Still (Not) Thinking about Thinking

I haven't stopped thinking about, or more accurately having different feelings about, the thinking/design issue I wrote about in the last post. One discovery is, I don't spend enough time cogitating/exploring ideas before moving onto what almost feels an automatic "design process;" one reason why my end piece/s are  same-y. Sometimes I suspect I unconsciously have ideas about the end piece/s, and work backwards towards the initial thought.

An opposite question is, how much do I want to invest in making "nice pieces" to sell? Not having any answers or preferences or ideas of what to do next, I went downstairs to tidy the messed up tied-unit-weave warp yesterday, so I can thread it again, but didn't start because I hadn't come up with a new threading scheme. I looked at the pre-made warps, looking for something  I may be able to put on the four-shaft Jack for a quick project, but nothing stood out.

I have wanted to make a blue cotton warp for a while, probably because it's been so hot and humid. Without thinking much, (which was the whole point, bypassing the thinky bits,) and without being able to see well in the twilight, I cooked up a crude plan and stood before my warping board. It was nice engage with my tools, nice to be doing something that may produce a few scarves if all goes well, but the way I (almost didn't) plan/ed it was facile, unsatisfying, and the resultant warp, ugly. It screams out, "I didn't put my heart and soul into it." I don't want to make this about, oh, river or the sea; I'm hoping interesting weft colors will make them... interesting. I'm hoping these colors will grow on me.

Call me childish, selfish, hedonistic; I suffer from an inability to think deeply, understand profoundly or observe dispassionately, and yet I forever seek satisfaction not only from the end piece/s, (this seldom happens,) but gratification of having put my heart and soul into the making.   

Meh.

 

For a couple of days this past week, I binged on reading and listening to the LRB articles and podcasts. I like listening to writers' interviews because I think I understand them better than artists'. Even then, I can never get rid of an acute and specific FOMO, because often authors or reviewers or even my friends speak of things in books and stories I completely miss. (Joyce was so not the guy to read for my B.A.) 

 

It brings me back to when I started school; it's the first week and everybody else in class could read music, while I didn't even have the slightest idea which page we were meant to be looking at, let alone sing the first song: a simple, short song about the Japanese flag, the red circle in the white field. How often have I screamed in my head, "Where on earth did you get that??" 

On LRB, Toibin is my undisputed favorite. The other day, an interviewer mentioned in passing that Toibin thought "Animal Farm" was about farm animals, not a critique on society. I just had to look it up right away. Oh, I am so on your wavelength, Mr Toibin; what a relief/joy/privilege to be in the same club!