Some aspirations for 2013

Image from Yahoo Images

Today, I wanted to share with you some of the continual projects that I am working on. I have always crafted and created for myself, rather than for resale or for exhibition. Part of the problem is that I never really considered myself an artist--I always felt, at best, that I was a skilled crafter. After I started becoming proficient in some specific versions of craft types, I considered myself a craftsman within the realm that I had become proficient--and I was OK with that.

When other people started to desire my work, I had to reassess what I was doing. While I enjoyed the developing of the products--even creating multiple prototypes until I got it "just right," I never really enjoyed the assembly line process of making more of "them" to sell. For me, the reproduction part of the job is the tedious part of it. I have no problem in having a single one of "them" and putting it on the self to look at or give away. I keep meticulous notes on how to recreate the product should I want to do it again (and many times I do) but making a series of 10 of "them" for the sake of selling 8 of "them" just doesn't interest me as much, although I will do it.

Having said that, I came to creating later in life. I never really got to play--artistically. I don't remember being allowed to create as a child. I was a performer and got to create that way but I remember liking to color in coloring books and remember (quite vividly) being corrected for coloring grass blue rather than green. My OCD was in its nascent stages as I remember being paralyzed by the fear of coloring outside of the big, thick bold black lines. I remember being 90% completed with a coloring page and having to stop because I ruined it when a buddy bumped my hand and made me go outside the lines. I remember crying for hours over it. To this day, I still love coloring.

So one of my goals this year is to PLAY more creatively, with arts and crafts, with paper, with materials that I might never use again. One avenue that I have chosen to help me along the way is The Sketchbook Project. Click on the link to find out more about it but the project provides you with a moleskin type book (32 pages--8 leaves) that you fill up to your heart's content. You can follow a theme, or not. You can send your book on tour, or not. I have decided to send my book on tour following a general, all-purpose theme. Celebrating my 10th year anniversary in New York City, I have decided to call my book "My Love Affair with NYC."

I will share pages and explanations of the techniques as I go along and will share the actual pages with you as well. I am hoping that sharing this project with you that I can keep to task and complete it.