Tag: Group project

One of the things I like about this book is that the chapters are short. I am looking at my next book to review and one is great, but the chapters are super long. Perhaps I can do a page a week?

This is another physical chapter. In this one, Carrie Bloomston starts out by saying that she is not the kind of person to tell you to go sit in your studio at the same time every day and for the same length of time until inspiration strikes. She continues by saying that it is a theory that when inspiration strikes you will be readying for it and in your workspace ready to go. She recommends taking the day off and going fishing or hanging out in nature so you can actively fill your senses with inspiration (pg.109). I actually agree.

I don’t have enough time in my studio, but when I go out to get inspiration I come back itching for more, because I am filled with ideas. I know that going to a museum or even out to dinner with a friend will show me something new that will inspire me or give me a problem solving idea.

The reality is that you can’t force creativity and looking at the same walls isn’t going to help. I get a daily dose of inspiration when I go out walking. I try to take a different path and I have made the most interesting discoveries – a lake! a building completely covered in 4×4 inch tiles! trees touching each other! All of these things are within a 10 or 15 minute walk from my office. There is a brake shop building of which I am particularly fond. I have to take a picture, but it seems silly.

“Don’t get me wrong. I also believe in working. I believe in worth through the boredom, the obstacles, the writer’s block. But there is a time and a place for everything. Sometimes you just have to run away” (pg.110).

So, take yourself on a date and take a bunch of photos and make some sketches or doodles or whatever you do.

You can see the last post on this topic from a few weeks ago.

Nota bene: we are working through Carrie Bloomston’s book, The Little Spark. Buy it. Support the artist. Play along. There is much more to each spark than what I am writing. The original chapters will help you. Go buy Carrie Bloomston’s book, so you get the full benefit of her fabulousness! You can see my book review, which is what started this flight of fancy.

A Soul Box is a way to do “soul archaeology…while making a meaningful reminder of what is most important to you?” (pg.105).

In this chapter, Bloomston gives the reader a list of supplies to make an actual box. This is a very physical activity. Sometimes, making something that is not in our regular media leads to a new place in your chosen medium. I get so much inspiration from making books, folding paper and gluing paper to things.

You can see the last post on this topic from a few weeks ago.

Nota bene: we are working through Carrie Bloomston’s book, The Little Spark. Buy it. Support the artist. Play along. There is much more to each spark than what I am writing. The original chapters will help you. Go buy Carrie Bloomston’s book, so you get the full benefit of her fabulousness! You can see my book review, which is what started this flight of fancy.

“You have to let go of the feeling that you don’t deserve to be happy or that you could never have the freedom that you seek” (pg.102)

In my journal, at the back, I make a list of the small sewing achievements I make every day (in a good week). It might be something like “sewed 2 HRTs – 5/25/2018” or “finished a 2 inch strip of binding on Triple Star quilt – 5/18/2018.” I used to just put finished items on that list, but the entries were too few and too far between, so this is my comprise. These are seriously small victories, but I do it to make myself feel accomplished.

Celebrate the small victories. Pat YOURSELF on the back. Believe in yourself.

Carrie says that “believing in yourself is a practice. The more you practice, the better you get. And the more you practice, the more able you are to accept your limitations and shortcomings, because there is always another chance to try again, to do it differently and maybe better” (pg.102)

You can see the last post on this topic from a few weeks ago.

Nota bene: we are working through Carrie Bloomston’s book, The Little Spark. Buy it. Support the artist. Play along. There is much more to each spark than what I am writing. The original chapters will help you. Go buy Carrie Bloomston’s book, so you get the full benefit of her fabulousness! You can see my book review, which is what started this flight of fancy.

This week’s photo was a bad choice. It is a gorgeous group of flowers and I really like the image, but there isn’t enough diversity in the colors to make interesting palettes.

As a result, after the default palette, I stuck to monochromatic palettes.

Green: the green looks really brown – or yellowish brown- in the palette.

Orange: I thought the orange would be great, but, again, the colors look very brown. This groups would make a great Thanksgiving quilt.

Pink: these colors aren’t bad. They do have a pink tinge to them, but I wouldn’t call them pink.

The tool was acting strange as well. The colors with names were not displaying on the side. It might be time to think up a new creativity/inspiration project.

Let me know if you use a palette to make something.

“There is only one way to achieve the fluency, freedom and grace of the expert, and that is by doing” (The Little Spark, pg.97). I believe this quote. I live this quote. I sew a lot. I make a respectable number of quilts and chop up and sew back together a lot of fabric.

I get the impression that people think you can make one quilt and be an expert. I have made a lot of quilts and I still don’t consider myself an expert. “We get better at anything we try to do by doing it over and over (and over and over)” (pg.97).

I do think, as we progress towards becoming an expert, we gain “fluency and fluidity with the materials and…movements.” We “understand…the rhythm and harmony of the” materials, the tools and our “body.” We can feel our way through the” work ” instead of thinking…through” [it]. We become less attached to our work as we get better and we get better at telling the materials exactly what we want them to do using great economy of movement. As we get better, we are fully in control of our work and yet we choose to surrender that control to the materials. (pg.97)

“You don’t learn by thinking about doing. You might enjoy thinking and planning, but the learning comes from doing” (pg.97). Each time we make a quilt or, even, a block “a new awareness…is born. The reality is that you have to show up and do the work.

Carrie recommends that when you start to, she calls it, “throw a hundred bowls” (pg.97) that you not do it alone. In quiltmaking, guilds are great for that, but so are friends, classes and, in a pinch, the Internet. YouTube is a wonderful thing. The point is that if you get stuck and you don’t have a friend or support system, you will have an easier time stopping that if you have someone to lean on.

The text is followed by a quiz (pg.98-99), which helps determine your learning style.

Now, go make your hundred quilts or hundred blocks and improve your skills. Become an expert.

You can see the last post on this topic from last week.

Nota bene: we are working through Carrie Bloomston’s book, The Little Spark. Buy it. Support the artist. Play along. There is much more to each spark than what I am writing. The original chapters will help you. Go buy Carrie Bloomston’s book, so you get the full benefit of her fabulousness! You can see my book review, which is fueling this flight of fancy.

This has been a difficult week, so I decided to sit down and work on a creative spark post. These posts take a while, but I usually end up happy after I am done. Or, at least, distracted.

Carrie Bloomston shares an Alan Alda quote with us that exactly explains the subject of this spark. She quotes “You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. what you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself” (pg.93).

We often put on a mask to go to work, do not wear red tights with our all black outfit or simply don’t talk about our true feelings about creativity. Engaging in creativity is different. “No matter what you do in your creative life, you will bring all of you to it” (pg.93). I also would add that artists do their best work when they do what they want to do, not what they think someone else wants them to do and certainly not what the artists think they should do.

This spark is about finding your creative voice. Bloomston explains that “your voice is a combination of style, experience, work, and subject matter” (pg.93).  She shows readers three ways to find your creative subject, “Internal, External and Catharsis” (pg.94).

For internal, we have to dig through our unconscious self for content to figure out what we want to say. For external, you have to do research and then there is catharsis, which is healing through art. I find that I use two of the three less than External. I look at things (have you seen this blog?) and get inspiration from them. Sometimes it is colors, sometimes shapes, sometimes what others are doing, sometimes from books. I know I bring my own twist to these sources. I know that sometimes I veer so far away from the original source that the art has little to no relation to the original source.

In terms of internal and catharsis, inspiration is more complicated. I write a lot about my feelings and I think that form of creativity takes care of internal imagery for me. With my quiltmaking, I am more interested in color, shape and line. I don’t always have those images in my head. With catharsis, again, I write, though I have made some art to try and get painful experiences out and work through them. Quiltmaking doesn’t always provide an adequate venue for working through problems. Again, I write.

The worksheet is very good in this chapter and I am actually feeling good about working on it.

What do you think about finding your voice?

You can see the last post on this topic from last week.

Nota bene: we are working through Carrie Bloomston’s book, The Little Spark. Buy it. Support the artist. Play along. There is much more to each spark than what I am writing. The original chapters will help you. Go buy Carrie Bloomston’s book, so you get the full benefit of her fabulousness! You can see my book review, which is what started this flight of fancy.