i think there’s something in the air. everyone i know seems to be in a funk lately, including me.

i thought that spring was supposed to be the harbinger of excitement and possibilties, not malaise…

sometimes when i teach people how to knit or do some other sort of crafty thing, they tell me that they’re scared that they aren’t going to be any good. ‘how do you know when you’ve only just started,’ is what i try to remember to answer, when i know that i question myself constantly, too.

why am i doing this or that? what is driving me? lately it seems that everyone around me is asking themselves questions just like these.

today i read the following by the always inspiring Louise Bourgeois (if you’re wondering ‘who is that?’ here’s a brief bio):

from Art in Sanity:
.First Visit.
The connections that I make in my work are connections that
I cannot face.
They are really unconscious connections.
The artist has the privilege of being in touch with his or her
unconscious, and this really is a gift.
It is the definition of sanity.
It is the definition of self-realization.

.Fifth Visit.
My emotions are inappropriate to my size. So they bother me?
And I really have to get rid of them.
My emotions are my demons. The intensity…
It’s not the emotions themselves, it’s the intensity of the emotions- much
too much for me to handle.
And that is why I transform them. I transfer the energy to sculpture.
This applies to everything I do.
It has nothing to do with the craft.
It has nothing to do with the skills.
It has nothing to do with how to manage materials.
Materials are only materials, nothing more.
Materials are not the subject of the artist.
The subject of the artist is: Emotions… and ideas…
Both.

sometimes we think too much. instead of listening to that whisper of our inner selves, we self-analyze and self-critique and therefore, stand still.

of course, a rut is a rut only if you climb out the other side.

it’s that energy that allows us to create and grow. so why do we so often lose track of it despite the fact that we know it’s always there?