I've blogged about how tough it can be for me to devote time to weaving, even though I love it.
I've also had great project momentum in the last few months, carrying my projects forward.
I think part of my difficulty getting going sometimes has to do with what Barbara Sher describes as the amount that I like to Design, Implement and Maintain. She describes her balance of those types of tasks in this video:
I think I'm about 80% design, 15% implement and 5% maintain.
I like nothing better than to come up with ideas, plans, schemes, designs - no matter what the subject.
If I execute for about 15% of the time, that's about all I want to actually get done myself.
And I have to struggle with maintenance....I have a hard time getting motivated to do maintenance tasks.
Knowing my natural tendencies helps me cope with my tendency to have tons of ideas and plans, without the energy to follow through on very many of them.
What about you? What's your unique blend of Design, Implement, Maintain???
Snapshot of Work in Play 📸
1 day ago
11 comments:
Oh my God, we must be twins separated at birth. :-)
What a great video! I could listen to her all day! Thanks for posting that. I'm heading to YouTube to see if I can find more. :-0
I always enjoy the planning process much more than the weaving process. Once I've done a bit and I can see the design come to life, I have to force myself to keep at it. But I'm also a completer by nature....I seem to be validated by the amount I have for each guild sale.....what a weird dicotomy now that I think of it!
My problem is that my "real" job cuts into my craft time, which cuts into family time. So I end up with very little time to actual accomplish anything. And, lets face it, I'm probably around 90 percent design.
Really interesting! But it seems to me that some things don't divide into the three aspects, or at least not for everyone. Sometimes the design and implement stages are completely entwined (writing), or the implement and maintain stages (rearing small children, restoration carpentry). I'll bet there must be a lot of weavers like Lynnette out there. I know designing without implementing always leaves me with an empty feeling, as if I've been eating candy when my body wanted real food. And implementing without designing is really tedious! As a teen I planned to go to an art school and study illustration. Then I took some college level art classes in high school and it dawned on me that fine art education is a *whole system* based on first playing and experimenting your way to technical competence and later (if at all) developing a capacity for intentional design. I didn't enjoy playing with the media for their own sake the way the other art students did, so art school would have been a total slog for me.
You know what strikes me after reading your post? Blogging is a perfect vehicle for doing good in the weaving world with your 80%!
I think I have the same problem, I plan more than I make but I think the planning itselfe is also a good exercise you learn a lot from that too. I like weaving long pieces of fabric and turn them into something like a garnment or some bags etc. only becourse you can just trow the shuttle count the threadlings and think of nothing else it is so relaxing. What I don't like is weaving something becourse someone asked me to make something for them. I don't mind giving stuff away but that should be something I made becourse I liked making it. Weaving something for someone who wants me to weave something seems like such a waist of time becourse it is usual something I don't really like myselfe.(do I make any sence now?)
P.S. I love Barbara Sher, too. I attended one of her Learning Annex seminars here in San Diego several years ago, and it was wonderful. I also took one of her online web classes on resistance - got some great insights, though I still struggle with it. :-)
While I love designing, I design to play on the loom. I love an afternoon of me, some Celtic music, and the clacking of the loom as I weave pick after pick in pure enjoyment. Then, when it is done, I love looking at my creation and feeling the peace of being its creator.
I love designing and planning. There just isn't enough time to make everything I design or think of.
I love to make the things I have planned and see if I can really do what I've planned (usually pretty complicated) and I especially love the extra part of the warp I've put on to make more designs. I call that playing.
I love to finish things and see that the things I didn't really plan are better than the things I did design. Often they don't look as I expected them. I put them on the shelf and come back to them weeks/days/years later. Then I can't believe my eyes: did I really make that?
Each part of the creative process has for me its own value and I love them all.
Yes - I love the beginning and the end of a process. I love the dream of designing and the thrill of seeing it come to life. There's even a that same level of thrill in the first 1/3 of the implementation when I can start to see the real thing. If it were up to me there would be no maintenance, but of course, I need to eat and bathe and wash clothes - but in my art, there really is none. Once it's completed, I move on to something else. So percentages.... 70%, 30%, 5% - not far from yours...
Thanks for shariing this
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