an appropriate season for reinvention

Some time has passed since I last posted. I decided to put a halt on everything I was working on and reassess everything I am doing. I came to realize that I have been at quite an impasse creatively since I experienced a great loss in 2012. With a multitude of life changes, good and bad, that followed I haven’t been able to find my way out of the fog. I lost sight as to the psychological benefits of creation – the whole reason I embraced making dolls in the first place. 

I became too consumed with just getting through a piece. In doing this I bogged myself down, the process started taking longer and longer and I wasn't enjoying any part of it. Indecision became the bane of my existence – it led to me settling on creative choices that I was not happy with in the end. I couldn't get what was in my head out into the tangible world.

I hate living in this state. I can’t live in this state. So, when I was floundering with my current batch of mimics (going back and forth with clothing decisions, struggling with their balance, making items – tossing them out – repeat) I decided to stop. To just stop. Put everything aside and not feel guilty that nothing was progressing. I forgot about them. I didn't think about them. Or their garments. Or their balance. Or the amount of time I had invested in them. Or what I’d like to work on after them. After being only partially there mentally, I checked out completely.

It was exactly what I needed. This week I have come back to my work, but not because I felt I had to. I am back because I want to – I finally feel clear. I am going slow – enjoying every little step again. It’s funny how easily I figured out a solution to my balance problem. And how easily a clear picture of the garments came after I let go. I no longer feel rushed to finish them, I am just enjoying making them. It’s a sensation I haven’t felt in a very long time.

Most of my day is still devoted to various motherhood activities, but at least now I am spending little one’s nap time with happy, busy hands instead of standing still in a state of overwhelming anxiety. 



Photographs:

• coffee stained thread
  
• hand sewn hip joints
  
• attachment of thigh & lower leg