Studio notes 01: October
As I prepare to launch my first quilt pattern, I’m thinking a lot about the concept and decision to monetise a hobby.
Years ago I decided to pursue a painting career. I’d spent years developing a print and painting practice and loved it so much and was so inspired. I got really serious. Then I did a somewhat disastrous MFA, and discovered the contemporary art world wasn’t for me, and the whole thing got a little aside from the fact that I really love paint and I really love painting. I was good at it, but I think I also killed it.
For now (not forever), me and the brushes are on hiatus.
Often, in interviews with really successful artists, you hear that either they have a) maintained the joy of the artform from the beginning and through perseverance have found great success (perhaps with a little luck), or b) gone a little commercial at some point, have worked hard enough and long enough, have found success (perhaps with a little luck) and are now in a position to reduce the hustle and approach their creative practice with more joy and freedom and spirit.
I mention luck above not to diminish someone’s well-earned success. Rather, I think luck can mean a lot of things: that you have the privilege of time to do anything creative at all; that you found the right mentor at the right moment; that you learned a technique that was a perfect click for you (and can afford the materials required for that technique); that you built an audience on Instagram before the algorithm made it so damn hard.
When I discovered quilting several years ago it felt like a fabulous collision of all the things I love. Sewing and craft, graphic design and colour, keeping my hands and mind busy… while making functional objects that my kids can sleep under.
Talk about privilege. I’ll never get sick of wrapping my kids up like burritos in quilts that I’ve made! No luck on the Instagram algorithm, but no worries I guess.
So I’m holding space in the grey area. I don’t think there’s any right way to approach a creative life, and I’m mindful that I want quilting to be something that earns me a little income, while remaining something I love. I won’t kill this craft!
Balancing that, with everything else, as always.
Listening:
Loved this episode from Bonnie Christine’s The Professional Creative with Morgan Harper Nichols. Such a great and natural interview, and some beautiful calming thoughts about ‘rhythms’ of life and creativity.
Reading:
It’s not craft-related but Being 13 is a beautifully produced and written piece in the NY Times (possible paywall) about 13 year old girls… fantastic and rich. Girls contain multitudes!
Watching:
Mixed feelings watching The Supermodels doco… I remembered so many of the magazine images featured throughout. I realise now how hugely inspired I was early on by fashion and fashion photography, spending rent-$$ on overseas versions of Vogue etc. But also sad for our collective body image… the 1990’s was hard for that.
Looking:
Below, clockwise from top left: @anthropology_indiaa, @emilyvanhoff, @textile.mixologist, @jen.du
I will tell you that, no matter where you are in your arc, no matter where you are as far as your age goes, your body, your wherewithal, you still get to come back to this empirical truth: you start at the beginning of whatever story you’re telling, and you just work your way through it … Learn the lines. Start at the beginning. Tell the whole story till you get to the end.
~ TOM HANKS