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Thursday 4 May 2017

Hi !

#Longpostalert , Story upto now :)

When I started out this year for the #2017PCChallenge, I was already late. I started mid week of February and played catch up on the back to back weeks.  I experienced something strange then , something that I only read about from others ; the fear to clay.I simply couldn't start.

 I stared at the clay and it stared back at me (or so I imagine). I conditioned some scrappy,pretty colors but just left them on my work tile to collect lint & dust. My floor is my preferred work space so my open clay is just gobbles up all the dust.
I was terribly afraid to mess up ,that my pieces were going to fail , not only under bake or over bake , but that my whole sense of design had taken a vacation as well.
Finally I decided to do something that is the safe spot for me. Textures. I took the easy way out though , I just used the texture sheets that I had ( Thank you Preethy :* ) and pulled out my acrylics & chalks. But the chalks won. Mostly because I had to cook and its somewhat hard to get the paint out of my nails.
I started out simply , some chalk & textures , not exactly the toughest pieces but I had such a great satisfaction just seeing them. So that's what I did for a week ,just reclaiming my lost friendship with clay.


Pieces from my catch up weeks plus all the other textured pieces I made but did not post .


That week , I revived my page , which was on hiatus for months as well. I was very excited when I saw messages come in. Everybody wants customisation and good work but at the cheapest rates. I rejected all the pieces where I was asked to copy pieces , I forwarded them to the original artists  when I knew who made them.A lot of the enquiries just were variations of why is everything so expensive , which made me quite sad. I still haven't reached that place where I actually make money off this venture , I "almost" break even.  I am in no position to lower the prices , but I do need sales. I cant make everyone happy , but I wanted to try.
 And thus the reversible earrings were born.

Reversible earrings. Can be worn 2 ways if you are conventional & 3 ways if you are quirky :D 


I felt like a genius. I am sure now that this nothing new in the world of polymer ( nothing really is anymore , I feel like I entered this world too late to contribute anything particularly meaningful) , but I hadn't seen anything like this in my small circle.

I think one of the more stranger effects of claying for longer is that , I now know that nothing I do is entirely brand new. None of my eureka moments are entirely mine alone .Those moments have been had already, whether posted anywhere or not, whether I have seen them or not.There are countless artists like me, we clay because it calms our mind , the eureka moments are just the cherries on top. I believe that many of these eureka moments are common as well , possibly its on a tutorial somewhere, but if you do come up with it yourself there is a satisfaction that is incomparable.

This is such a super simple thing to make , the reversibles , but it makes people happy. There is more value for their money. I am a lazy person , I like to find the most efficient way of doing something that takes up the least of my energy for most of the result , so I obviously like making them too.

I had a small itch to post on the IPCA page , where I am not a paid member (I hope to join once my clay provides me some funds) but as usual my sense of incompetence won and I did not. I probably should have done that though. A little of constructive criticism is great, and that page has amazing artists, but the thought of not only not matching up , but not even reaching knee high (lets say) terrifies me. I hope to get rid of this fear soon and  be more confident.

After this eureka week , I was feeling quite a little bit more confident and it felt good. A few sales of my ready items definitely helped. I felt that I could potentially do this. So then I decided to start caning.
What I did not realise was that this thought would paralyse me yet again. I love skinner blends , I don't  do big canes though , so all my canes get over rather quickly if I don't forget about them. I forgot about the canes I already had and I was terrified to jump into making canes from the scratch.
Gaah.  Me & the clay had a few lovely meals looking at each other , just trying to be friendly but I was too scared to make the first move.

  You have to understand,  I am a wuss in many many many many ways , but experimenting for the fear of failure is not my style of fear. I am afraid of so many things , I lose count. I am not them out here  because frankly if you thought it , I am probably scared of it. For example ,I am scared to drive because I sneeze a ridiculous amount. Others laugh at this , but I have a very real fear of losing control and killing people ( we have crowded roads here) because I ate an orange (or something).
I try to not let them become  crippling in nature and I try to function like how I imagine others to function.
 I am not a type A person , I fail quite often in my experiments , in the kitchen , with the sewing machine , with even putting on make up. I might even be labelled a  failure in my life , what with the my chosen profession(?) of being a crafter. Claying is a situation where the risk is not dire enough to completely paralyse me. Where the possibilities are more than the chances of failure.

All this happened in more detail, somewhat more grotesque version ( my playback of "dire" imaginary situations would probably win me awards if they were ever given out. Pretty sure this the one way I am the best. I can come up with the worst cases of the  worst case situations at any time).
Anyway I am regressing here , this whole bit was completely pointless but I am not deleting it , I am tackling my fear of talking about my fear of fear, That's something right ?

Do you also go through these paralysis situations ? How do you deal ?

So caning. I was too scared to do a skinner blend, don't ask me why , I don't remember anymore. So I decided to do an Ikat cane. All custom colors that I made for customised work ( my bread & butter) but that were left over.



I liked them. So I did Ikat based pieces for the next few week. Quite happy that I caned ,but since I did not choose anything that could really fail ( even a failed Ikat cane tends to be really pretty) I was feeling restless.

I wish to cane , but I signed up for an exhibition/sale at my home in Kochi in the meanwhile , so I am currently working like an utterly mad woman to make enough things to sell. I have around 5 days left before I am done and I have to go home. 

Apologies for the long post and that's it for today. . Rather abrupt ending , not one my writer husband would approve , but I guess that's why he writes and I don't :D 
Thank you so much for reading.