Harvest festival


This is my panel for my City and Guilds. I printed with vegetables and acrylic paint on fabric, added machine and hand stitch and then applied them to a pre-made canvas. I added padding behind some and some loose elements like roots and leaves.

I have until the end of this month to finish two more resolved pieces and my foundation folder of collected information. I can do this- the house will go un-cleaned but I can get this done. I have spent too much time and money on this to not make the final push to get it done. 

If there is a lack of sparkle and excitement in this determination it is not because I have lost my love of stitching- not one bit. I am struggling a bit if I am honest, and shouldn't we be honest when it all gets a bit much? I turned forty this year and in terms of an introspective assessment on the progress of how my life is progressing and how much I have achieved it was like all the worst New Years  rolled into one. It doesn't really matter that I have been so very very lucky- loving family, healthy children, enough money, somehow the guilt that I am not full of the joy of living despite these fortunate circumstances is just another gloom to add to the pile. 

Adding to my general feeling of grey is the frequency with which people are asking 'what are you going to do with that then?' when I mention my working towards my certificate. The answer is nothing. At the start of this whole journey it might have been; who knows? I was excited then that I was moving forward putting my self 'out there' for new experiences, to learn new skills. I honestly thought the world was my machine embroidered oyster. Now, well actually the way I have studied has been really isolating. I have shared my work here but actually no one will see it in real life- no one will touch it or, I hesitate to type this, admire it. To create is surely about expressing oneself. I am expressing into a void.- wow how melodramatic does that sound? It's how I feel, about more than just the sewing.



Comments

Lyn said…
Wow Jenny, very deep! It doesn't matter if no one else sees your beautiful work, it's your work and I think you are doing it for yourself and no one else! Any way you never know what the future holds and where your stitching will take you. The vegetables piece is stunning, well done. Xxx
Anonymous said…
Hello Jenny, I tumbled upon your blog and am so impressed with your creativity! Wow! You have some amazingly clever and detailed designs.

As for your gloom about turning 40 and responding to naysayers re: taking the certificate program, let me share another experience. My husband had been an ICU nurse for @13 years, and longed to get into a different field. He took a nursing job that was weekends-only at his normal salary, and enrolled full-time in the associate degree graphic design program at a nearby community college. It was a three-year program and our children were in lower elementary school, so I took them on all kinds of weekend outings so they wouldn't wake their dad while he slept. My husband never did work in the graphic design field--he returned to a regular nursing shift once he finished the program--but those classes gave him a completely different perspective on his abilities, a new way of looking at things, and 12 years later, he is still exploring creatively. In addition, a few years after he finished, a new job opportunity came up that he probably would not have felt confident to take if he hadn't already learned so much about computers and his capabilities. You just never know!

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