelete

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