Monday, January 26, 2009

Back To Work :(

After a nice weekend with little accomplished art/sewing-wise, it is Monday and back to work. And a long day as DH teaches after work tonight, so I have the studio till at least 9 p.m.

ICK.

I'll just state that right here up front. I am hitting a mental block with the banners---but no matter, I have to push forward, and I have about a week realistically, to get them DONE. Hear that??? DONE. OUT. I need my upstairs studio back.
So you, gentle readers (and especially the not-so-gentle among you!!!) need to REMIND ME that I have to get them finished........soon.
Insert update photos here:





By the way, all those little tassels will be cut off their base and sewn on individually. Insanity in the making.......
Fringe sewing is like corralling a giant slithering worm---I hate it, I hate trying to pin it and keep it where it should be. The stamping process isn't bad---rather fun, the pearl sewing is meditative, but this part just plain SUCKS. And most of what I'm doing from here on involves copious quantities of pins (things that get stuck in ME mostly) and, oh yes, more pins. Like putting the braid all the way up the sides of each one, and the welt cord (which at this point, may or may not go on. I have to see if it needs it.)
I guess, not unlike other artists, I have a limit of mental attention for any project, and due to the problems I had at the very beginning of these, I am ready to move on. And really, they are sooooo close to being done.
Am I the only one who goes through this on large projects? It isn't the type of "My work isn't good enough" non-completion complex---it is "I've seen this so long I can't take it another day and don't CARE" which, for as long as I have worked in any artistic form, I should NOT be allowing myself to slip into.
What makes us do this? Is the idea, the muse, such a shifting, flitting thing that we have to grab it and nail it to the table? Does any project only have so much good working life in it?
I have always had problems with this and it would be interesting to see if others fall into my boat, or if they have some sort of discipline to keep this from happening.
Input please.....puh-leeeeeeeze! (or volunteers to come help finish it....I cook really good!!!)

4 comments:

bernadette ostrozovich said...

dear one, does it help you to know how GOOD they look? you're just done, that's all. i mean not physically quite done, but done in your head. this is a problem of commissions i think. with me, if it's my own work and i lose the feel for it, i know by now that if i walk away for a while (and sometimes that while is months) eventually i'll be in love with the piece again and the piece will be better for having had that break. commissions? whole 'nother story. every one i've ever done, including ones i truly love, a third of the way thru i start grousin' and flitchin' 'bout what the hell was i thinking when i quoted this price? it helps me if i just even put it aside for a day at the longest and do something totally unrelated. sometimes that includes working on components for a new piece, but more often than not, this is where i actually get housework done! i just have to get my head out of the piece and buy myself a little bit of FREEDOM! this may well be a sagittarian thing, miss anne, and you and i could write volumes about that! i think we get to feeling a little enslaved and that just does not cut it! i start to feel resentment welling up and the poor piece just catches all that attitude! one of my favorite quotes is from the movie Little Big Man. Chief Dan George's character, "Old Lodge Skins", a shaman of great wisdom says, "sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn't" just roll with it, baby! they are beautiful, nearly done (what's a few hundred individually sewn tassels to the likes of us?) and soon you can lavish all that attention on your own work, maybe something totally different? an itty bitty little shrine?

Anne Huskey-Lockard said...

You're absolutely right Mizz B......I'm sure Sagittarians are worse with this because we are sooooo impassioned in the first place. The flame burns bright and then snuffs out completely and then, in it's own time, flickers a bit and turns into an inferno.
And yes, when it is a commission, with a looming deadline, it is WORSE. Normally I can schedule my time so I'm not in this state, at least not time pinched. I figure time so I have the escape days.
Maybe today, since some of the girls from Co-Op are coming out, I'll just tinker with the silly little painting and then after they are home, I'll hit the banners hard.
Geez, being an artist is a lot of MENTAL work besides the CREATIVE work.
OY.
I need a New Orleans fix........BAD!!!!!! :)

Julie Zaccone Stiller said...

Those banners are rocking! I can't wait to see the fringe, I bet it will be worth it for the look you'll achieve. Wish I lived close enough to come over and help you sew it on!

Anne Huskey-Lockard said...

Julie, my dear, I truly wish you did too! It would make the work much more pleasurable!!!
I took Bernadettes advice and other than some minor math calculations for braid and figuring what to do exactly with the tassles, I took the day off from the banners and worked on other things. Which I ought to post in todays blog.......yes? :)

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