The seasons of our creative lives
Last week I sat down at my weaving loom for the first time for many months. And bleeping hell did it feel good. Really really good! And I'm suddenly addicted to loom weaving all over again. And it got me thinking about all the creative pursuits I have, and how I fit them into my days. But actually it got me thinking even more about how sometimes I feel desperately like basket weaving, or dyeing fabric, or stitching, or crochet, or loom weaving, or photography.... or sometimes none at all. And how this is all good and ok. How sometimes I simply don't feel like sitting at my weaving loom, or sometimes I don't feel like sewing or picking up a crochet hook. And I started to think about how I personally have different 'seasons' for my creative making. And I wondered if you might too? What I mean by this is that at certain times throughout my days, weeks or even in a year I'm drawn to different types of making, different ways of making, different techniques & processes & materials & even outcomes. I realised that rather than ending up being inconsistent in my creative practice, what I've been doing is going with the flow of life, and allowing myself to slip easily within the different things that I enjoy and not be held tied up to something that can't fit into life at that moment.
Being a mother and an artist is a whole conversation of it's own. Well it's actually more than one conversation. It's a motherhood-lifetime of thoughts, words, ideas, anguish, conversations, turmoil, joy, overcoming, working through, pondering. And maybe once or twice actually getting down to doing some making. So it's with this motherhood / artist juxtaposition that I've realised it doesn't have to be a fight, a divide - perhaps it can be more a yin / yang. Finding the unbalanced balance, the imperfect perfect. That idea.
So. The actual true and real reasons I haven't sat at the weaving loom is because of family life, and the smallest child mainly. When he was a baby he lay quietly beside my loom while I wove (and it made for sweet pictures too!), but as he grew and became more active I couldn't tied to a loom that sits rigidly still. And as he became quite aware of what I was working on, he wanted to be part of it too. And not having my own proper studio space always meant weaving in the lounge-room, where he loved to pull at my yarns (which of itself is ok), but pulling at my weaving, disturbing the tension of my warp, destroying the stitches I'd stitched. All aside from constantly climbing on me, and dragging me outside to play and jump in muddy puddles. Picking up and putting down my weaving became harder and harder. Eventually my loom sat in the corner of the lounge-room for a few months, with spiders building homes in the fluffy yarn, before I packed it up and stored it away. I tried a few times here and there. But the reality of having children, of being a stay-at-home mother before I'm an artist, meant that smaller more portable crafts and creative moments needed to be picked up.
Which is where the seasonal aspect comes in. Each time in my months as a mother has given new breath for different making. New space depending on the busier or slower aspects of the children's ages or activities. Sometimes I can only crochet something the size of a pebble, other times I carried around blankets that I crocheted stitch by stitch. Lately (the last 9 months) I've been working on basket weaving because raffia is easier to pick up and stitch one slow stitch at a time. Without having to count stitches or remember a pattern, or worry about finishing a row before you're dragged away.
And like the seasons in each year, when we really stop and simply enjoy where we are, without longing for the past or the future - then the present season is exceedingly special. It brings what we need in terms of nourishment, being propelled outside or brought inside, of quietness or noisiness, of slow or fast. We're headed slowly into Autumn here, and I love this season as much as the Summer we've just left, and the Winter that will follow soon enough. I love it not for being in between, but for being it's own self. For teaching new things that Summer can't teach, nor Winter can show. And if I apply this thinking to my different creative spaces I've found that being in my season of crochet or my moment of basket weaving, or my year of natural dye - then each one teaches, gives, shows, provides different things.
One of the remarkable side-effects of all this seasonal time, means that when I'm in my off season my brain is thinking and tumbling and processing and pondering. Wondering & wandering. And that sort of thing. So that when I finally sat at my weaving loom last week, with the yarns I've been dyeing in my botanical dye pots. And I had the quiet time I so desperately was craving. And the small baby isn't so small anymore. When all that happened. And the season of weaving came around again. You know what! I think it's going to be quite an amazing season. I think after all this waiting, and getting on with enjoying all the other makings and time, and realising the other seasons are just as beautiful. Well - suddenly things are blossoming because like the lemon or orange trees in our garden that begin as buds last Spring and spend all year growing slowly slowly slowly. Everything is helping and working with that fruit, towards Winter. The fruits soak up everything the tree gives it, while the tree still nourishes itself. Or the magnolia that seems to take almost a whole year before those buds open to reveal the most magnificent bloom you may ever have seen. A whole year of growth the create something. Where most of the growth is quiet, slow, hidden. And then BOOM! You're hit with the season when everything is ripe and ready and blooming and glowing.
That's how I feel. I've spent the season of lying breastfeeding River, pondering while slowing slowing growing. And now. I'm ripe. I'm ready. I'm blooming! The weave I just took off the loom feels like something different to me, for me. A few way to working. A new way of expressing myself. Like I've been hiding and planning, and then I finally had the right space - the right season - to say 'hey, here I am. THIS is me!'. Do you ever feel like that? Do you know what I mean? Or am I just rambling again.....?
This blog post was originally published on my old blog, which can now sadly not be accessed due to internet things..... , in March of 2017.
