I know that the title is also the name of a commercial quilt, by Jen Kingwell, that I've been working on sporadically for the past few years, but it describes my ambition or desire to work hard on new art pieces. This house has been filled with degrees of illness since the new year, but now I feel myself emerging from that cloud. During this time, I found myself drifting toward more hand work than machine work. Then, in an effort to jump start my ambition, I joined Textileartists.org one week "Stitch Camp". Oh my! Five days of prompts involving fabric painting, mark making and hand stitching. My piece is almost finished, but my camera/computer problems are not yet resolved.
Following that, I "bit the bullet" and joined the Textileartists.org website. This is quite expensive for someone living on a pension, but, so far, I'm well pleased. Not only am I receiving a new workshop every week, but I have access to workshops from over the past two years. These all involve hand stitching, but some are not up to my skill or experience level. ( Not bragging here but rather simply facing facts. Hand work was my first love) All ready I have been exposed to a couple of techniques that were just not part of my past experience, and which excite me.
Given how difficult it has been to produce new work over the past year, I chose to withdraw from upcoming Gallery show, planned for May 2022. I have struggled to produce for this, only to have it cancelled twice in the past two years. That decision took a great weight off my shoulders, and may have contributed to my emerging creativity.
