Holding Back and Falling Off a Cliff

This Holiday/Christmas/Other break, as well as being a pleasant bit of family time and chilling out time, has been quite useful as regards the space it provided for contemplation and for gaining perspective about creative work. For me anyway.

I don't feel massively renewed and refreshed necessarily, but I do feel that I've gained a bit of insight into my creative process that might help me, 'going forward' as they say.

I have come to realise that I hold things back. This seems to be out of a sense of anxiety.
It appears that I need to have something 'in reserve' to bring out if 'all else fails'. Something that serves, in my mind at least, as a kind of creative insurance policy. A fence between me and the void. . .
It's not the most sensible thing to do, as whatever it is that I have in reserve may not be the killer sure thing I imagine it to be at all. And if it fails then that's my supposed parachute shot full of holes and me making an unpleasantly close and very swift acquaintance with the cold hard ground. . .

It all comes from fear I think, deep down somewhere there is a fear of . . Well, I'm not sure quite what. Not failure as such, maybe fear of finding out that I was delusional all along and really my work is total rubbish ;-) Or that those that have approved of and followed my work will suddenly realise that they were also delusional. . .
(Actually that fear, at various levels of severity,  is quite common amongst artists I have spoken to over the years. Rationality is not us. . .)

This revelation regarding undue and unnecessary retention of creative work came about from a growing and persistent feeling of being blocked, by myself. Not wanting to make something because it wasn't what I felt I 'should be' making. Or not wanting to put something up for sale as 'nobody would like it' or 'it doesn't feel right' or because now is not the time somehow. Though exactly what I think I am waiting for and why is by no means clear.

(Beware of the concept 'should be', it's you imagining an outside observer judging your behaviour and output. No such judgemental outside entity exists and even if it did, you could never accurately predict such an entity's opinions. So don't go there. . . Easily said mind. .)

This led me to notice that I was holding various components back when making pieces, being retentive about some particular found or made object because whatever idea I had at that moment about how to use it might not be the best use for it. It wouldn't be using it to its best advantage. Maybe I would have a better idea at some amorphous and unspecified time in what is generally known as 'The Future'.
Anyone else do this?

It all comes from a place of fear and lack, as if I will never find or make another object as good. As if the supply of interesting and usable objects in the world will run out, or as if inspiration is actually finite.
This mindset is obviously unhelpful, but thankfully, once noticed can be combatted.

In future, I intend to be less uptight about what I make, I shall use that 'precious' component and then move on. I will always have new ideas and find interesting things to mess around with. The world is an abundant place ;-)
And if I am delusional about my work's value to anybody other than me, well so be it. I'll fall off that cliff when I come to it. . .

I think these creative semi-crises are part of the creative process to some extent, and follow the classic bell curve of slow build up, tipping point/revelation and then slow build up again. Despite the psycho drama, work gets made, some of it not bad, I hope ;-)
Happy new Year,
Jon x

Enforced Creative Pauses and Their Usefulness. Conclusions. And Retrospective Introspection feeding Changes in Direction

I'm having a bit of a creative pause right now. Due to my workshop being out of action while a new window is put in. Quite timely, as the sill and the wooden lintel were pretty much powdery crumbly rubbish held together by a thin outer crust and/or layers of paint.

The old window was old, but nothing like as old as that bit of the house. The walls are brick and therefore comparatively recent, but the ceiling has a big beam across it with smaller ones at right angles every foot or so, the implications of which are that the room must be quite a bit older than the main Georgian/Queen Anne (1780) bit. We guess that it was part of the original building that was built around when the owners got grand notions. Nothing wrong with grand notions btw.

A fair bit of wood boring beetle activity is in evidence in the beams. Most of it historic, though I am not entirely sure about that. I have treated it with evil, anti-beetle stuff just in case. Someone who knows about these things reckons the timbers are fine so I won't worry unduly. The timbers will outlast me, beetle or no, so I'll pass the issue down the line to the next owners, which will be my kids. . . Thanks Dad. . . ;-)

Organic style

Anyway, or 'Any road up' as they say up north, this creative hiatus has got me considering things and weighing things up. This year has been a good, creative time for me. I have been busy making my beads and 'things' in the time available between DIY projects and general life stuff.

Most of the stuff I have been making has sold, often within a week of me making it, which is great, but means I only have photos to remind me that it ever existed. This is still something I am getting used to. Not a complaint, merely an observation ;-)

I made more in this shape and they sold, then I forgot temporarily

I have spent some of this downtime looking through my photo folders on my computer at what I have produced this year, and finding there were quite a lot of things I didn't remember until I saw the photo. This surprised me somewhat. The result of this retrospective introspection is that the mental list of 'cool things I really must make more of' has just grown exponentially!

lovely texture pattern

Looking at past work does make you see how your work has changed without you realising. This is all useful stuff whether you think it has changed for better of for worse. It gives you a chance to re-evaluate your creative decisions and adopt any lessons learned in the process.

subtlety. . .

As a result I have made a couple of decisions about what I am doing. I have tried making earrings using my beads and components, but found it a bit frustrating as I was very aware of how much I didn't know about the process or about the practical considerations that shouldn't be ignored. In short, it made me uncomfortable with what I was producing.

Ok but nothing special, how to find specialness, my ongoing project ;-)

I enjoy making beads and other components, then leaving it to others to decide how they might be used. I like to play with techniques and processes in an unpressured way. There is not very much to 'get right' when making beads, and if they go 'wrong' I haven't wasted much time or expense.
I may be in my comfort zone making beads, but as yet it isn't restricting me creatively so I see nothing wrong with hanging out there, it's a big place ;-)

minus ear wires. . . this sort of thing

So. . . I will be breaking up the earrings I made, which sounds drastic, but mostly means just taking the earring wire off in many cases ;-) and selling the components as just that - components. I may return to earring design at some point, but I will need to get my head into the right space if you know what I mean.
So until the next time,
peace, out ;-) Jon x

Big steps. . .

I've been busy this last few days. Well, I've been busy this last few months on this particular project. We're sorting out the house, ready to put it on the market very soon. We made a list of things that needed doing, about four months ago, and have steadily worked our way through it. This last few days was just the cleaning and putting things out of sight to be ready for the photographer. He came yesterday, so I'm in that strange limbo you get when you have just stopped being busy and can't quite figure out what to do with yourself.
So I haven't done much claying, and haven't posted anything. I have been listing a backlog of stuff onto my shop though.
I did play around with some textures and some bits from the hardware store though.

Too big and heavy for earrings, probably, though I might be wrong. Cool for arty statement pendants though I think.

Still waiting for the house pics and description to come through, to be approved by us, but next time I post we may be in the throes of showing people round, fielding offers and all that stuff. Then all we have to do is find the right house even further out into the country. . .

Waste not. . .

Even though polymer clay isn't ever so expensive I still don't like consigning potentially useful bits to the scrap . . . er. . . lump in my case. (What there is of it gets rolled into a multicoloured clump, like the way plasticene always ended up when I was a kid.)
So when I made these hollow beads I posted about before,

I used the squares cut out of the middle of their inner layers, to make these hollow beads,

Then the squares cut out of the middle of those beads' inner layers got made into these non hollow beads.

Only the little scrappy edge bits left over were fed to the 'lump'. . .

What I liked about this whole progression was that only the first part was planned, the rest was a spontaneous reaction to seeing the cut out bits in front of me.
I'm not trying to maintain that this was a major piece of lateral thinking or a unique insight, just the kind of enjoyable creative diversion we all make from time to time. Let's call it 'Play'. . .

I'm sure I read something recently about how useful play is in the creative process, (the Fall edition of Polymer Arts magazine I think) and I can only concur. The imagination and inventiveness involved in play make it a valuable and precious thing. For reasons I can't fathom those attributes are often underestimated and even dismissed, seemingly just because using them can involve fun, and of course anything fun is somehow not 'serious' and therefore not really the domain of adults/professionals/serious practitioners.
Yeah well, I'm happy to leave the serious work to the Grown Ups. I'll keep playing with stuff and see what I can come up with.
You can join in if you like ;-)
Jon x