of weaving my own path

Yesterday I finished a little weaving on a tiny loom that Sam made for some workshops I did last year. There were a few looms left over and I brought three inside with a basket of yarn for the kids and me to work on as we wanted. 

I started the weaving well, and contentedly. But then after a short while I started to feel like I didn't know what I was doing, or more to the point that I wasn't doing it right. I pushed the weaving aside to look at Instagram and see the other people on there who I follow who do quite stunning and amazing weaving artworks. I looked and looked and felt a whole lot inadequate. 

I haven't been taught how to weave, aside from as a child by my mother and at school. I haven't done any workshops or online tutorials. Or even looked at a how-to book on weaving. The weaving making that I do is fairly innate and self-taught. The memory of under-over-under-over. But the knowing of any other special stitches or how to make the exact right way of setting up or finishing or adding embellishments. All of that is unknown to me. Unknown except for what my brain tells me might be the right way. 

I sat with this feeling of not knowing, and being wrong for only a short amount of time. I pulled my weaving back in front of me. With my selection of colours and yarns I told myself that the very first humans to ever weave and make cloth or fibre of any sort didn't have a teacher except their mother or father, and didn't have a book or a fancy workshop. They had their materials and their human innate understanding of maybe how something could work. They didn't know if it would work or not, but they kept on trying until it did. And they kept on listening to their own thoughts and intelligence. 

The weaving I have made I am not sure if it would be classified as art or craft or design or simply over-under-over-under of yarn through yarn. But what I do know is that when I made it (and I make more, not just weaving but other makings) I felt good and like I was following - making - my own journey and not following someone else's journey or rules or pathway. And when I look at this weaving I see a piece that talked to the maker and the maker talked to it. A conversation and communication between hands, mind, soul and materials. 

This, I realised, is the best way for me to create. To make with my own inner guidance, to use my understanding of how things work and not have to follow. I don't have to lead either. I just have to happily meander along my own path. 

I have entitled this weaving 'she whispered in my ear'.

*this piece was written some many months ago, sitting in my drafts - for some reason never published. I like adding it to my story now - as since this piece I have found my own direction and non-path path for weaving. I have learnt new stitches, I have taught other people how to discover their own weaving styles. I have talked, conversed, listened to my materials and time and time again been delighted in the tales we tell each other, in the stories we create together..... the yarns we weave. 

{Daily Creative} Make Marks Daily

My mantra for this year is to Create Daily, each and every day. It doesn't matter what it is, or if it's perfect or finished or exactly what I had in mind. None of that matters, as long as every day I am making exploring adventuring with my creative side. 

I meet people (at my workshops or at markets) who say they aren't creative at all. "I'm an accountant, I don't have a creative bone in me".... and such. I say bah! to that. I think everyone has the ability to create beauty in their lives. Every body has creativity, sometimes they just have to explore and discover it. And oftentimes we all have to push aside we preconceived notions of creativity having to result in something artistic or perfect, or exactly what we see in our head. Mostly it's not like that at all. 

Cooking a meal for our families every night is an opportunity to show some creativity, or arranging a bunch of flowers - rather than just plonking them in a vase. Even scattering cushions across a couch, or tying a ribbon in your daughters hair. All these things are creative. Humans naturally seem to be negative about their abilities (except for those that seem to over-talk their abilities!), rather than simply doing and not judging. It's important to take the joy in the doing and that in itself is creative enough. 

I wanted to share a few creatives who have been making marks each day, through their own journal-ling process. To not have any expectations of themselves except to "make marks daily". 

Claire Atkins is a ceramicist and artist who lives and works from her beach side home near Byron Bay, NSW. She works under the name Pinky & Maurice. She lives in a warm and handcrafted home - encouraging her two teenage children with their own creativity. Claire is working on a #makemarksdaily project through her Instagram feed. Join in with Claire's #makemarksdaily tag on IG, or perhaps through your facebook page or blog.

Belinda Marshall is a Melbourne based artist and surface designer, who works with colour and mark making line work in a beautiful evocative way. Belinda is currently working on a daily #arteveryday2014 project, creating a small piece in her diary each day. I am loving this approach to her creative artistic practice - to simply make, paint, draw "I have started a daily art project, just like that! Even if it's only this tiny and sketchy!" You can see Belinda's daily project on her Instagram account, or check out her bigger artworks on her website.

I aim for this series Daily Creative to be a fortnightly addition to my blog. I'd love you to join along if you're on a daily or even weekly creative making project.

* all images, except top one (which is mine), used with thanks from Claire Atkins and Belinda Marshall.