Intention

Oh my. Oh well. I have a lot to say, but hardly know where to begin.

I will warn you that I am in a very inwardly contemplative mood. Thinking very self-absorbed thoughts, probably not pretty, about the artwork that I have been doing. It has not been very satisfying lately. I am tired of myself and what I have been doing and been in severe need of a whack alongside my head. (Figurative, not literal. Don't touch my head!) The nasturtiums were probably the final straw. I know a lot of you said you liked them and I appreciate that. It wasn't so much the final product that got to me (though it does strike me as a bloated and desperate piece), as it was the experience. My heart wasn't in it. I finally (finally!) realized that I have gotten onto a detour somewhere and bogged down in technique and materials and curlicues and themes! Oh, the themes. Everything I have done for months has been for some show with a theme. I think I said more than a year ago that I wasn't going to do that anymore. Then I got right back on that theme horse and there I have been.

I have made some work, using the show theme that I loved doing—that "Fire" piece for example. That was really fun. One of my favorite ever pieces was this Douglas fir cone. There is a clean, simplicity in this that is really where my heart lies. It was also made to a theme, but the theme hardly mattered. This was something I wanted to do.

So I am making an effort to step back and reconsider some things and shake myself up. I started by taking a class from Elizabeth Barton last week. Our guild brought her to Portland for a two-day workshop and it seemed the perfect opportunity to experience a new point of view. I have long loved her work. (Look at the quilts on her web site. They really speak to me.) Her blog is one of my very favorites. Her class was called "Working in a Series" and she has inspired me to begin a series about architecture in Latin America. Her class was not about making quilts exactly like hers, it was an approach to planning and preparing and the discipline she believes is needed for work to be good. My wish is to work looser and with simpler forms and I discussed that with her.

I came away from the class with sketches and value studies and an idea. It is interesting that I started this year talking about some of the same things I am talking about here and I did not follow through. "Intention" was my word, but I did not grab hold of that intention. Perhaps now I can. I have made a start.