Als een spons

Als een spons neem ik informatie in mij op. De afgelopen weken heb ik heel veel blogs bekeken en ik ben zo verrast door al het moois wat ik zag. Al ben ik iemand die al jaren handwerkt, mijn kennis van mixed media en fiber art is nog niet zo groot en dat is wat ik op dit moment toch echt het mooist vind. Ik ben sinds september begonnen met een quiltcursus, om wat basisprincipes te leren. Ik heb de indruk dat ik al veel onder de knie heb en nu gewoon moet beginnen met het maken van dingen. Maar waar begin je? Nu kwam ik op een blog van Fibermania wijze raad tegen voor beginnende artiesten. Deze raad deel ik graag met jullie, voor zover jullie het nodig hebben:

Like a spons I incorporateinformation in me. The previous weeks I have examined a lot of blogs and I have been surprised by the beautiful things I saw. Although I am someone who is crafting for years, my knowledge of mixed media and fiber art is not that large. And I want it to grow, because at this moment I like that the best. Since September I started with a quiltcourse, whare I learn some basic principles. I have the impression that I already know a lot, but that I schould simply must start with making things now. But where to start? I found some good advise on the blog of Fibermania for starting artists. I gladly share it with you, for if you need it:


Advice for beginning artists:
My advice (should you choose to take it) is to stay away from all outwardly motivated assignments. Wait and listen to that tiny voice within. Get alone, stay quiet, and make a lot of work. (that’s the hardest part)
Play with your fabric and make what the fabric motivates you to make.
Feed your muse. This cannot be overestimated. Look at lots of art, in books, magazines, galleries, online, and not necessarily quilts. Look at jewelry, and surface designs, like wallpaper, area rugs, window displays, anything that excites the eye. Take pictures and look at them for composition or shapes, or value.

Think about what you liked the best.

Have a sketchbook and even tho you said you can’t draw, you can make diagrams, I know you can. These are really layouts or mental notes about what you liked in a piece of something. I will attach a dumb drawing/great diagram and you will feel better. You will look at it and wonder why I had to draw this before I made it? I could have just made it. NEVERTHELESS, it was important to work out the idea first so that I could relax and know where I was heading. Not all good work is made this way but it helps sometime. Other times I have been just playing and accidentally something good has fallen together, something good enough to make deliberately again. This time with EMPHASIS.
Every design looks better if its main idea is EMPHASIZED.

Make a list of the ten things that make your work recognizable. It may be early days for this, but it helps to see what it is that you have done and what you want to concentrate on bringing forth in the future.
Gather all the pictures of your work, line them up, and view them as a body of work. Disparate parts? Yup. I have been there. I have had this crisis so very recently. The only fix is to make more work. Since you know how to fuse, you can crank out some stuff in a heartbeat. Set goals to make a piece a day, small of course. But in a week, you will have five to seven pieces and begin to look differently at your work. Then you can evaluate and regroup and make some more. Soon you will have a storage problem. How lovely. Remember when you saw something that famous artist
made that was like #57 in the Series. That was the one good one…the rest were rehearsals to getting there. Nothing wrong with that. It’s only fabric.
Not everything has to be finished, which is why I love the escape hatch finish. It makes the work look finished before it is quilted, and then I can get back to it later, if it is worth finishing.

It is never too late to take yourself seriously. Look at Mary Jo Bowers, nearly 70 and really coming into herself. And Janet Steadman who is winning everything these days including Houston and is over 75.
You are a baby compared to them. But don’t waste another moment on challenges and crap like that. Your own work is the only thing to be making, whatever that is. So you don’t know what it is yet, but if you make it you will know.

PS. Only make stuff you ENJOY making. No point in having a career that makes you miserable to produce.