Artist's Block

There are days when inspiration packs a bag lunch and heads to the beach...I wouldn't mind doing the same.

Sometimes I stretch a piece of silk and the next thing I know I have a finished scarf, ideas flow like a river and colors seem to combine themselves...beautiful things happen and at some point after the sun has gone down and long after I should have stopped to eat something, I come up for air and stretch my tired fingers in amazement at what has transpired. Those are really great days.

Then there are the other times. The stretched fabric stares at me, defying me to mar it's purity with something so crass as color....maybe I just can't decide what to paint, or I have a concept but no shape...whatever it is, it's almost physically painful - to need to create and be unable to. These are the days when my ridiculously large collection of fiction books get re-alphabetized by author, and my fabric swatches get refolded and put away in size and color order. These are the times when I barricade myself in the bathroom with an old toothbrush and a container of baking soda - because NOW is the time that I'm finally going to conquer the miscolored shower grout.

Occasionally I am able to reroute creativity into another art form - movement really helps at these times, and some of my best choreography work has occurred on days when the silk refused to speak. Yoga also helps, or just going for a walk - but there are always days when nothing will come, no matter what I do.

I've come to both loath and respect my creative block days - if I never had them, I'd never have a clean apartment, and that in and of itself is a reward. Also, there's the miracle that occurs when you finally push through....something happens to break the dam and creativity comes flooding back in. Today is one of those days. After almost a week of staring at a single piece of silk on a stretcher frame, 5 am sleeplessness had me sketching, and now I'm waiting for my resist lines to dry so that I can put dye to fabric.  This piece is one I've been trying to get my head around for sometime and will hopefully turn out to be one of the pieces I will display at my very first art show in April.

Inspiration is back, and oh it does feel good.