The Creative Itch - Or Is It A Curse?

One of the big parts of being an artist is letting one's work just happen, and just go in whatever way it seems to want to go. This is one of the most amazing differences I've found between the professional, science-based, collaborative work I used to do with what I do now. Some of the most challenging and really difficult parts of being a weaver are also the most exhilarating and intriguing. And some of the most exhilarating and intriguing parts are also the most challenging and really difficult.

I recall making photographs for the Birch Card - posing the blanket in so many different ways on the birch branches, camera on tripod trying to capture the perfect pose. Ha, impossible. It was so difficult to get what I wanted - as if I even knew what I wanted (I didn't), but just what seemed right. But then it turned out not bad.

In a recent project of cotton blankets, I wanted to use colours that worked together as similar tones but which avoided my usual palettes of red/blue/purple or green/blue/purple, although they are just fine, and add some sort of new life to what I was creating.  I had so many colours on my work table, and I would group them and start weaving with one ... then I'd change it all by the second colour. And still not think it was right. It was like an itch I couldn't get to - like right between the shoulder blades.

Then the blankets were all unwound from the front beam and stretched out on the studio floor to be cut apart.

Oh, WOW.

The blends are fantastic.  I love purple but I know not everyone does. However, what I've done, I think, blends in the purple very easily with blue and two close shades of red. It just totally works.

I should probably relax the next time I feel that unreachable itch, but I probably won't. I'll know though that I really thought out what I produced, or let it do its own thing - and at least I did my best.