March - Embracing Change
March Walk - detail from an open edition print £20
A sense of change accompanies us through our lives. We can't stay still for long before change comes our way, chosen or enforced. The creative part of our lives is much the same...you fall into a way of being, or working, and you ride that out before a sense of change starts to niggle away. Either old ways of working seem outmoded or new ways of working start to feel more exciting. But how do we embrace that change? Both as creatives and as creative business owners?
Establishing a creative 'flow' can be challenging when our lives are so busy, so dissected by responsibilities. Once it is established, keeping it going, breathing through our process, trusting the outcomes needs another leap of faith. And now I feel I have ridden the wave of my current plans and objectives and new ways of working, new ideas are calling me. I'm hearing those calls at the same time that I am pulling back into the safety of established practices. It takes courage to embrace change. I'm looking for that right now.
Working with a number of textile groups, either as a tutor or mentor has put me back in touch with the textile maker I was before I sold work through galleries. The tactile qualities of cloth are written in my herstory, passed down the maternal line. It's a warm place to return to and I have been enjoying exploring mixed media ways of working on fabric. You can see some of these on my Instagram posts. I am hoping that when all the pieces come together, I will be able to embrace scale in my work and burst beyond the boundaries of paper and stitch.
I read this delightful quote :
It made me think of running down a hill with my arms wide open circling like a windmill and I want to try and capture that openness and energy in my work. I want to be a windmill!
In my Creative Courage group this month, there has been some discussion about creative change and also an interview with Alys Power about how she has embraced change in her jewellery business. It's made me realise that being creative means embracing the new, there's no standing still. Come and join the Creative Courage group and tell us what you're doing that's new. Sometimes it's a change of scene we need, as described in this blog post by Textile Artist Maxine Greer.
I signed myself up for a Rug Hooking workshop. It's always interesting being the student and not the teacher at a workshop ( I realised that it can be scary being a student! FYI Cilla is not at all scary!). I had a fab day with Cilla Cameron. And now I'm really excited about pushing the colour and scale in my work.
Back at my desk I've been working on my forthcoming Travel Sketchbooks online course. It has been technically challenging and a little intimidating and so being able to escape and play creatively has been very relaxing. If you'd like to receive updates about the launch of the course, and an early bird booking discount you can sign up here.
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