Over the years, I've taken a lot of classes. Scrapbooking, stamping, polymer clay, painting, jewelry making, silk painting, surface design, quilting... well, you get the picture. In the early days, I focused on project-based classes. More often than not, there was a kit to purchase, pictures of a completed project, and 20 people ended up making the exact same thing. Or nearly so. It was instant gratification. My projects were always a success, because someone else designed them, picked the colors, the papers, the fabric, whatever was involved. And I have discarded almost every one of those projects as time went by. Why? Not because I no longer like them, but because they weren't MINE. I was always thinking that I would rather use a different color, or different placement or some odd thing.
I would go to exhibitions, or galleries or websites and blogs, and I would gravitate to those pieces that were not made from patterns or kits, but came from the inspiration of the artist and were expressed using the skills that they had honed over time and had put their own personality into. They clearly had the voice of the artist. But I got distracted by the pretty prints, and the finished quilts and the need to just sew rather than just think and design. I doubt that I will stop using patterns and I'm confident that I will keep buying fabric, but I'm going to make a concerted effort to use my own voice, and trust my gut.
Why the public confession? Maybe to hold myself accountable. I started out buying fabric with the full intention of creating, designing, and coming up with projects that were MINE. I'm glad I have taken a lot of classes. I've learned a lot of great skills. But, I have also learned that I can do what I set out to do. Take pieces of fabric, and put them together in a pleasing (to me, at least) composition, and end up with something that I made, from inspiration that I got from somewhere within. I have a lot of tools at my discretion. Time to go use them. And that makes me really happy.
I just completed a class with Gwen Marston, who clearly embraces her creative energy and is happy to share it. I had a lot of fun being challenged, and being frustrated, mostly by my own inner critic. And here's what I ended up with.
Over the past year, I have continually repeated the mantra that I wanted to spend at least 3 or 4 days with one instructor in a effort to immerse myself in the process and really dig deep into my quilting. I've always been really great at starting things, trying everything that I see, and never really getting very far. I had set up a trip to Quilting by the Lake in Syracuse, with the double pleasure of getting to visit my daughter. But karma intervened. Oh boy, did she ever. Just days before I was to send in my final payment, I got a call from a friend, who asked me to join her an one other quilter for a week with Gwen Marston at Madeline Island School of the Arts. It took me about 5 seconds to change my mind. A bit longer to work out the little details, and off we went on an adventure that was not to be missed. 
