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!