Saturday, February 05, 2005

A Little Progress is a Dangerous Thing

Here is how I spent my day, preparing to make art:
1. Searched for the Tyvek
2. Found some UFO's (UnFinished Objects) where I thought the Tyvek should be.
3. Spent a half-hour looking for backing fabrics for the UFO's.
4. Cut backing and batting for the UFO's.
5. Realized I could quilt them all at once on the longarm machine, if I used larger backing and batting, so I cut some more.
6. Having in the meantime lost the UFO's, found them again.
7. What to have for lunch? (Since I'm on the Jenny Craig diet, this was not as major a decision as it might have been.)
8. Still hungry, what can I have? A-HA! Yogurt!
9. Should I quilt the UFO's first, or paint the Tyvek?
10. Realized that I have no acrylic paints for the Tyvek, can I use fabric paints?
11. Cut small pieces of Tyvek, painstakingly painted them with fabric paints.
12. Searched for the heat gun, in the process finding my old iron and some great stamps that I thought I had lost.
13. Heat-stressed the painted Tyvek pieces, which promptly curled up into hard little bundles, un-stitchable, but possibly usable as lapel pins.
14. Painted some more Tyvek, larger pieces this time.
15. Heat-stressed them with the iron, not as dramatic and also not usable.
16. Searched again for acrylic paints, found some old Tumble Dyes that might work.
17. Shuffled out into the back yard in my oversized t-shirt/nightgown and sockless tennies, to spray the dyes on the Tyvek ... BIG piece this time. Pretty.
18. Heat-gunned the Tyvek, verrrrrry carefully, but still ended up with some holes. This piece might work as a small quilt top.
19. Searched for the cut backing and battings, which have gone missing.
20. Found them and loaded them on the longarm, placed the UFO's in line and ... no room for the Tyvek piece.
21. Gave up and went to bed ... "tomorrow is another day".

WHAT was I thinking?

Woke up this morning with a sudden urge to create a blog ... which I never thought I'd do. But since I've been inspired by some of my on-line QuiltArt friends (about whom more later), thought I'd take the plunge. Maybe it will help to break the artistic block I've been suffering for the last few months.

F-e-a-r ... fear of failure, fear that I have nothing to offer to the art world, fear that I'm really nothing more than a crafter. I'm a pretty good technician, can follow and execute instructions, but have a terrible time making myself experiment. Today is the day I change all that.

... we shall see.