Fri, 14 Nov 03
I'm having an identity crisis.
Here's the corner I've painted myself into: I'm a third-generation artist. My grandfather created murals, but did more with ceramics and architecture... among many other things. He was mostly an inventor, I guess.
My mother paints landscapes professionally, after majoring in Portrait at Mass. College of Art many years ago. She also taught me to sew cloth dolls at an early age, and later sew my own clothes.
So, I grew up painting and sewing. But, when I reached my early adult years, I didn't want to be like my mother--a typical rebellion as we seek a distinct identity--so I focused on pen & ink illustration. The problem was, I naturally draw almost exactly like Edward Gorey. *blush* So, fearing the "copycat" label, I phased out my fantasy and gothic illustrations, and went back to sewing.
That evolved into a love of quilting, and--under another name--I'm the author of three quilting design books from the 1970s.
By the 80s, I was integrating vintage fabrics and designs into my art. I supported my family with my quilts that were selling in fine arts & crafts galleries in places such as Faneuil Marketplace. And, I made wearable art as well.
The wearables evolved into a best-selling book (well, in the fabric art field, where selling your full print run means "best-selling" *grin*) about sewing & collecting vintage fashions and fabrics.
Shortly after completing that manuscript, I was in a car accident. (Why do I always rush to explain that it wasn't my fault? I don't know. But, it wasn't; a teen in her new red sportscar ran a stop sign, overturning my car.)
The head injury from that accident wiped out most of my memories, and while a lot of it came back, it took years for me to be able to complete sentences without conscious effort. (I still forget names, have continuing memory gaps regarding recent events, and when I'm tired, I still have difficulty completing sentences... they just sort of trail off. *sigh*)
I quit doing almost everything that I had been doing, right before the accident. It seemed embarrassing to have no memory of sewing, vintage fashions, etc., when--just a short time earlier--I was such an authority that the publisher approached me to write the book, not vice versa.
Anyway...
Fast forward 15 or so years. Here I am, suddenly divorced and in a very different economy from even three years ago. I need to do a lot of art, and find a niche where I'm comfortable and can maintain a steady, peace-of-mind income while I work on the more experimental pieces and extreme techniques that I enjoy, and that I love to teach.
But, I look at what was successful for me in the past. Oh, I don't know that I'll ever remember much about vintage fashions, and I don't think that I want to make clothing for others again. It never really flowed for me, y'know? But, I still love the mix of colors and textures, that are part of fabric art.
In the late 90s, I was getting back to the funky fabric art squares that I sold in the late 70s, and my weird little dolls, but then I saw how similar they are/were to what the fabulously talented Lesley Riley is doing, and... I feared the return of that "copycat" label.
But today, I'm looking at my chest of unused fabric, my wild wools intended for doll hair, and... I'm in a quandary.
I want to make fabric collages again. I want to make cloth dolls again. But, my work will include vintage photos, plus words and sometimes quotations... just as Lesley's do. And, I really don't know what to do about it. I think that most people will see what makes my work different, but...
On the heels of this divorce, I'm seeing how the verbal abuse in that marriage demolished a whole lot of my ego and sense of stability. And, I cringe when I think that people might not like me... might disapprove of my art, and--to me anyway--my art is part of who I am.
So, I'm using this entry to talk to myself. I mean, intellectually, I know that each person's art is unique, even when there are apparently overwhelming similiarities. I can't always tell a Monet from a Manet, and I grew up in art museums, for heaven's sake! *chuckle*
Just because some works of Sargent, Renoir, and Monet look alike, or Bonnard and Sisely, or Degas and Ingres, that does not detract from the significance of those pieces nor the reputations of the respective artists.
Not that I'm trying to say that I'm in the same league as Monet or the others, mind you. *grin*
So anyway... I know that most people will see my fabric art for the individual statement that it is. I know that perceptive viewers will, above all, perceive the contrasting energy, which is more a signature of an artist's work than anything else.
But, a small number of people won't see what makes it different. They'll still say, "copycat" and raise a disdainful eyebrow.
The question is: Why do I care what they think or say?
I don't know. But, it's what I'm wrestling with, this morning, as I ran out of locally available dollhouse doors (for my faerie door series in eBay) and I want fresh art in eBay, this weekend. And... my fabric is sitting there, in a three-drawer chest under my sewing table. I have boxes of fabric and trim--some of it 19th century--in the storage unit down the road. And, my sewing machine is in my trunk, feeling forlorn and waiting to be welcomed into my studio again.
I've been balking about the fabric art, really. I'm embarrassed to admit that I deliberately avoided the recent Quilt Show here in Houston. (Yes, I'm blushing scarlet at that confession.)
I'm practically phobic about being called a "copycat," which probably goes back to the Edward Gorey comparisons. (He remains one of my favorite artists, by the way. My favorite is "The Wuggly Ump."
So, I'm talking to myself this morning. Feeling those same doubts that I avoided years ago, by putting the fabric to one side and putting my focus on paper arts and journaling. And, it's not that I'm quitting journaling or anything like that.
But lately, I've been painting landscapes again. So what if some of them look like my mother's! *grin*
And today, I'm sorely tempted to take those same faces that I used in the zany paper dolls featured in the current issue of Art Doll Quarterly, apply them to fabric, and make some dolls.
Gosh, but I hate being a wimp when, intellectually, I know that I need to live boldly.
So that's what I'm talking to myself about today. And, I'm posting this here, partly to re-read later in the day from a more objective viewpoint, but also to reveal how very human we artists are, even after years in this field. We still have doubts. We still fret over what other people will think. We still pause before entering--or re-entering--a different style or medium or technique from where we've had recent successes.
And, not to paint myself in an absurd context, but... This morning, I'm reminded of the debates over who invented the modern television... Zworykin, Farnsworth, Jenkins, Baird, or Nipkow?
If any of them worried about being thought of as "copycats"--and some, as Farnsworth, didn't even know what the others were working on--we'd have missed out on TV and many related technologies.
So, why am I fretting over being thought of as copying Lesley's art, when the differences will probably be obvious to most people?
I don't know. It's just cold feet, and it's something that we all go through. I'm just articulating it here, knowing that I have to do the art no matter what. Art is a drive, deep inside me, and it has to whirl and spin and emerge in its own way and at its own time, and sometimes with its own voice. It's what I do, and what I have to do.
Wishing you rich and creative days filled with dazzling inspiration,
What I'm reading right now: more email than I can answer! *sigh*
What I'm listening to right now: silence... lovely silence
What I'm watching right now: Pride & Prejudice (A&E/Colin Firth version)
Read who these people are,
and why Aisling writes this.
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