Fibermania

New Year's Eve Q&A

A reader with the same birthday as mine wrote me:

So my question to you this year, Melody, is how do you manage to stay so productive so consistently? I know there must be a lot on your mind on many days, so how do you overcome that? I also realize that personality has a lot to do with it. ButI would appreciate any tips that you could pass along.

Of course my first inclination was to be a smartmouth and and reply that making artwork is preferable to finishing the laundry, so of course it would be my first choice. And then focusing the mind, ha! I wear headphones and listen to my Ipod so I can't be distracted,

but really...when am I going to be honest and tell the truth?

The truth is that unless I am making art, I am afraid (panic stricken) that I will lose it. Afraid it will be discovered that I am not really an artist, especially by myself. And being an artist is all that I have. I am not a mother, so I don't have that role. So what do I do to make my mark? I gotta make art.

And I have ALL those supplies. Eeek. Bought 'em. Gotta use 'em up. Gotta justify.

It's not even the finished product that moves me.

It's the process.

It's the discovery, and I am still learning everyday. There is such an open ended puzzle that I have to solve. Just when I think I have found some culmination and think I can move on, something else comes into the puzzle and I am back trying to solve that one.

When we moved here and I tried to figure out what 'retirement' means for me, I had to ask for advice from a few retired people who are continuing to work at their art. It helped somewhat, but then working with David Walker to update my website made me look at what I had to put on it and realized that I wasn't ready. We had a December deadline to get started and so I jumped back in the saddle and made the October series, and then the Pine Tree series. Now that the website is updated, where will I go to when my family leaves? Who knows?

I am making a couple of non-original bedquilts in the meantime and thinking about what I want to do next.

Sometimes it's the new shape that gets my juices flowing, like working with a 12" square or the 9x21" vertical or horizontal format. Those were kinda challenging to me, to be specifically confined, and I discovered that a limiting factor can induce a certain kind of creativity. Of course staying within a restricted palette is also a big new thing for me, and helped me improve my work.

Yesterday I found some more ten year old fabric that I had saved (thank God!) and I am itching to include it in my next series.

Retirement has given me the time to not rush through a project. I can spend the necessary thinking time, while feeding the chickens, watching stupid TV, walking to the mailbox, or taking a shower (my favorite brainstorming setting), knitting, baking bread and ...eventually, every two weeks or so, finishing the laundry.

I don't have coffee with anyone except Dave, who gets to hear all my ideas, whether he likes to or not. I thought I would be miserably lonely, but it turns out I am not (except a little at Thanksgiving) I am happier than I would have imagined. The fact that my studio is upstairs and so warm, with the sun pouring in and a view out my TWO windows is such a treat, who wouldn't be creative in such a space?

Back to the process not being the product. When I make something, I get what I need out of the doing. Then I post it on the blog and share it. That's all there is to it for me. I may hang it up for a day or two, but if it has to go in the mail immediately I can let it go.

It seems to be some sort of proof.