Okay, i have to come clean with myself, at the very least, if not with my (few, faithful) readers. This is not a whine. This is not a pity party. This is not a rant or a snivel. I have my Big Girl Pants on. This is not a depressive cycle (something i have fought all my life, and am thoroughly familiar with, thank you very much), but it IS something cycling.
I AM STUCK. I am STUCK as an ARTIST. I can still craft/make/create/do/stitch, but the Big Important Stuff i am ready to give up on. It’s pretty empty in that department. Shuffling paper, paints and fabrics around has a wad of maybe’s, but not for now. If i could actually DO what i wanted to without all the current self doubt, there would be an explosion of work–but i have no actual flame to blow things up. There is no now right now……………… It’s humiliating, frustrating, loathsome and a horrible terrible no good very bad way to be, but it is what it is.
Hell, it’s not even “stuck”–it’s dead in the water. Maybe it’s just not for me to keep on with the so-called Big Important Stuff. That “Epiphany” was mean —-and truthful. Maybe i need to go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back, to when things were still a joy, and i didn’t care about what it all meant in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know if even that is the answer. Don’t care either.
So………you may –or may not–see pretty things, useless things, dumb things in the next who knows how long while. I’m hoping that as a VERY valued friend said to me this very morning, that i “will fly when i catch the next creative jet stream”.
Then again, it might lead back to where i want to be.
Please burn this after reading.
Have you tried The Artist Way and writing Morning Pages (Mourning Pages).
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It’s not a very nice landscape in here is it? I’m looking for an escape route too so if you find a map . . . .
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Sorry; I refuse to burn my laptop! 😉 But hey! It’s okay! I’m on a cycle too…though I’m thinking each aspect of it is a bit shorter than what you’re experiencing. Here it is: Get Great Idea(s), make some sketches or pull out some fabric; Get Distracted, and turn to Simple Stuff like knitting mittens or cutting strips or sorting scraps as to colour; EXPLODE with several pieces — except for mounting; repeat “Get Distracted”; mount/bind pieces or take for framing. Start over.
I do have a couple of deadlines to think about; would a deadline of some sort help you? Or is there nothing on the horizon that excites? 😦
Or perhaps it’s the weather (perpetually grey, with added snow)? The days are getting longer. Spring will come…May your spirits lift with that lightening. Hugs!
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Stuck, too…but, trying trying trying to sew a little quilt – although not better, its easier to be stuck than unstuck. If I find a durable solution, I will let you know. In the meantime, I will continue to gather Irish lace (aka cobwebs) on my body.
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Hope you find the answer ….
(but getting older ….sorry, I mean myself of course … means that sóme things are getting less important in a way … BACK TO THE JOY is never a bad answer …)
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I have a very old watercolour print on fabric (approx. 15 yrs. old) that gets a lot of ‘hand’ stitches when I find myself in a similar dilemma. You know me, a dyed-in- the-wool ‘machine’ stitcher with arthritic hands … but the slow stitching lets my mind rest and focus on all the good stuff of my particular bent.
Sometimes we try too hard.
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Thank you all for your considered replies. I’m bored with what i have done for so long, and in a state where the new ideas can’t seem to be ‘translated” to actual work. Maybe this is just a part of the process i’ve never been through before—(gawdz knows we *all* have had fallow periods)—because there doesn’t (at the moment) seem to be an end to the funk. I’m still interested in Things, but execution is lacking. I shall plug on, because i’m not a quitter! Love y’all!
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Hey Arlee, perhaps this is the perfect time to stitch, burn, dye, paint whatever takes your fancy on the pennant for The Gathering while you are waiting for your muse to get back from her holidays!
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I was actually thinking of that 🙂
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Mo, i found the perfect thing this week!
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Yay! & y’know Murphy’s Law- as soon as you start working on the pennant the next dream thing that is jumping up and down on the sidelines will start asking for attention in no uncertain way!
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I hear you Arlee!…………I was recently away on a five week holiday to Mexico……..long story short……….it was forced captivity in the place we were staying(not by our choice but by things not working out as planned).So I had to face the music and get on with it, whatever limited things I had with me to create with, I got on with a daily routine of fiddling and ‘creating’ . By the time I got home I was back into my creativity routine like never before. Just keep working through it and I know you will come out better and stronger than ever. Anni
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