latest painted warp – done!
I was originally going to title this post “Isolation”. Creative people many times work in isolation, all alone in their studios, working on their 10,000 hours of practise learning their craft. Whether you are a musician practising scales, a writer getting those words down, or any other craftsperson – a potter throwing mugs, a glass blower blowing glass, a weaver making yards and yards of fabric – most of the time you are all alone while you do it.
But I started thinking about the word “isolation” and realized that the word is far too negative in its connotations because what the practising craftsperson is doing is working in solitude while they explore their materials, hone their skills, experiment and fail – or succeed – until they get it ‘right’.
As I mentioned in my previous post, an artistan must be self-motivated. It’s not much fun to do the work of learning, especially when you are new and things are not turning out the way you want them to, but the only way to achieve success is through the process, being analytical, trying things differently, exploring various options.
Once you have gained a certain amount of proficiency, you still have to do the process. The warps need to be wound, beamed, threaded and then woven off.
Then there is collaborating. That is a different thing altogether. It can be a wonderful experience – to collaborate with another creative person. Sometimes they have a completely different perspective, bring different knowledge to the association, and voila – new insights can occur.
What I’m talking about is the day by day getting up from your chair, going into the studio and doing what needs to be done.
Not all of it is interesting. In fact a great deal of it may not be of interest at all. But the bottom line is – no warp, no weaving, no cloth. And so, regardless of how much time it takes, it is necessary to go wind that warp, beam it, thread it, sley it, tie it on and then pick by pick, weave it off. And for me that happens in solitude – just me and my cd player – going through the process, making cloth.
Currently reading Ill Wind by Rachel Caine