Its all in the details...

Like so many of us, a lot of my work is produced as a result of deadlines. Deadlines for shows I want to enter, deadlines for shows I want to curate, deadlines for guild challenges, deadlines deadlines deadlines.

And I'm not complaining about this. Well, okay, maybe I am a little. I've decided that next year I am going to concentrate on building a body of work and lay off entering shows. I have some interesting prospects for curating that I want to pursue but I need to actually work.

So what prompted my examination of my obsession with deadlines? Well, I got back some work from a show the other day. I had two quilts in PAQA-South's show ARTQUILTSimages. I had sent them out shortly after finishing them and they were on tour with the show for two years. I spent a long time looking at those quilts. And I realized with a start that I think they are pretty good.

That my sound stupid but I tend to go through the whole "My work is poop. I don't know why I make art. Why do I bother?" You know, the whole tortured angsty artist thing that annoyingly gets in the way of making work. Because if you really think about it, it doesn't matter if your work is the best or the greatest, what matters is that you need to make it and do.

So after getting those quilts back and feeling like I was seeing my work with a new eye, I went and started poking around my own website. I just posted a new version and that has lots of extreme close up photos this time. Those close up photos are making me actually see the work rather then just concentrating on finishing and getting it to wherever it needs to be.

I'm realizing that its about the details. Its about stopping and realizing that what you make is a part of you and that it really matters that you just work. Not everything has to be the best thing ever produced.

For me its really important to get emotion into the piece. And when I look at these photos, I feel like I'm seeing things for the first time.

So if you are feeling like I do, like your artwork is speeding by you on its way out into the world, take a photo and really stop and look at it. What you see in that photo is what people see when they look at it for the first time and I think you will be pleasantly surprised.