This applies to my current art, too. Winter often brings me a creative stall-out. Maybe it is the darkness, the cold, the early nights. Once the sun hangs around a little longer, I can find more minutes to throw towards current projects. I am really excited about the recent direction my art bus has decided to take, and am looking forward to finding a few hours this weekend to develop some samples. Finally a solid direction. Being an artist, or maybe a fiber artist, is like that -- we can fiddle with techniques, make fragmentary attempts at making Real Art, capture potential ideas in sketchbooks and on napkins, get super animated about an idea one day only to find that it isn't what we thought it was, the next. It is a windy road. When the right idea catches up with the right materials, and suddenly the dotted line becomes solid, it is a good feeling.
Throw in a lack of time to take this journey, though, and what was unpredictable poor health becoming the predictable norm, now, and I value having a creative direction more than ever. I rarely sit and stitch for hours lately as it is taking me longer to get through all the regular things that need to be done for basic living. I am slow. I've gained weight. This new, heavy, always-in-pain me feels like I am always struggling. I know part of the answer to feeling better is to spend more time actually working on my art, and hope that as the days get longer, this is possible. One foot in front of the other, snatching minutes of reasonable health like a crow devouring a day, I am surrounded by fabric, threads, and beads galore in my living space and they keep my imagination alive. No, it isn't clutter. It is a visual filing system!
Taking the School of Stitched Textiles class has been very helpful for me in that it has presented me with an artistic theme as a challenge that I've had trouble getting my head around. It is great to be challenged to really go deep and think about what I make, an create from a place of narrative instead of just exploring new media, which I have been doing for the past couple years. I feel like I have a theme now that is leading me in a new direction that will let me combine media in ways that will bring surprises and test limits. Now, just to get the actual work done! Game on! Cheers.