What's It All About?

As the creative side of my personality has tried to burst through during my lifetime I always pictured myself with ideas and thoughts whirling like dervishes in my brain – then the picture transfers to my hands bringing these ideas to life – almost like magic. Hmmm – in the ‘real’ world my art life doesn’t quite play out like that.

I do have the ideas whirling in my head, but not all the time, sometimes it is an effort to search them out – like they have been put into a cupboard and I have to first find the cupboard and then remove all the cans and bottles that are stored there before finding this little idea crouching in the back corner.

Once I have the idea the ‘work’ part of the process surfaces. I often think that people viewing a piece of art have the concept (at least in the back of their mind) that the artist just thought up the idea and slapdash it was a finished piece. In reality, art is WORK!  It takes time and skill and patience and effort.

While I would love to be able to create my work ethereally – just sit down, stitch beads and say voila – it doesn’t work that way. Developing the skill to be able to not only stitch beads in place (so that they stay there) but to expand my knowledge with each piece is part of the joy of having the idea to begin with. I guess in some ways I’m more a craftsman than an artist. I love to try new stitches, to see what colors work with what other colors, to figure out how to stitch a figure design so that it conveys the whole original concept. In other words - I love the 'process' as much as I love the original concept. To put beads on and take them off when they don’t work - to start with one color only to find that it doesn’t please me or convey the design I had in mind – these are challenges that I gladly accept.

There is a passion to being a ‘working artist’ that greets me each day and I guess truly that is 'what it is all about’.

"The days you work are the best days." - Georgia O'Keefe