Select Page

I feel very privileged to be living in an era where being an artist does not mean struggling on your own, trying to justify what you do and why you do it against more ‘worthy’ occupations.  I know – most of us work on our own, and yes, we do end up trying to explain, and on occasion trying to justify, what it is that we do, and its validity.  But in the world that has access to the internet and social media, we are no longer emotionally or professionally on our own any more.  There is so much information online, some brilliant, some good, some mediocre and some downright wrong!  But we can reach out, through blogs, through online forums, through social media.

And when we connect with others, we sometimes get criticism, we often realise just how much we have yet to learn about our chosen medium/media, but more often than not, we get support, encouragement, validation, understanding.

I’ve spoken before about getting those ‘aha’ moments, and how wonderful they are.  But I had never before read an account of how these moments happen.  To me, I knew that the connections were made between specific techniques/problems/topics and my more general region and that there is not really much that is new but the individual voice and ‘genius’ comes from connections that are made between things that might not have been connected before, or thought about in that specific way before.  I also knew that many of my ideas come from quiet moments – the middle of the night, just before falling asleep (and thus preventing sleep!!) or immediately on waking, in the shower, walking the dog – and had assumed that my subconscious had been working on things whilst I was actively or passively engaged elsewhere.

Then I read a newsletter from somewhere – possibly Sam and Joe at TextileArtist.org (more of them later) – and the author had written of a fabulous little book called A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young, published in the 1940s.  I searched on Amazon and bought this little tome.  It arrived and this morning, whilst drinking my mid-morning coffee, I read it from cover to cover.  Don’t worry – this is not impressive!!  It is a short book – 48 pages cover to cover.  But it expressed exactly what happens in the creative process in such a lucid and succinct way.

This leads me on to my main point in this blog post.  The world is now a much smaller place thanks to the internet.  We can connect to each other like never before.  The guys at TextileArtist.org are part of this amazing chain of connections and they publish really good material.  If you haven’t come across them yet, please do click on a link in this blog and go and visit their site.  Their story alone is one of connections and curiosity.  Watch the videos that they are currently putting on their site – there is a time limit on them (good publicity ploy!) so go and check it out before the videos disappear.

The only danger is that we can get so easily side-tracked with all this social media  – so many people to connect with, so many wonderful textiles to look at and admire.  But connectivity-wise, we have never had it so good!!