An Artist's Fears

Blank. That is how I am feeling creatively at the moment. Tied with that, is fear. I'm feeling a lot of fear.

It seems I am in another round of self doubt and creative block. I've yet to find my style. My niche. There are so many options. So much you can do with fabric. Piece it. Collage it. Paint it. Distress it. Bleach it. Stamp it. The possibilities are expansive, and I have tried so many of them. I've still not committed to one (or even a few) of them.

I feel very confused right now, and I don't know where to go from here. Everyone always says to create for yourself, and not worry about what will sell. Right now, I suspect they are all liars that are just looking to reduce the competition they have for the art they create FOR others. (Okay, so I'm slightly cynical today.)

In all seriousness, most of my life has always been doing/saying things to make other people happy. To please them. Not upset them. I went to school for graphic design - the entire ideology is to create things that people will like. How do you move away from that? Am I really only making pieces I think others will like? I honestly feel as though I'm making things *I* like - and that is even scarier, because it's not working.

Rationally I realize that the deeper problem is fear.

Yesterday I shipped seven of my pieces off to The Yarn Gallery in Grand Rapids, MN. I met the store owner on a trip up there, she saw my website and asked if I would like to show some work there to try and sell. Busyness and fear (honestly, mostly busyness!) delayed the items getting there a month longer that I'd have liked.


It was a very uncomfortable process for me. Pricing them. Packaging them. Questioning the pricing. Sending it anyway. Now it is the waiting period. Will others like them? Will anyone buy them? Will the shop owner be appalled at the prices? Will she wonder, "Who does SHE think she is?"

This is precisely why I've never tried doing something like this before to be honest. I feel like no one will want to buy them anyways, so why bother to try and get them shown places. On top of, how do you approach places to do this? I was fortunate that a couple of friends introduced me to the owner at The Yarn Gallery.

Do all artist's have this much fricken self doubt? Will it always be like this? Is there a rule book somewhere that tells you how to shape and construct your art career? How do you know when you're ready to start approaching shops and galleries? Where else do you sell? Am I just not putting enough time into sales?

Universe, if you're listening, I really need some guidance here! Where do I go from here?

We Have a Winner!

I sure hope everyone had a Merry Christmas this year! I know I did! Here's the rundown of my art/fiber related loots!

Books: Kick-Ass Creativity by Mary Beth Maziarz, The Power of Intention by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, and Create Your Own Hand-Printed Cloth by Rayna Gilman!

 Awesome hand-made wallet:

 Tiny owl felt pin:

 And two scarves: (I look awesome in both BTW! ;)

But, what you're really looking for is the winner of the embellishment grab bag give away, yes? Being that it's Christmas time, even though we did not get the 50 comments, I went ahead and had dear hubby draw two names!

So, Sally Wescott and Wil Opio Oguta, please send your full mailing address to me at thefibernation@gmail.com and I will get them sent out to you! You have until January 1st to get your info to me, but the sooner you let me know the sooner you have your goodies! Merry Christmas!!

My Top 11 Fiber/Quilt Art Blogs

I am diligently working on a free holiday pattern that I think a lot of you will like - can you believe it? I went traditional on this one! So look for that within the next week or so - want to give you plenty of time to get it done for Thanksgiving, the start of the 2010 holiday season.

But today I want to share with you the top 11 blogs I read often. Eleven? you say, well yes. I was going to go with ten, but I couldn't cut it down, so I went with 11 - a nod to Spinal Tap for those of you that "get it"! Here they are in no particular order!

 Virginia A. Spiegel

 Fiber Reflections

 Quilting is a Fine Art

 Janet's Fiber Artistry News

 Sue Bleiweiss

 Pokey Bolton 

Fiber Art Calls for Entry

 There's my top 11 - what blogs do YOU read? 

Say Cheese and Macro-roni!

Between the blog and getting images together for my portfolio I have been doing a lot of camera work lately. There is an option on most digital cameras that are an incredibly useful tool to quilters and fiber artists, and I'm not sure how many of you are aware of it and how to use it! It's the Macro option!

How many times have you tried to take a good close up pictures of the quilting details of your pieces, only to get a blurry unfocused image? The macro option clears up those images and opens up a whoe new world to you!

You can clearly see the difference in these shots. The left side images are taken with the normal option selected, the right side images are the same objects but with the macro option selected on my camera.

 So how do we accomplish this? I made a short little video that should help you out!

Now, the cool thing is, that once you learn this you have another design tool literally at your fingertips!

There are two reasons that I use my macro, 1. Detail shots and 2. Inspirational shots to use in my pieces. Let's take a look at samples from the latter - can't you just imagine these in a quilt/fiber art piece?

Foiled Again!

Sometimes a piece needs a little extra shine on it, and a good way to do that is with foils! So here are a few ways to use them!
Things you will need:

Ironing board, iron, foils, stitch witchery, wonder under, parchment paper

Stitch Witchery - Applied To Foil:

In this method, I simply fuse the stitch witchery to NON shiny side of the foil (shiny side up, with the fusible underneath):

Then I can cut the foil into whatever shape I need, here I cut out a heart. Place foil, fusible side down, cover with parchment and iron.

Once cooled a bit, slowly peel the foil away from the fabric.

Wonder Under - Applied To Foil

Just like the stitch witchery method, but we have a paper backing to peel off after ironing the foil to it. Then cut out shape, iron to fabric, then peel the foil back slower.

Fusible To Fabric First:

In this method, I cut my fusible out the shape that I want, then place it down on the fabric. (**note** For the Wonder Under you must peel the paper backing away from the fusible webbing.) In the image below, the left side is Wonder Under, the right is stitch witchery.

Lay the foil over the fusible piece, shiny side up. Cover with parchment paper and iron. When cool enough to touch, slowly peel the foil back.

Now get out those foils from that class you took years ago, and have fun playing!