contemplating toes

maybe it's the strange weather we've been having in these parts...or maybe i'm just growing restless for change of some kind. so i've been contemplating my toes a lot lately. letting the thoughts ebb and flow as they will. amongst these thoughts have been those of the many cloths that i have floating around the studio. do i hold fast to my self-pledge to finish them up before moving on to another? this has been a question that has plagued my mind for some time now. the anal-retentive bit of my brain is screaming in agony at the thought of what i might do in that arena. ha! and scream it may...

another perspective on this issue, which i know many of you struggle with as well, is whether it serves our creative need to shackle ourselves to these whims. through many hours of toe contemplation, i have found a different vantage point from which to look. it seems to me that these cloths will get done. some day. but i need to let go of their insistence and allow them to be what they are. exercises in technique and idea. from this place flows a quiet knowing that seems to allow the creative flow more latitude. i can feel an opening. a spaciousness that was not present whilst chained to the notion that these exercises...these studies...must be completed before progress can be made. i can almost hear the masters chuckling as sheaves of incomplete studies of form and design are tucked into drawers and folios to be forgotten until generations to come drag them out and tack them up on studio walls, exclaiming "genius!"

listening, then, to the creative muse whispering within, i find myself digging through the studio. closets. storage bins. exploring. hearing. and i am beginning to put together a few ideas. i feel the need to work large. perhaps even LARGE! to incorporate skills and techniques culled from years of exploration. paints. paper perhaps. dyes. metals. ephemera. beads. threads.

the seed that is germinating is suggesting some form of figure study. on a grand scale. in cloth and pigment. defined in thread and stitch. augmented with other media. perhaps a single piece. or a series. it all sounds so lofty and ambitious. too ambitious? let's hope not. but i am gathering. formulating. will begin sketching and planning. or not...and allow it to simply manifest. does this all sound too mysterious? i do not mean to be...perhaps it is just that an idea is much more difficult to convey than the manifestation of that idea. so we will just have to wait and see what begins to rise from this mist...

meanwhile, there is time for contemplating toes...and allowing.

namaste'