Gaining Traction
Looking back to move forward
This was shot in my studio a year ago, April 1st of 2022, when my space was probably at it’s most functioning and cleanest state it’s been since I started working exclusively from my home studio when the pandemic hit in March of 2020. This and several other images of my studio were featured as part of the Studios series on Fiber Arts—Australia website.
This bit of my textile work was shared as part of Robyn Gordon’s daily curated posts on Facebook on this day last year, which includes 5 images and quotes by other artists. This post included my own writing as the main quote (shared in this post below) and a second quote was included with this image.
I first connected with Robyn and followed her beautiful daily feed eons ago, before we all migrated to Facebook, somewhere on the blogosphere, perhaps it was tumblr? I’d be thrilled if she migrated to Substack. Not spending as much time on Facebook of late means I miss the tiny dose of inspiration she provides her community.
In the review of the more recent past, the last few weeks have been somewhat consumed with the flare up of health issues among other things, but I did manage to eek out a short bit of writing about the use of encaustic with collage at the request of the founder/president of the National Collage Society. When I first began earnestly working in the art of collage, I joined the Midwest branch of the collage society. There I met many wonderfully talented artists. The location of the meetings was over an hour drive each way for me, so I didn’t attend as frequently as I’d like, but highly recommend checking them out if you do live close enough to attend.
This work will be included with the article; it was one of the very first images I shared online (2009) of my collage works with encaustic incorporated. I’ll add a link and update again when she sends me publication details. Thanks to my friend and fellow collage artist Mara Krumins for connecting us!
"Your intuitive voice never taunts or teases you. It never acts up when you don't listen to it. It may go quiet when you fail to listen to it regularly, it may be harder to hear in some situations than others, and it does take practice to learn to recognize, let alone heed it, but your intuitive voice is actually your most authentic, most vulnerable, most loving and truest expression of you. It is YOUR own voice buried down under all of the layers and the wounds and the external expectations over the course of your life. It is as unique to you as a thumbprint. When you can get down to that place, you find that your intuitive voice is actually the voice of tenderness, and compassion, and curiosity.”
- Crystal Marie
I have a long and growing task list and it’s been a bit of a logjam in my head trying to clarify and prioritize where to start. Somehow looking back over these past events helps when I feel disoriented after being out of the studio for so long. Listing my more recent tasks helps to remind me that I have not been sitting around idle.
When I’m trying to gain traction, it helps to make a list of what I’ve done and what I need to do. In the past few weeks:
I wrote the bit about working with encaustic and collage
Began the very tedious task of unpacking supplies from my KC workshop and beginning to organize materials for a much needed studio reorganization and purge.
Created this section of the website to give myself a place to post (ahem, did I say quick and short?) blurbs about my daily life as a working artist.
I’m sure there was more.
This week or soon soon:
Identify which of the growing list of workshops I plan to shoot to do first and set up/outline, film.
Write - begin the next excerpt for the book. I’m finding this back and forth manner of working, swinging from filming/editing/marketing classes to writing the book to be difficult to manage. On paper it works out just fine. In the need to shift from teaching/filming mode to writing mode, it is super challenging.
Continue to organize the materials and supplies and whateverthehellelse has been dumped in the studio of late.
Include a blurb about this new section in my next newsletter.
The task list is much longer then this and doesn’t include the personal life items, but I’m hoping this sitting down to identify the priorities on Monday and post them each week will help.