It’s more fun to experience things when you don’t know what’s going to happen.
Louis C.K.
Regardless of whether your preference leans towards thread sketching, thread painting, art quilting, or any other form of textile art, there will be times when there are definite benefits to embracing change.
At any given moment in life, you’re at a potential turning point – a threshold where you can choose to continue as before or take a new path.
Throughout life, you grow and mature, develop new tastes, likes and dislikes. Everything you’ve learned knits together to make you what you are today.
So let’s spend a few moments exploring the benefits of embracing change.
The Benefits of Embracing Change
Recognising and respecting your limitations
When I started out in textiles, I knew I had limitations.
Although I’d been working with fabric and thread all my life, I’d never been able to settle on one thing, one style that I liked to work on. But I also knew that specific techniques appealed to me and that I was better at some things than others.
However, I could never decide if continually seeking new ideas and methods was actually doing my ‘art’ any good.
From week to week, my style and approach changed. Looking back, I can see that I was going through an exploration phase. Through exploration, you learn a lot about yourself and how to make artistic decisions.
You also learn your limitations. The problem with gaining this knowledge is that it can also deter you from pushing yourself.
Limitations present in a variety of ways
Sometimes we’re aware of how something is holding is back, and other times, we’re not. Here’s a few things that can either hold us back, or spur us on to overcome them:
- Physical barriers, such as vision or mobility issues.
- Geographical limitations and difficulty accessing materials and teachers, or budgetary restrictions.
- Technical and skill-based limitations – not knowing how to work a technique or achieve a specific effect.
- Specific taste in style, technique or materials that you are reluctant to deviate from.
In recognising these ‘limitations’, you discover that they need not hold you back.
In fact, by both recognising and respecting them, you open yourself to new opportunities.
You find ways to work with the limitations and, in so doing, often discover unusual, exciting and unique ways to work.
Resisting change
Once we find something we like to do, it’s easy to become resistant to change.
We continue making things in the same style or using the same technique because it comes easily to us.
The first quilt I ever made was a cot-sized, traditional bear’s paw pattern. I learned a lot about piecing and creating points and felt compelled to continue this technique that I’d never tried before.
Encouraged by my success with the bear’s paw, I embarked on a queen size bed quilt, following a Moroccan-themed pattern I found in a magazine. I even went out and bought the exact fabrics recommended, though I did alter the colour set.
This quilt worked out nicely, too, and I still use it. (The bear’s paw quilt ended up in my dog’s bed and, ultimately, became rather chewed and faded from so many washes!).
But here’s the thing …
One day, my son ( just a little boy at the time) asked why I was cutting up fabric just so I could sew it back together again! Now, I could have come out with a creative answer about art and beauty and functionality, but instead, began to question whether the formal approach was best for me.
You see, I had become comfortable with the process and was resisting change, and yet also knew that ultimately, this technique was not the right one for me to pursue.
I needed to find something different
So I continued to explore and experiment.
Now, if you are a ‘traditional’ quilter, I’m not suggesting you need to toss this aside and embrace abstract mixed media (for example). There’s no reason why you can’t explore multiple creative paths simultaneously.
Keep in mind that it’s possible to stay within a broad technical approach, but push your boundaries by varying your approach, design, complexity, and so on.
Embracing change
My philosophy is that as an artist, you have the freedom to do whatever you like. Recognising this freedom and encouraging new ideas (i.e. embracing change) is something I incorporate into my teaching and writing.
Embracing the new, different or challenging can be scary.
But it’s also exciting and energising.
It will open new doors and opportunities.
Think back to times in your life when you’ve made a bold decision to do something radical.
Perhaps you decided to sell up and travel the world for a year, or do something you’ve always wanted to do (but possibly been too nervous to try). At other times, a significant event in your life may have necessitated changes.
When we’re young, we tend to embrace major changes joyfully, open to the opportunities lying before us.
Of course, this depends on the nature and reason behind the change. But when young, change often seems like an adventure. It’s how we learn.
Now that I’m a little more ‘mature’ in years, I’ve noticed that change becomes more intimidating.
Sometimes I embrace the new willingly – scared but not-scared, too! I like adventure. I love to travel. And yet staying at home and trying something new can seem more confronting than travelling to a country I’ve never visited before.
I well remember when I bought a new sewing machine some years back. Being a larger machine than the standard domestic variety, I was so intimidated by it that it sat on the bench for days before I had the courage to try it out.
Yes, ridiculous, I know!
Breaking out of your comfort zone
If you’ve been creating textile art for a while, do you find that you tend to always make the same sort of thing?
Or use the same colours, or stitch technique?
It’s easy to do what you know. Sometimes, it’s not until you’ve done similar things several times that you recognise that there’s a need to move in a different direction.
Escaping the comfort zone and embracing the new generates ideas and helps you grow and develop as an artist.
It’s exciting!
My quest to find a technique that I loved led, inexorably, to me discovering the methods of thread sketching and thread painting that have become the mainstay of my work. These methods offer scope for variety in artistic style and design.
Stimulate your creativity – Ideas to try:
- Let go of the idea that you only know one way to approach your work.
- Try creating something that you think you dislike. Is there a way to interpret the theme or idea in a way you find more appealing?
- See your surroundings in a new light. Can you change the colours, materials or style of what you make?
- Visit somewhere in your city that is usually frequented by tourists. Look at it through the eyes of a newcomer. Notice the things they would notice – aromas, graffiti, beautiful buildings, birdsong. How could you translate these concepts into visual art?
- Visit a museum or art gallery. Take photos (where allowed), sit and sketch a picture of an object, or the people around you. This is confronting if you don’t like people looking at your work in progress! (Believe me – I’ve tried it!).
- Eat at a restaurant that offers a cuisine you’ve never tried before. Interpret the taste (yes!), or colours of the food in fabric and thread.
- Learn to dance (even if you hate dancing). Create a piece that reflects the movement, clothing, attitude of the dancers …
Every time you sit down at your sewing machine or rummage through your fabric stash looking for inspiration, you are facing a new threshold.
Perhaps you don’t feel ready to try something new, but some invisible force is telling you to ‘Do it’.
Changing direction need not be as radical as you may think. If you love creating fabric landscapes, or abstract art, for example, then continue to do so.
There are so many small ways to push your boundaries:
- Make a much larger, or much smaller piece of work.
- Work in monotone colours, or use colours that do not seem natural for your picture. Take a look at the art of the Fauvist movement to see what I mean.
- Try a different stitch technique.
- Construct your work differently to the way you usually do it.
- Simplify your design.
- Limit the range of materials you use. Or set a time limit. (These are positive limitations!)
When I’m struggling with a new project – a thread painting or art quilt, for example – I sometimes reach a point where I have to put it aside and do something different.
But it’s (nearly) always worth returning to the challenge and having another go.
I know that, even if my project ends up in the bin, the mere fact that I tried will have planted new seeds of inspiration in my mind.
Make a commitment
Embracing the idea that change can be useful, and trying new things will, ultimately, benefit you in more ways than you can imagine.
Often, we resist change due to being in that ‘comfort zone’, or due to fear. Stepping forward boldly will help you overcome fears – fears you may be unaware you have.
Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone reveals new insight into you as a person, and your ability (which is greater than you may think). It allows you to build new skills, new friendships, and new adventures.
Make a commitment to embrace change for the benefits it will bring.
It will enhance and stimulate your creative juices, and ultimately, make you a better artist.
Related Posts
- The Four Stages of Textile Art Mastery
- 5 Reasons Why You Think Thread Painting is Hard (and why you’re wrong)