The key thing on my mind this week is, “just because it’s big and it took a long time to make doesn’t mean it’s any good”. Yep, that’s right. I’m in the FUD (Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt) stage of a project.
Every project I do has roughly the same steps: an idea (which always seems brilliant at the time, but may actually prove to be lame or trite), sketches galore, planning, and actual execution. Then there’s the FUD stage. That’s where I can’t see the project objectively anymore and the fear that it’s a total, irredeemable piece of crap creeps in. Sometimes FUD hits several times.
FUD almost always strikes right after I’ve painted or otherwise rendered some image on fabric and it’s time to stitch it. Oh, lord. How in the world should I stitch this thing? Should I even bother? Will I ruin all of my hard work? Will it be improved by stitching? After all, stitching takes a loooong time and it isn’t as though every darned thing in the world has to rendered in fabric. (A worthy topic for a rant at another time.)
Fortunately, I’ve come up with a way of dealing with that issue. I throw the piece in a closet and ignore it for a few weeks or months until I’m not afraid of it anymore. When I can simply regard it as a few dollars worth of fabric with ink smeared on it, then I’m ready to work again.
Unfortunately, FUD usually strikes again after I’ve either finished the project or am close to doing so. At that point, I have so many hours invested that I can’t bear the thought that it might not be stellar. I can’t see its good and bad points, much less how to improve it. I’ll stuff it in the closet again, hoping to see it with fresh eyes at a later time. Alas, sometimes the fresh eyes don’t come until after the piece has hung at a show and I’ve seen it juxtaposed with other, much better, works.
It’s a painful cycle, but in some sense it’s okay. It comes with the territory.
I’ve read about other artists going through a similar process. A painter faced with a less-than-stellar piece may attempt to fix it or, barring that, burn it or paint over it. Work that isn’t up to snuff doesn’t make it out of the studio.
Unfortunately, because textile pieces can require a substantial time investment, there can be a mental resistance to doing the same thing. It may not even be practical to rework a piece, and the idea of burning or destroying a piece can be devastating.
I am trying to get over that. While it’s great to take pride in accomplishments, I think we also need to be okay with saying (privately, if necessary) “You know, this isn’t very good and that’s okay. I learned X, Y, and Z from it and now I’m going to go create something new.”
Toward that end, here is what I’ve been doing with some of my discarded work:
Culled fabric paintings and dye experiments –
These get cut into blocks and used as the base of scrap quilts. When I’m having an off day, I crawl to the sewing machine and make crazy blocks. For example, my first iteration of Brian at 10 Months looked like a baby zombie with radioactive eyes. Ghastly beyond belief. I cut it into 5″ squares and it’s now the basis of a bunch of batik crazy blocks. My first iteration of The Imp is now a cleaning rag.
Culled fiber pieces which are towel sized or larger -
As long as they’re fairly soft and flexible, the humane society is happy to get them. I am inexplicably cheered by the thought of a stray peeing on something I made that wasn’t very good. At least it’s doing genuine good somewhere!
Culled quilts of any size -
These are great for cutting apart into chunks or strips and serging into bookmarks or coffee cuffs. Last time I splashed a bunch of paint on them and then did some rubber stamping to disguise their origins. The resulting bookmarks turned out cheerfully obnoxious and beat the heck out of my usual bookmarks, blow-in-cards and kleenex. Next time I may try weaving serged strips into a placemat or doormat.
Now, I suppose, I’d better get back to my current FUD project. Maybe you’ll even see it at a show! That is, unless I decide that it’s crap and donate it to the humane society …
