My biggest block
isn't what you think it might be
It's not perfectionism or clutter or lack of time or even ADHD. It’s working out how to exchange what I make for what I need.
If we lived in a world where I could swap buttons for potatoes, I’d be sorted. I’ve got a lot of buttons. But we don’t - which is a terrible shame.
I’ve been extremely fortunate in that some truly lovely people have been very generous and have happily swapped their potatoes for my buttons in recent weeks. Some have signed themselves up for my Fab Free Motion course, and some came along to our exhibition, joined us for workshops, then went home with all sorts of lovely things that we’d made for them. Without them (you!) the show really could not go on.
But this afternoon, I’ve had to pootle back up to the Pavilion and take down everything that’s left. Which is quite a lot. I’m not sure where I’m going to put it all, nor what I’ll do with it next. So it’s all giving me pause for thought.
The thing is: arty people (there’s a lot of them about and you’re probably one of them) LOVE to look at other people’s art - to touch it, talk about it, admire it. Sometimes they buy it - but not always.
I know for a fact - because I’ve observed other people doing it - I’m not the only one to look deeply and longingly at a piece of work, cogs whirring, working out how….I could make something like it, myself.
In other words…
While we admire other people’s work…the majority of us want to make it ourselves.
And that’s super exciting news, if you’re a person who can teach them how 😅
But what about the actual STUFF???!! What do we DO with it all! I really can’t keep everything I make or want to make. But if I can’t sell it, and I can’t keep it, what’s the point?
When my brain is spinning with ideas, I have to get them out. I’ve tried not doing so, but it makes me sad. I also need to earn money, and be able to save some and not just go and spend it again on things to make more things. And I live in a small house
Three incompatible things
Rightly or wrongly, for reasons, I feel equally pulled to
do something to earn money and contribute to the household finances
do something significant and important, something with meaning or impact, something that uses my (checks notes…) talents, intelligence and qualifications…
do the things I’m naturally drawn to doing. Like making stuff.
It’s not that I want to lie around and watch daytime TV. If I didn’t have to find a way to do the first one, and I didn’t have the guilt of not ‘fulfilling my potential’ and doing the second one, I’d occupy my days quite happily doing the third one. The problem is though, there are three things, and I’m not sure how they fit together.
There’s supposed to be to be a thing called Ikigai, that sweet spot between what you’re good at, what you love, what the world needs and what you can get paid to do.
It sounds alluring, the answer to everything, and something to which we should all aspire…until you realise it’s bollocks. Nobody can live like that, not all the time. It’s impossible. There are times in life when we must do what we must do, regardless how we feel about it or whether we’re recompensed for our efforts. Life is never a neat and perfect Venn diagram.
The main problem is that #1 (money) is almost completely incompatible with #3 (making stuff that nobody needs).
If I spend time doing #3, the inexorable pull of #1 and #2 means there’s always the thought at the back of my mind…should I be doing this, right now? Is this a ‘waste’ of my time, who do I think I am, swanning about like a lady of leisure...
It’s so very self-indulgent and incredibly unfair to know that him upstairs is sweating over a keyboard writing about stuff he doesn’t actually care two hoots about, while I’m downstairs, fooling around with threads and stuff. Plus, growing fears about (whisper it) getting old. Being old. Paying for the dog food and hair nets. It’s pretty crippling.
And unless I can see something as useful to others (#2) in some way, or important enough to counter the self-indulgence and guilt of doing something for no reason at all, I find it hard to relax and enjoy #3 anyway.
The first reason this is so blocking
There are (sigh) only so many hours in the day and I have to choose how to spend them.
Choosing to spend my waking hours indulging myself in my latest whim is all well and good, except it isn’t: after some time (how long exactly varies, depending on how well other things are going in life) I start to feel incredibly uncomfortable and guilty, and my mind worries its way back to #1 again.
All the things I’ve made on a whim, to scratch a creative itch, with genuinely no mind for how to implement #1? There’s only so much space on my wall, room in the cupboard and so on. I can’t keep it all! Glimmers of self-worth, guilt about money spent, prevents me throwing or giving stuff away. Which only leaves #1. Again.
Seriously - nobody needs me to make stuff on a cardboard loom, not least me - yet that’s been this week’s brain itch of choice.
The second reason this is so blocking
It’s so horribly uncomfortable and simultaneously quite dull. I don’t want to think about money: it’s unpleasant, it makes me feel very squiffy. I’d rather not think about it - and I wasn’t brought up to think or talk about it, which I think this is quite common for a lot of people. It probably makes me sound very privileged and out of touch, but rest assured, I very muchly need to think about it if I want to keep my (small and modest) roof over my head.
But I don’t want to. I just want to make stuff. Thinking about money is a completely different part of my brain to the part that wants to play around with colour and fabric and thread. Unfortunately it’s also the part of my brain that wakes up at 4am to think about it all - so it makes me tired, too.
The third - and biggest - reason this is so blocking
Working out what and how and when and where.
Etsy has gone to the dogs, and I’m definitely not going to start doing craft fairs again, which only really leaves teaching online. And still doesn’t answer the question of what to DO with all the STUFF!
It’s so mind-bending yet simultaneously stressful even thinking about the practicalities and legalities of it all - and the consequences of getting it wrong. Michael Spicer sums up the tech side of things perfectly:
Over the years I’ve spent far too much time on the HMRC forums and in webinars and free business courses, worrying away at the back end of websites and what-have-yous, all time when I could’ve just been making more stuff!
Do you sell what you make?
Have you found a system that works - and have you found your ikigai?!
Until next time,
when I may or may not have finished whatever that woven something-or-other is…
Several things occur to me.
1. Although it may not come naturally to believe it, you are a real proper artist.
2. Van Gogh only ever sold one painting (to his brother).
3. Making things is a compulsion and it's good for us.
Money?...ah yes..useful stuff...
I totally agree..we love to make even if we know it's unlikely we can sell everything - and it takes up room and collects dust!!
I love clothes making, especially using patterns that challenge my skills. However, I definitely don't need any more clothes and I ran out of suitable wardrobe space long ago which now means a floordrobe on my workroom and, I'm ashamed to say, a chairdrobe in our bedroom.
No matter the outcome, the lure of makling is just too great.
I'd love to try a few upmarket school fairs but they're expensive and need public liability insurance - too expensive and too much hassle to arrange.
Sadly, I don't have an answer 😭
Maybe a G&T will be needed with the next coffee meet up 🍸🍸🍸