Over Thinking It

You know how, when you look at a word too long, 

for example,

the word AQUEDUCT, 

it begins to look like you've misspelled it?

I had a similar experience recently. 

After the last quilt, I knew I wanted to continue working in this series, but the ideas weren't quite crystallizing in my mind. So, I set down to do some sketching.

I really liked the idea of these eggs or bubbles or whatever, the motif, overlapping. But then what? I continued drawing, but it wasn't coming together. So I tried again.




Nope, that's not it, either.
Naturally, I'm skimming through all my art quilt books to try and get ideas. And I'm being bombarded with ideas for layouts and color schemes and it's kinda confusing me. So I press on.




And now making these sketches is becoming a bit tedious because of all the detail I'm tempted to include. So I leave the detail out and go for a sort of shorthand, and even that is not making me happy. I'm beginning to get a little panicky. I don't feel like making any of these sketches into quilts would be fun or would be worth the effort.

Keep trying, I tell myself.




Now the big doubts are starting to surface. Why did I think I could be an artist? And other mental junk like that. I ignore it. Mostly.

In desperation, I sent all of these sketches to my sister.

Her advice?

It's only fabric. Start playing around and see what you come up with.

Playing around.

Playing.

Around.

Why do I insist on thinking that making great art is going to mean grueling, frustrating work? 

Well...I'll be in my studio. You know what I'm doing. I'm having fun.