{"id":1768,"date":"2009-05-08T04:17:46","date_gmt":"2009-05-08T11:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/?p=1768"},"modified":"2016-05-23T20:48:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-24T03:48:00","slug":"essay-on-notebooks-creativity-and-podcast-influences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/essay-on-notebooks-creativity-and-podcast-influences\/","title":{"rendered":"Essay on Notebooks, Creativity and Podcast Influences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary: essay on art vs. craft and my rambling journey to find out my truth on this subject.<\/p>\n

I have a notebook in my car. It is a spiralbound Strathmore sketchbook. I bought it about six months ago when I ran out of gas receipts on which to write directions, radio ad URLs and to do lists.<\/p>\n

It is a bit of a sad sketchbook. Its promise isn’t really realized because it stays in the car. I don’t usually bring it into the house. It is a little bit bent from being jammed in the pocket of the driver’s side door. I don’t use colorful pens, pastels or pencils on the pages. I usually don’t sketch in it. I haven’t decorated the cover. It is utilitarian and serves a function<\/p>\n

This sketchbook, by some strange twists in my mind, reminded me of an unsolicited “pep talk” someone gave me about being an artist at a recent art quilt gathering. The well intentioned person had just seen the Eye Spy quilt.<\/p>\n

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Finished top with borders<\/dd>\n
\"Finished<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Somehow, this quilt was seminal for me. This very plain (as in non-artquilty) and ordinary quilt for The Child jolted me back into art quiltmaking.<\/p>\n

I think I started writing this blog do just that – to record the process, to give myself some accountability and to inspire myself at a time when I was trying to build creativity into the few nooks and corners of a very full life and overstuffed schedule. I realized, that day, in showing the Eye Spy quilt that it worked!!! It took some time, but it worked!!!! In recording my process, I was ready to come back to working on some of my half finished art quilts.<\/p>\n

At that gathering, I was trying to explain these feelings to the group and mentioned something I heard Wayne Thiebaud say when asked if he was an artist. His response was that he was a painter and that he would let history judge his work while he went on and painted every day. I love<\/strong> the fact that he has chosen to do his work and worry about what people think later.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it isn’t humility; I don’t know the man personally, after all, but success that allows him to think that way?<\/p>\n

In any case, my well meaning co-attendee said that I should say I am an artist and think of myself as an artist and then I would be an artist. She related her experience of doing the same thing and how it had changed her life.<\/p>\n

I certainly want success with my quilts, but I don’t believe that by making stuff and saying *I* am an artist automatically makes *me* an artist. I don’t think that other people have to say that I am an artist to be an artist either. For me, it just doesn’t seem that easy.<\/p>\n

Regardless of what I do I want to be happy. I am happy:<\/p>\n