Creativity

I love to be working with my hands, to be creative and making something. It seems my problem is that I want to master the techniques of whatever I am trying to create immediately and don’t like to practice, practise practice.. Is that why I become despondent and don’t always finish things or stay the course. I love my quilting – just need to make more time for it in larger blocks of concerted effort. I think that one of the things that I like about quilting is that it is quick to (usually) make one block (at a time). There is something relaxing almost hypnotic about sitting at the sewing machine and piecing. Quilting itself is another matter – I concentrate very hard and often end up biting my lip with pulling all sorts of contortions with my face because I am concentrating so hard

I love reading “creative” and “inspirational” books but often am at a loss as to how to apply it in my own creative endeavours. It is going that next step of interpreting all the wonderful imaginative ideas and putting them into something achievable (for me anyway). I often can come up with the ideas for other people but never for myself. Funny how that is – I can always give lots of support and advice to someone else’s creations but get stuck with my own. Perhaps I become too intense and involved that I find it hard to step back and see things from another perspective.

Much as I value my privacy I find it easier to work creatively with others around me – as if I am drawing on their energy. It is always wonderful to see what other people are creating and it inspires me in my own creations. Perhaps I should surround myself more with other creative people. I did try that with a friend once where we tried to have weekly sessions of playing with decorating fabric with different techniques but she wasn’t prepared to explore beyond her own ideas and comfort zone and try anything that was too different. She was going in a set direction and had blinkers on that would not let her divert from her course – shame really. It didn’t stop her later coming to me and wanting all my ideas on some different techniques that she had shunned earlier. I had to admit to being not as helpful as I should have been – I was feeling a little piqued and used.

We should always be prepared to try different ideas beyond our comfort zone and it is always good to have someone else exploring with you – you can feed off each other and can often reach higher levels of creativity and inspiration than you would have achieved working by yourself.

It has been great to read blogs of creative artists and see their photos and just read about what they are doing and what inspires them. I think in part that is what I like about books – although I can’t always translate all the ideas and inspirations from them they help me maintain my curiosity and creative thoughts for when that lightning bolt of creativity hits me and I actually do something that works out! In part too I fear failure (don’t we all) and I don’t like to do things that might fail .