Re-resurfacing
In my last post, I said that I had reached a point of overload and was withdrawing from several art-related obligations. I evaluated what I could reasonably handle and let go of the part that wasn't allowing me to move on.
First, I resigned from a fiber art group I had just joined. I had only been a member for several days but hey, that's longer than some of Britney Spears' marriages.
Second, I resigned as regional co-representative for Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA). After six months or so on the job, I realized that I couldn't give it the time and care the position deserved. Unfortunately, it left my co-representative in the lurch, which is something I truly regret. She's struggling with her own time commitments.
Third, I've decided to enter far fewer juried art quilt shows in the future. My main goal at this point is to step further into the mainstream art world, where my work is a better fit. I want to spend my limited time locating solo exhibits and galleries. As hard as it is to discontinue some of my ties to the art quilt community, I feel it's time to leave a lot of it behind. In many ways, this is how I felt when I left traditional quilting. If I was enjoying success, why take the leap into the unknown? Because it's right for me to do so.
At the same time that I was doing this art-related housecleaning, my husband was finishing his remodeling of one of the bedrooms. Being no dummy, I immediately took the opportunity to move a lot of my finished work from the basement up to the bedroom closet. It seemed ridiculous that I have been taking my art out of the furnace room and shipping it off to museums. My work deserved better treatment than that.
Of course, moving stuff around the house is never that easy. You can't just move one thing, you have to move everything. I was finding a lot of detritus I knew existed, but had purposely hidden from view. What am I supposed to do with three boxes of player piano rolls and a box full of record albums? As it turned out, I kept the rolls, but got rid of the LPs. By the time I was done a week later, I had completed a serious reorganization of three major rooms and two large closets. I also moved a bunch of furniture around to accomodate the table for my new sewing machine.
With all of this happening at one time, I was able to step back and reevaluate what I was doing on many levels. While I was packing and labeling things for storage, I also took down a lot of the artwork from my studio walls. The majority of those pieces were framed collages that do not reflect my current style of art and do not make me proud. Since I had no emotional attachment to them, they are now gone. I'd rather look at blank spots on my walls until I have better things to fill them.
If you hadn't guessed, there is a general moving, shaking and purging going on in my career and my life, but this is a positive thing for me. As part of my move into the general art world, I've registered for a sculpture conference, to be held in Michigan next October. I'm looking forward to meeting a new crowd of people.
I promise my next blog post will be funnier and have more pictures. These serious and text-heavy posts are beginning to bore me. I need a major jolt of color to get my motor running again!
