First Attempts

I thought long and hard about posting these photos. I'll confess it right now, I'm a little bit ashamed of these postcards. The colors in some don't quite work, the quilting for sure is not at all nice and man oh man did I struggle with doing the edges! Not only did I pause long and hard about posting the pictures, I almost did not send these cards to my girls! I had to stop and examine myself, and I learned some fine lessons that I'd like to share.

First, it's not very wise of me to compare my beginning work with those of you who have been working on these crafts much longer than I. I have to remind myself that initially, one of the goals was simply to learn how to do this. And, I learned a great deal about how fabrics work together, about how colors change when placed together. I learned how to manage my old and grumpy sewing machine a bit better. And, hopefully, future cards will get better and better. And, I had some fun...which brings me to the next lesson.

I realized at some point, that I was NOT having fun.this refers back to a post I wrote ages ago about being afraid to call myself a knitter because I am such a novice and that I was learning to relax into it. The lesson went a bit deeper this time as I realized this about myself: I am terribly focused on the end product. I think this prevents me from having fun and learning to have a sense of play. Very often, I want someone to show me the exact steps in a process thinking that then, I will follow the recipe and end up with a perfect product. I am afraid to experiment. Somehow, I have this suspicion that this is not what art is about. Art must be playful and fearless - or at least, not fearful.

So, I showed these cards to Daughter #6 and she thought they were adorable. She's very quick to criticise me (there will someday be posts of the trials of living with a teenage daughter, I've got plenty to say about that!), so I don't think she was just being "nice." She thought they were child-like and joyful (Did I mention that she is attending art school?). And, she was shocked that I'd consider not sending them. Uumm.

I followed these postcards with some domino necklaces. I caught myself doing it AGAIN - speed through the process, follow the directions and GET IT DONE. Not too far into it, I just stopped. Instead of rushing to a set of directions, I just tried something. It worked out all right, and I'll post some photos of those too sometime soon. But, I didn't quite like some smudgy parts and then I realized, "OH! I know how I made that smudge, now, I can either not do it again, or, I know how to do it should I sometime in the future wish to create a little bit of a foggy appearance. Cool!" Once I let myself feel some sense of happiness about this, I found it much easier to play a bit - splash some color here, some blending solution there, change colors. I suspect this is a much more, for me, fulfilling way of growing. Following directions is good, of course it is! But, being afraid to try things is surely not.

Maybe my willingness to share my early and inept attempts will also encourage others. How often do we hear folks say, "Oh, I'm just not creative at all; I could never do THAT!" Well of course you can. We are creative essence. And we grow. Maybe someday in the future my postcards will reflect my growth. In the meantime, I'm going to have fun!

Lee