The Downsides of Creative Work-Drumroll Please

14 count Aida spider-web print purchased from
Stitched Modern. Vintage Brooch from my collection.

Something to mention here is that creating art is hard. I have visited so many artists feeds and web sites and none of them ever mention frustration, exhaustion, confusion, or guilt. I realize that this is not a topic of conversation you want to have with or for your potential customers and so we never share the hard parts of making. Just because you love creating what you do doesn't mean that it is all unicorns and rainbows. I start second guessing myself as soon as my piece is framed with all the "what if's". Maybe there should have been a different bead, a different color fiber, aligning the brooch differently, etc.. Then there are the do overs. It took me three tries to get my last piece, "Flower Maiden" right. I first started work on it December 2020 and got the final version back from the framers this month, October 2021. There were problems with the fabric and then the bead color and then a change with the flower beads. I won't tell a customer that when I decide to sell it but that is a small sampling of the aggravation and frustration I went through with just one piece. As a matter of fact, of four pieces I have finished, only one was started and completed once. I won't even go into how many revisions my designs and patterns go through before I'm satisfied, but they are numerous. In addition to all this, there are vendors to deal with for supplies, price increases of supplies, unexpected glitches that made my heart sink, delayed deliveries, and just good old fashioned stupid mistakes I made that could have easily been avoided. 

Then there are the lost needles, spilled beads, needles embedded in my fingers (yes, I have had to pull them out of my fingers and there was blood involved), tangled and knotted fibers, carpal tunnel from holding the Q-Snap, etc., etc., etc.. When I see photos or videos of needlework artists in their sunlit studios that look like they were staged by House and Garden Magazine while they enthusiastically gush about their excitement and love for their projects, I am duly impressed and happy for them, but in the back of my mind I am wondering how much hair pulling and gnashing of teeth went on behind the scenes, plenty I'm sure. Don't think ever that this is the reality of their daily life, sorry, even Martha Stewart's perfect planning does not follow script most of the time I can guarantee. At least not without a cast of many others helping.

So here's the deal. As much as I may be tempted to throw up my hands and walk away from my work, I never could. Believe me, I think about it once or twice on every project when everything seems to go down the proverbial toilet. But here is where the artists are separated from the hobbyists because artists can never walk away. Before one piece is done I am already thinking about the next one, and the next one and the next one.....you get the picture. I love it too much and it is such a part of me now that I can't imagine not doing it, ever. A nurse once told me that women have this uncanny ability to lose the memory of what the actual pain of childbirth was like. If they didn't, there would never be multiple births by mothers. I think that applies to art, because when we at long last "birth" our creations we are so overjoyed by the finish that we blur all the horrible parts of the process and happily embrace the doing all over again. If we didn't, we would all be one work wonders. 

So don't be discouraged by the all the not-so-fun parts of creating, the mistakes are many but so are the rewards. The good thing is, we have short memories that forgive, and that proves what we do is a true passion.

I hope you always, Keep Creating!

This Last Year-What Was Going On

My last post was a year ago this month and it is incredible to me that it has gone by so quickly. The world seems turned on its ear and the turmoil and sheer craziness of it all is something I have never witnessed. Just wow!

So what was up the last twelve months? In all honesty, I think I was tired of doing this blog and just not seeing anyone that was much interested in it so I turned to Instagram (IG) for a while. I posted pictures and followed a lot of people that were inspirational and extremely talented in their creative endeavors and I actually garnered a bit of a following myself along the way. I guess I was hoping to absorb some creative mojo by virtual osmosis and learn some new things along the way on it.

What I learned instead is that the creative life is best lived by just creating and not concentrating on garnering an audience. Before IG my inspiration had a wealth of ideas and a solid foundation of trusting in myself about those ideas. I had two pieces stitched and framed and was working on the third and thought I would just post updates about its progress. But as I scrolled through all the various people's postings I followed I found myself thinking about posting other things that would be comparable like studio pictures, pictures of myself, our wild rabbit photos and just really a lot of useless garbage that didn't really pertain to the work itself. I wasted hours and hours scrolling through feeds and watching videos that in the end did nothing to expand or enhance my work. That time should have been spent on working on my creativity instead. 

IG is a wonderful place with a lot of positive and amazing things going on, but it is very easy to lose yourself in it. Like a maze you go deeper and deeper into and get further and further from your final destination and even where you started. It is a great place if you are just trying to garner followers and not care who they are and how pertinent they are to your interests and advancing them. There are no real friendships and "likes" are only indicative that they saw, or more accurately, glanced at your photo. As for reading your caption, that will only be done be a very few of those that "liked" it. Comments are non-existent so valuable feedback you should be getting is a big fat zero. 

I became a cheerleader for so many others whose work I truly enjoyed and admired, but after a while that got pretty tiresome too. Some people would acknowledge the comments and many others didn't. It was a crapshoot at best and real relationships with fellow artists cannot be built on that or any of the things you hope will happen but never does. 

I canceled my account and it is sad to leave my barely over a hundred followers that sometimes would drop a "like" and rarely ever a comment, but not really. They will probably not even notice I am gone and that is okay, I don't really expect them to, and why should they in the first place. I may go back someday after I have completed a larger body of work and use what I learned from this experience. IG is not a magic bullet for gaining success or visibility. It is a place you can direct people to look at your work without all the trappings of a blog or website. If people find you and follow you, and if you have the desire to follow others without feeling obligated to do so, then it can be a rewarding experience. It is too large to really grow a group of like minded buddies with whom you can exchange ideas and cultivate close professional relationships. Those are better served by small Facebook groups, professional organizations, and societies you can join. 

So this is my take away from my IG experience. Use it as a photo viewing platform you can utilize for people interested in seeing your work. Do not worry about "likes" or followers, those are irrelevant to what you are doing, which is making and enjoying your own art. Getting lost down a rabbit hole of overwhelming unimportant information is not going to do either.

Until next time, Keep Creating!