Another self analysis

As I returned for the night from a great workday in the castle workshop I hear the tinkling of bells from the deck. I have become familiar with this sound. It always seems to invite me to meditation and once I am ready it enters my mind and plants the thought path I should follow. This is the way my wisdom tree calls me and I look forward to answering it. It always directs me to something I need to understand. The tree was the best thing I added to this apartment.

Once in my comfortable lounging pajamas I took my mat into the window alcove and positioned myself in a comfortable position facing the setting sun. No sooner has I gotten into the lotus position and breathed deeply, straightening my spine skyward, I became receptive. I heard the instructions resounding in my brain; Compare your obsessive desire to finish in your fabric creations compared to your creative process in painting.

What do those two have to do with each other? They are completely different activities. From past experiences I have found that the most spiritual truths lay hidden, and there seems to be many hidden agendas in everything we do so I need to look deeper. We think we want to help another and find out we were really helping ourselves. That may be a poor analogy but I know what I mean, so I reluctantly started picking the sentence apart.

First, it is true that when I get deep in the painting process, particularly oils, time has no meaning and I could take weeks, months and even a year to satisfactorily finish an oil. Water colors are quicker, but I throw away many until I reach a point that satisfies me, which makes the finished project take a long time to produce results.

Fabric: I have concentrated on totes as my sewing skills are minimal. So why did I take up this craft when I really do not like to sew? I never enjoyed the process, just the finished product, and now is it happening again. I wanted to design the fabric myself, paint and dye, transfer line drawings into embroidery and create original designs. YES, now I remember, I wanted to create art work in cloth. I started out with purses, but found I was spending way too much time trying to figure out how to sew different embellishments into the purse and maneuver complicated configurations. I hate directions which I consider detrimental. to creativity, so that is why I settled on totes, book covers, etc. but…. ! OH dear,I get it. I have so many ideas that I have now gotten into the mind set of wanting to get this one done as I have already cut out the next one. I have become compulsive on getting this one done when an idea may require more detail work and time. I push through more simply and leave out the great ideas that would make it different. I even stopped taking the time to add the right beads or other time consuming embellishments. I now produce a great tote with no originality.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to break a compulsion