sweetgeorgia

Giving Voice to your Interest

It’s funny that when I get really stressed or start feeling the burden of the quantity of work that I have to complete, I seek escape… and not escape as in watching Glee or playing WoW. It’s not potent enough. I don’t even consider knitting or spinning much of an escape, either, since I end up thinking too much about what I’m doing. Even now, I’m trying to pick a cardigan pattern to knit up and it’s downright anxiety-generating. But I mean escape into something that doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Doing something just for the sake of doing something. Not in any way ever expecting to somehow be “productive” about it. Just doing something because it’s fun…

So, about two months ago, I rented a guitar, sort of out of the blue (ok, it was after I saw Sam Roberts play live recently), and started to learn to play. The guitar I happened to rent was a Taylor 114ce which is an acoustic guitar in Taylor’s Grand Auditorium shape (it has a slimmer waist) with a cutaway (“c”) and electronics (“e”). I played it for about a month and decided to buy one — but the 312ce model, which is their Grand Concert shape (slimmer waist and smaller “bout”) to fit my small arms a bit better. It’s still got the cutaway and the electronics (in case it ever needs to be amplified), and it’s all built out of solid wood. But my guitar is on backorder right now as Taylor is still making it. In the meantime, I’m borrowing a friend’s big dreadnought-shaped guitar and still playing away happily. It’s the perfect feeling to be able to play in the evenings after work and let my brain sort of melt.

It’s so interesting to me to observe in myself what I’m like at the beginning of a love affair with a new hobby. How rabid I can be in searching for information. How obsessed I can become with understanding the difference between different kinds of strings, tone woods, and even picks. How I can easily lose an hour playing the same four bars over and over again. I even feel motivated to somehow blog or record my thoughts about it.

Funny, how I can’t find time to collect my thoughts for this blog, but I can easily spend that time playing the guitar. I think that’s all because I get so caught up in “presenting” on this blog rather than simply documenting and expressing. Relaying and remembering. It’s all very ironic, since I’ve been asked to participate on a discussion panel at Northern Voice this coming Saturday, May 8th, specifically about how blogging and this whole social media/Ravelry world have changed how I craft. I think a lot of us knit-type bloggers have gone through a phase where we feel like we are only knitting so that we have things to show on our blogs. Where, we feel insecure or inadequate if we don’t constantly have finished objects to show. And then when you create these obstacles for yourself, you mute your own voice. You stop being able to share your thoughts about this thing that you love.

Come have a listen this weekend. Northern Voice is a local conference about personal blogging and social media and I’m intrigued by some of the other sessions like “Overcoming Social Anxiety” and “How to screw up your own personal blog” (hmm, this may be insight into my own psychosis). In our session, Fibre Arts Online it’ll be Kim Werker (of the all new MightyUgly.com — very very cool concept), Mandy Moore (of Yarnbombing and Knitty fame), and me… talking about how blogging about what we love changed our lives… for better or for worse.

Handmade Nation!

A couple months ago, I found myself quite challenged and provoked by a documentary about the intersection between creativity and responsibility. It is truly liberating and enlightening to have someone describe and defend creative work in any genre. And so, I’m really looking forward to attending the Vancouver premier screening of Handmade Nation this Thursday, July 9th.

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Meaningful Work

A couple weekends ago, Kim and I went to see the documentary, Who Does She Think She Is?, at Pacific Cinematheque. Our lunch, convo and company was fantastic, but the film itself touched on such sensitive topics for me, I’m not entirely sure it was a good idea for me. Even watching the trailer had made me upset, what made me think I should watch the whole movie?

The five female artists in the film struggle to maintain a balance between their art, work and their families. Three of the five women end up divorced. It’s tremendously painful for me to hear the stories of all these women and how many of them are considered to be so selfish. How creativity is stuffed between driving kids from school to soccer practice. It’s reality, I suppose, that you can never do the one thing you want to do to satisfaction… everything is tempered with everything else. I guess that’s what we call “life/work balance”. But what about considering the option of creating until burnout and then renewing yourself? With each time that you creatively push yourself to and over the edge, you expand your experience and your ability to see new and different things. Maybe this is ultimately unhealthy and unbalanced but still a way to be creative.

I remember a time when for months, I would work to exhaustion. I’d create things until 4 am when my contacts dried onto my eyes. And then all productivity would drop off to zero and I’d sleep or stare blankly at the screen. And then I’d repeat the highs and lows. Maybe this is considered manic and unhealthy… but it was also a time when I was unnaturally prolific in the quantity and quality of the work I was creating.

When I took my hiatus from dyeing and designing, I basically fell off the face of the planet… not just as a creative person, but as a person, period. I felt that by the end of my timeout, my sadness and angst was most related to not having and serving purposeful, selfless work. I feel that I am nothing without real work… maybe because without real work, I have no reason to be here. I guess I don’t mean work as in what you do to buy groceries or pay rent… I mean work that you set your hands to, work that has hope for something outside of yourself. And I whether I am right or wrong to do so, I deeply relate this kind of work to personal identity.

If I am not my work, then who am I? If I am not sweetgeorgia, not a dyer, not a knitter, not a designer, not a business person, not an artist… then who am I? I tell you, cocktail party conversations are the worst. Validate your existence in seven words, now. Go!

I like long walks on the beach, music, and I can eat a baked good in the amount of time it takes you to say “baked good”. There’s got to be more than that.

On Saturday, I happened to stumble upon the show at the Richmond Art Gallery called Observation of Wonder, a two-part installation by artist, Brenda Maag. From her statement, she says “Doilies are made by crocheting and, like much domestic textile work, crochet was considered an acceptable form of creativity for women in the 19th and 20th centuries. No longer in style, doilies have been abandoned in thrift shops which is where I bought them for next to nothing. Observation of Wonder is a two-part installation made with a collection of these recovered handmade doilies … The installation represents a new appreciation of the beauty, symmetry and mathematical complexity of the doilies and invites viewers to see nature’s phenomenal diversity reflected in human creativity.”

If you get a chance to take a look, drop by the Richmond Art Gallery before the show closes on May 17th. The conservatory with the doilies is interesting to walk into and the beauty of these humble homely textiles is made accessible. What if your “acceptable form of creativity” had no value in society a hundred years from now? Would you still do it?

I struggle every single day with the idea of meaningful vs. financially satisifying work. This idea of the sexy job vs. the ugly job. Maybe I see this in every instance… the want to vs. the have to. I don’t know… I can’t be the only one that has these thoughts. Or has everyone already found meaningful, soul expanding, life work and I’m still knocking at the door?

Thanks for everyone’s encouragement on my little cardigan sweater! I’ve been knitting it again, this time in sportweight and trying to alter the shaping a little bit. I think I’ll work a bit on this sexy job this morning before I head off to my ugly job.

Top 5 for 2008

Year by year, we grow. We grow into ourselves. Hopefully with each year we grow more and more into authentic versions of ourselves. For me, this year has been an incredible opportunity to express the most authentic version of myself. To craft whenever and however I like, not necessarily being tied to the popularity or push of knitting, but unconciously choosing an older, slower form of craft in weaving. To choose this textile, craft and art as a means and way of living. Maybe the concept of “authentic version” of yourself is quite selfish… maybe it translates into being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want… including sometimes choosing snowboarding over working at the dispensary. But I think the concept has more to do with being honest with yourself and creating balance… being true to yourself. And every day, I meditate on how intensely blessed I am to be able to do this work that I love.

Over the past four years, I have noted my top five thoughts, ideas, favourites, whatevers… and this year, I am thinking about all the things that I am grateful for. Every day has truly been a gift and every trial has been an opportunity for me to grow. For these opportunities I am grateful.

1. I am grateful for all the wonderful, eventful, and memorable times with friends this year including everything from snowboarding at Whistler and Cypress to river rafting in Clearwater, the Pemberton Music Festival and Whistler weekends in the summer and more. Everything from the big events to the small, quiet evenings with friends.
2. I am grateful for the health and safety of my family and friends. Into the new year, I pray that each and every one of them will find peace, happiness, joy and bliss.
3. I am grateful that I have a place to live and means of transportation (even though it failed me at the side of the highway in Kamloops in the summer and is now buried under snow). After hearing about the local woman who accidentally set fire to herself trying to stay warm, I have no excuse to whine about my place being chilly. None at all.
4. I am grateful for the opportunity to try to make an honest, hardworking effort at bringing SweetGeorgia Yarns into existence, both online and in-person. This is completely new for me and I know I am making mistakes left, right and centre… missing things and missing out on things… but I will continue to do my best to make this opportunity work.
5. I am grateful for the continued support of friends, family, readers, knitters, weavers, customers, and fellow crafters. Sometimes, I am frustrated with myself for not being able to move forward faster and stronger, but this is the best that I can do with the energy and the resources that I have now.

That’s already five, but I’d also like to add that I’m grateful and excited that Kim Werker nudged and convinced me to go to TNNA in San Diego in January… I’ve never been to either. Actually, I’ll be flying to Los Angeles a few days early and driving to San Diego, possibly stopping for some surfing or yarn stores along the way. We’ll see. Having never left Vancouver for an actual yarn industry type activity, I know no one… but I’m hoping to meet a few of my heros including Cat Bordhi, Maggie Casey, and Stephanie Japel…

I am also looking forward to starting to offer spinning and weaving classes during late January and February. There are currently a ton of hand spindles in the studio, and three new spinning wheels are on the UPS truck to me. The shipment should include a Schacht Ladybug wheel, Louet Victoria, and Louet Julia spinning wheels plus a bunch of small looms. I am nervous and yet so very excited about 2009.

In grand holiday tradition, our Top 5 has become a yearly blog contest… Tell me what you are grateful for this year and maybe what you are looking forward to in 2009. Of course, I will be sending one randomly selected responder some lovely hand-dyed yarn. Please post your thoughts via the comments box below by Monday, December 31 at midnight PST.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours,
sweetgeorgia (aka Felicia)

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I have 1,365 unread blog posts to read and I don’t even know where to start. Who’s preggers, who’s podcasting, who’s been awarded a new book… I have no idea. Should I read them? or pretend they never happened? Heh heh.