Magazine to Through Our Hands, editorial team: Annabel Rainbow, Laura Kemshall, Linda Kemshall www.throughourhands.co.uk
Art Blocks
I have been a bit out of circulation since January when I discovered I need treatment for my thyroid. I am just starting to get enthusiastic about textiles again. I think part of my quilt 'block' was lack of the right medication but also a leftover 'art block' from art school. Every time I spend some time studying art it takes about 2 years to get back to making again. In that time I still make simple quilts and knit and do other creative things but I find it hard to get going again after the angst of art school. I needed 2 years off after art school in Goulburn , Australia, and 2 years off after both stints at Whitireia in Porirua. Thats just me though.
Do other people have 'blocks'? What causes them? Is it after a major solo show? Or is it just me?
When i have an art block, I think that all my ideas are rubbish. What I am doing is 'self censoring' to a very high degree. It's as if I have a tutor sitting on my shoulder saying "I think you can push it further", "have you thought of …", "I think you are on the wrong track", The answer is often just to make something simple, which leads to something else, and slowly ideas start to flow. Of course, most of the ideas happen when I am on a plane, on holiday on a Pacific Island where I have no access to a sewing machine or dyes/paints, or while waiting in the ER with a friend. By the time I'm home again, the idea doesn't sound so good any more or the drawings don't make sense.
Anyway, thats just me, how about you?
Anyway, as I said , I'm coming back to my creative life. I have just had a work accepted for World of Threads Festival in Toronto in November. I really wish I could go to see the show, I have been getting the World of Threads weekly newsletter for over a year now and they profile some amazing textile artists.
I will also have work in the UK in 2015 as a member of 'Through our hands'. See the free magazine above , Annabel Rainbow, Laura Kemshall, Linda Kemshall www.throughourhands.co.uk
The exhibition details are below
Then of course, there is the New Zealand Quilt Symposium in January, where hopefully I will be teaching 4 different classes. I say 'hopefully' because I am waiting to see whether the classes have filled enough to be going ahead. The New Zealand Quilt Symposium . I leave in 3 weeks for 2 weeks in Seattle, San FRancisco and Boston and then another 4 weeks in Eastern Europe (Berlin, Krakow, Prague) then finish in Copenhagen at the end of October. So I need to make a whole quilt to enter in the symposium in the next 3 weeks, I have an idea, I just have to clear the decks first… Let me know in the comments section about what causes you to have an artist block (if you get them)? Clare |
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