On the duration of finishing...

While we were on vacation this summer we were blessed with a lot of rain. That definitely was one reason why I was rather glad I had resisted my husband’s repeated attempts to hire a camper for our vacation – although small, we had at least two rooms that we could spread out in! We also had internet connection, and I could do a bit of blog-reading. Amongst others I read Terry Jarrard-Dimond’s post ,Are you a finisher? and the kind of energy that you can release by finishing old pieces.

I recognized a few points that I had also mentioned in my posts on UFO-completion earlier.

(By the way – there is going to be another UFO-completion-weekend at the Catholic Community College Petersberg in February 2012. More information and sign-up here.)

But Terry’s post set me thinking some more on finishing, time frames and such.

Before I had left for Switzerland end of June I had that special experience with finishing „Personality“ to enter in Ste. Marie-aux-Mines, which I wrote about here.

That certainly was another lesson in taking care of oneself simply by allowing oneself enough time to finish projects properly. It is not healthy to be forced to work under stress until the last minute before the post-office closes. And usually things tend to get more complicated that way. I still remember the time when I was finishing my Ph.D.thesis – I had planned generously, allowing myself a buffer-time-zone of several weeks and managed to be finished three weeks ahead of the deadline. A year later, when I was preparing the manuscript for the printer to be published, I had booked a flight to go to Canada, was teaching, and everything had been calculated much tighter. Of course the printer broke, and everything turned very hectic. I did send the manuscript off, and I did catch my flight, but I was so exhausted that I did not even have enough strength to be mad at myself.

Ever since then I have tried to be a better planner. I set aside the weeks in my calendar when I know I will be busy dyeing the fabrics for the fabric club. I put in registration deadlines for shows or competitions in which I participate. Just a few weeks ago Ieven printed out a year’s planner for 2013, earlier than I ever have done that before. But as I realized in June – it’s not always possible to finish in proper time...

But that doesn’t really have much to do with the topic of Terry’s entry  – finishing of (older) pieces that are as of yet imcomplete.

Reasons for not finishing a piece may be numerous. One of them may be that it was started in a workshop-einvironment but they have to be finished at home. There, however, is another piece that has been hanging on the wall and needs to be completed first. And when you have finished that one, there are already so many other interesting ideas that came up that you don’t return to the workshop-piece, but start something new first, and that's the beginning of being a UFO. Or it might happen that you unpack something at home, eager to continue – and then you realize that there is something seriously wrong with the piece which for one reason or other you did not notice before.

That’s what happened to me with a large piece I had started during my stay at Nancy Crow’s barn during a Master Class in June of 2008. It was the first time I was a participant in that class, and that meant a lot of different emotions and experiences  – was I really worthy of being here in that group? I was also trying out something entirely new by using my son’s line drawings as a kick-off point for my quilts, and it was the first time that I could really work that big because I had never had such a large design wall before.

"Play of Lines II" (in progress, stalled)

I learned a lot with this piece. For example, I had never worked with this color palette before. I was getting acquainted with the techniques to get satisfying line-work in. After several days, however, I had reached a point when I thought I could not go on with it right then and that it schould be packed away. That was the time when Nancy said „I’m not particularly thrilled with that orange.“ That was quite a comment – why hadn’t she said anything about that three days ago when I first started using that orange for the lines? and what about the fact that I was certain that the orange was the right color for what I was trying to express as it caused sufficient contrast to the grey background?

As I said, at that point I had the feeling I wasn’t going to get any further with this anyway and packed it all away. When I unpacked it all at home, however, I realized that for me it definitley wasn’t the orange that was the problem, but the green configuration. 

Due to the insufficient contrast it did not achieve the kind of importance I wanted it to have. So it all went back into the box because I could not at that point figure out a way of solving the problem. Throughout the three years since it was made I kept taking it out regularly, looked at it contemplatingly, and put it back, out of sight. It was supposed to be Play of Lines II, but that gap remained in the series. But something in Terry’s entry struck a chord, and established a connection to this particular top. Suddenly I knew how I could deal with this lost top.

So finishing may take a while, sometimes gestation periods are longer than the nine months of a pregnancy... but as long as you have a special attachment to a particular top, there is still a chance that it will find its time. Now I have an idea, and as soon as the project on my wall will be sewn, the grey top is going to be taken out again. You won’t be able to recognize it after it’s completet, and it won’t be a Play of Lines anymore. That gap will stay. 

Back in focus

I sold a quilt two days ago, the personal delivery of which was the reason for that drive-by-shot at finding the statue by Marg Moll which I wrote about here. I was jubilant and very happy, and treated myself to that art search and a little stop at Lake Wörthsee south of Munich, with a gorgeously sunny day glittering on the ice that still covered the lake.

Lake Wörthsee, south of Munich, still covered by ice

This is the quilt I sold, it is also featured on the ‚November’ page of my eternal calendar:

Play of Lines XIV (2009)

The next day, I received a rejection of the second quilt I had entered for the German Patchwork Guild’s travelling exhibition „Tradition bis Moderne“, which I had written about in my German blog. 

The jury had only invited one of my two entries to be sent in for closer inspection by the jury to begin with, but I had thought this one might have a good chance. The judges’ commentaries regarding the criteria according to which the quilts were judged to me clearly prove that my points of criticism mentioned earlier apply indeed. The quilt was entered in the category ‚innovative’ and it seems this category was judged according to exactly the same criteria that applied to categories ‚traditional’ or ‚contemporary’. So why set up a division into those three categories at all, if these categories are not judged under a different set of criteria each?

The initial disappointment has already disappeared, and I may consider entering the quilt for another call of entry, which is why I don’t want to publish a picture here at this point of time.

However, it shows that success and disappointment can be so close together that they almost overlap. Would it have made a difference if they had appeared in reverse order, first the disappointment and then the success? I don’t know.

In any case, it has resulted in a radical boost of focus.

During the first weeks of the year I have done a little bit of sewing only, spending quite a bit of time launching (and completely outselling!) the first collection of the first year of my fabric club, and starting preparations for a textile market that I will be attending in early April, hoping to acquire a few more subscribers to the fabric club. Here is a picture of the color selection of my first collection:

January 2011 collection of fabric club

And here is a picture of the stack of colours which I have dyed so far in preparation for the market (more in the making in the next couple of weeks):

Colour circle with dilutions (appr. one third of total),
prepared for textile market in April

I was focussed indeed - on the business of the fabric-club. 

This immediate succession of success and disappointment regarding my quilting, however, has resulted in an sudden release of ideas that have been brooding and that will give me plenty to do working on the sewing machine in the next couple of months. I have drawn up two ideas for entering at Ste Marie, and I am thinking about submitting quilts for the Festival of Quilts at Birmingham, which I had already written off, and there are several other ideas pretty far developed which only need to be realized.

The interesting thing is that I had started to write a post on ‚focussing’ around the third week of January, as I had read several posts by other bloggers touching on exactly that same topic. These include Deidre Adams on Dec 18, Teri Jarrard-Dimond on January 15, and focussing is also a topic which appears repeatedly with Lisa Call. That post did not get finished, and I am not going to try and update it right now. But I do want to include my personal reply to Deidre, which had initiated my attempt at writing on ‚focussing’:

In a recent post in December Deidre Adams mentioned a state of mind (or should we call it ‚modus of mind working’?) when she is not working under the pressure of some deadline. I am quoting her a little longer than that single sentence I refer to here, which I have marked in bold:

Even with a rather full plate of graphic design work in the 

past couple of weeks, I’ve been very focused on getting some 

paintings done. I’ve settled into a routine: Wake up, go 

into the studio and contemplate what I did the day before, 

then put on some more layers. Then, while those are drying, 

go downstairs, get my coffee & cereal, and do design work 

for a few hours. Then maybe exercise on those days I’m not

 successful in talking myself out of it, and then after lunch, 

reward myself with studio time. The paradox for me is that 

the busier I am, the more I’m able to concentrate in the 

studio. If I have nothing much else going on, I tend to 

procrastinate and waste time on the computer instead of 

staying focussed.

Staying focussed on your work in general, i.e. not taking too many detours trying to avoid having to face yourself and your work in the studio is certainly an important issue in any artist’s life. But is it really necessary to put so much pressure on oneself all the time? And: times without immediate pressure may actually turn out to be gestation periods for new ideas. For me, it seems right now that the past few weeks, during which I have not been trying to force myself into constant production at the sewing machine, but was occupied with other things, have given my mind enough time to slowly cook up a number of things of which I wasn’t even really aware that they were ‚simmering’. It may be useful not only to step back from one’s work and take a look from a little distance, but to even turn your back and walk away from it for just a little while.