What's Up?

Here is my latest quilt. I did this in a class with Katie Pasquini Masopoust at the Quilt Museum. I am going to send it to her and she may get it in her new book coming out.

Ok, so here is the state of my quilting. I have decided to give quilting a break. It could be for a while, it could be forever, don’t know yet. For a very long time I have been forcing myself to make the few quilts I have made because I feel like I have to make them. When someone asks me what do I do I immediately say “I’m a quilter”. I feel like if I live in an artist district I have to be an artist. If I’m not a quilter, what am I? If I don’t make quilts, what am I doing? At the same time I have lost the enthusiasm when making a quilt. I have a lot of ideas but the thought of sitting down and making the quilt doesn’t excite me anymore and I don’t know why. Maybe my gallery not happening had something to do with it. My artists friends say that that is normal. That it is part of the evolution. That maybe I’m done with quilting and I may just need to change mediums or that I may give it a break and come back to it later. A lot of people say that my videos are good and that maybe that is my new medium. Paul Lorenz keeps telling me that I should go to film school in NYC. I just do my videos for fun and I don’t think they are anything special. And the idea of going to film school and compete in the film-making industry makes me cringe.

So on Sunday I decided to make something different. I have all this fabric and sewing tools, I love clothes, so I decided to make clothes. I’m not very good at making clothes. Never have. When I learned to sew, I learn by making a dress. The dress came out ok and I learned to sew but as soon as I learned to make quilts that do not need to be fitted to the human body, I never looked back. Well, maybe I’m looking back now. One thing I know about myself is that I don’t like doing the same thing over and over again. Let’s say I make clothes to sell: Would I need to make the same dress again and again in different sizes and fabrics? If someone wants to buy something and they want to try it on, what if they are all sweaty and stinky and I don’t want them to try it on? (I’m thinking that way now because the temperature here is close to the boiling point.) I love clothes, what if I make something and don’t want to sell it and end up with an exploding closet (which I’m dangerously close to)? What if I make something that is not my size on purpose so I’m not tempted to keep it and don’t sell it? Who wears my size anyway? I realize this is the left brain talking and I need to shut it off if I’m going to do anything creative. But I’m too practical to shut it off completely. On Sunday I made a shirt and decided to make two of the same shirt at once, one to keep and one to possibly sell, if I ever get to that point. I had fun making them and I think they came out great but I realized why most of our clothes come from sweatshops and they are cheap. When I started making the shirts, I decided that I wasn’t going to time myself because that takes the fun away and it was the first time I made them so it was going to take me less time if I do it again. I don’t know how long it took but it was a long time and if I sell it, I would have to charge a lot of $$ for a simple shirt.

Ok, so I haven’t figured out what I’m doing with my life. My friend Bob, the psychologist says that that is what the 30’s are for. So here I go... I’ll keep you posted.