time | Tarnished Copper - Formerly Project Hallway

A few weeks ago I came across this video that uses visuals of typography to accompany Ira Glass’ iconic quote about the creative process.

Every single word that he speaks when talking about the “gap” that happens within the creative process resonates with me on a profound level. It’s true. It is so, so true.

My background is in Graphic Design and it took 15 years, it took until now, working in this industry to finally realize that I am making good things. For years I tried and knew that the things I created weren’t on par with my taste, but I tried, and tried, and tried. 15 years! I don’t think that everything that I created along the way was crap. Actually, in creating my new portfolio website, I realize that a lot of it, surprisingly, isn’t crap but I either didn’t see the beauty in it at the time, or I had forgotten about it over the years. What I was making in college … I think that up until my last semester it was all crap. I feel like in my last semester things clicked and I started moving through the creative process in a different way. I saw things that my teachers had been going on about for years and years, and they finally made sense. They made sense on a very profound level and I really started to appreciate the art of the thinking and the art of creating in very new ways.

I find that now I am going through this same struggle with sewing and knitting, with understanding the fashion industry as a whole, with trying to understand and define my personal style. I know that I have good taste, it just isn’t always so simple to make it happen. So often I get confused with ideas for developing knitting patterns. I think that because I see something interesting that I can make it. I can. But just because I can appreciate it and make it doesn’t make it good. I’ve been knitting for four years now, the same amount of time that it took me to earn my BFA. I’ve knit oodles of sweaters, really, boxes full. I’m in a place now where I feel so creatively exhausted from the collection [of 10 sweaters] I’ve been working on that I can hardly bare to pick up my needles, and actually, I think that this is good work. In realizing this I feel a little bit better about finishing off that sleeve that I’ve had on the needles for a week.

I’ve learned to draw the line between what I can make, and what the right thing is to make. I’m making more than baby steps with my knitwear to where I am with my Graphic Design.

But still, I feel doubt.

With my sewing I know why I feel doubt, because even while I am better than many I am still not good at sewing, but my “taste is still killer,” and “what [I] am making is a disappointment to [me].” I am not good at pattern making. It takes me a long time to make decisions, and I have to make many samples to finally work on my final piece. By the time I get to the final piece I am so tired from the process that at the end I cut all the wrong corners–with my inexperience I can’t afford to cut any–and the finishing and details come out like fallen, rotten lemons all over the lawn: messy, dirty, and killing environment with these blobs of imperfection. It doesn’t matter how hard I work on the patterns and on the rest of the garment if the devil in the details lures you away.

Even with this blog, my expectations are high. I have good taste and I want my expectations to meet that taste. At the end of the day I feel that I am so far from where my expectations lie that I, and feel badly about my slow progress, that these feeling hinder my ability to get updates done, to get work done, to get pictures posted. In the beginning I updated a lot. I had a goal but my expectations were low. Over time my expectations have grown and grown, and now I am hardly able to post at all.

This just isn’t how I want it to be. I have very little time with the Little Buckaroo on my hands, contract work, class work from the couple of night classes I am taking, but my desires are still high. I can’t pick up a fashion magazine without feeling a little zing of excitement. I think of multiple topics a day that I would enjoy sitting down and writing about. While I am in doubt of my skills, with my sewing, writing and posting, with my knitting, and even cooking and learning how to be a Mommy, I know that my taste is good, and I must keep working, keep trying, and keep updating. Even when I feel things aren’t up to snuff.

Practice takes patience.