prowling
I don’t know how any of you people really work, and I suspect that you all have different ways of approaching a piece. Perhaps too, the response you make varies from piece to piece. I am prowler when I work. I need to check things out, collect ideas, information, materials. Leave them alone. Prowl around for more ideas, more information, inspiration. Forget about things. Prowl again. I need to research until the cows not only come home, but go out again. If I am couching, I need three dozen couching samples to look at. 8 different ways of doing them. I need to collect and collect and collect, and then, when I am fed up, I can start. It’s very tiring, but it’s how things happen.
I am the same whether I am planning a holiday, a lesson, a menu, stitching. Sometimes, just sometimes, I go with first thoughts. It’s very refreshing, very rewarding. I love it when I cut straight to the chase. But mostly I prowl. Not entirely sure why-except I am an obsessive collector of knowledge. I figure the more I know about something, the more connections I can make. Perhaps it is because I am just a natural procrastinator. Why do today what you can do perfectly well next week? Except, I don’t really seek to put things off-I just find it difficult to get started. No, not even that. I don’t find it difficult to start, just that after I start, I want to change something, so I would rather not start until I have thought about all the possibilties. See how tiring this is?
So here I am, working on my laidwork samples, having researched them of course. And I am reading about different laidwork techniques and looking at patterned darning, and spotting the connections with that and Bangladeshi kanthas and wishing that perhaps instead of chasing all these elusive hares of thought, I could just get on with something!
I am going to make some reference pages of all of the links I am finding as I wander through these stitching labyrinths. In case anyone else is a prowler , who might also find them useful. Oh no, now I am going to have to look up labyrinths. And mazes. And mind mapping.
I can relate to “idea gathering” prior to a project and I surely know about procrastinating until I’ve gleaned all I can. Alot of the enjoyment I get from doing anything is in the research stage. But I’m getting anxious to loose that part of procrastination thats based on waiting till I feel I can achieve a level of perfection which is just a creative quagmire in disguise.
I read this with a wry smile – I know how it is to want (need) to gather all possible bits of information and permutations before launching!
K
http://artistsgardenstudio.wordpress.com/
I LOVE mind mapping! My work colleagues used to sigh amusedly when I turned up with a flip chart and coloured pens, they knew exactly where the meeting would be headed.
In fact I was talking about it with an ex-colleague when we met up for lunch on Tuesday. I mentioned I’d done one at my creative writing course the other week and she said ‘You didn’t get you coloured pens out did you?’
I like to do the same thing… I research everything to death and then wing it. I can’t seem to do it any other way so now I just go with the flow and enjoy it!
when it comes to embroidery i suspect i should do a little more prowling before i jump in with both feet – i do that with books and words and ideas – when i was young (even in primary school) i would look up every word i didnt know in a dictionary… then….rogets then ….. encyclopedias and before i knew it the school assignment was due and i knew a lot of new stuff….but I would have to rush to get it all on paper. even now reading a low brow novel i will start to do research on the side….
ps i havent forgotten about scanning the kantha info. very slack – i will do it anon.
Here is my tip. (Can you tell I have bound myself over to write 50,000 words of fiction this month?) Set yourself a deadline. It can be a completely fake deadline. It should preferably be a deadly deadline that you think is beyond your reach. That should get you started quicksmart. The next trick is sustaining it. Tell other people about the deadline. Make sure you will feel guilty if you miss it, because they’ll know. Use your neurosis against yourself
The next trick is getting through it without hating yourself. The tip there is to not expect to produce the final product in the first draft. Lower your quality standards. It’s easier to start if you know you can later go back and *re*start. (Can you tell I have already done 40,100, and the month is still not even half over?)
I love teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, or even just my mother to stop faffing ;-P
How can you be so organised AND my daughter? Must be the paternal genes.
I adore research and, also, finding a larger frame of reference for sources of interest/inspiration that might seem disparate or chaotic otherwise. But I am not sure this is reflected in my work habits – I think I just look on it as another way I like to spend my time. Normally I seem to get the most authentic connection to my work by letting the raw materials lure me into experimental samples. Later on I may find connections to the research and files full of inspirational images, then I can tighten and refine what’s gone in the samples to make somewhat larger and (hopefully) more cohesive pieces based on the exploration as well as the research.
well, i too like the research part but i tend to start rather quickly and let the piece become a documentary of the research itself instead of a result of it. many time the experimental pieces are actually within the final product. i think that is why it takes so long….why it becomes slow cloth. thank you for this post. it made me say that to myself more clearly.
I achieved a gold medal in prowling when I did my degree. It was well worth the effort because it informs my work to this day. Hope you are well!!
Judith i am way behind in catching up on your blog. It is fun. This is an interesting observation about how you work – I find I am the same unless I force myself to dive in. Have you ever done a Myers Briggs personality assessment? You can find a lot of info on wikipedia about it. One of the things I remember is that one of mine was P or “perceiving’ and the person who did the assessment said one way to describe me would be that I was always looking for all the information I could possibly find before I could begin anything. It made me feel better to know it was just how I was.