each skill builds through each cycle though. and they do synergize, if that's a word.
i've started to feel that my fiber work has not been about healing or getting to know myself as much as it's been about escaping. i can aestheticize or focus on making something to sell, and not face myself really at all. i think that's been what's missing lately. i want to interact more with what i'm doing, while i'm doing it. i think that's one wonderful thing i feel about jude's work is there is an improvisational quality that i've lacked. also, managing layers and working more with patchwork... so many important, exciting things to learn.
i'm having trouble with my advisors at school. they don't like my new, CPW topic, not at all. it's too bad because i was so fascinated with it and had done so much. it may be that i keep on with it and try to convince them, or shift to accommodate them. or follow my innards and move along. deciding what is right for me at this stage feels complicated. might be the perfect set of questions to begin a new cloth. a meditation on the future. i do find that what i imagine often comes to be, so it's important to take some time with constructing that vision... not making it all romance or revenge hehee.
I'm sorry your advisers aren't on board! Boo.
ReplyDeleteI hear you about the phases, cycles...
xo,
J
i wrote a comment yesterday...where did it go? oh, well. first the beautiful piece of cloth weaving at the top! and i do know about cycling, and improving, and realizing that it has been about the making/process until this jude work.. and i still love the making, but am also finding the new layers of working through my/other's stories feels like such a self-discovery, that i can hardly put words to it. glad to find others on the journey. and the advisors, hope you can stay true to your vision.
ReplyDeleteblogger must have eaten your comment cindy, because i didn't see it! jeana, i miss you! glad we can all cycle together.
ReplyDeleteMy friend Helene says that life is like peeling an onion - as you go through the layers you get closer to the centre. I find I go through cycles in my media as well, I think they are all related on a certain level.
ReplyDeleteToo bad about your advisors not supporting your topic. They probably think they are helping keep you on track, but just can't wrap their brains around spinning.
I go through phases, too; I think most people must. My problem is that no matter what I'm doing, I feel like it's the wrong thing and that I should really be doing something else. It's weird.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you're advisors aren't with you on your new topic. Have they explained why? Did their explanation make sense? Is it just because they feel the new topic is not as promising as your original topic? To what extent are you "at the mercy" of their academic biases?
(Uh...you don't really need to answer all those questions, by the way!)
heather, i like the onion analogy. especially because i'm dyeing with onion skins lately.
ReplyDeletelisa, i have that feeling like i'm working on the wrong thing a lot too. it seems to help though to ask myself what am i really feeling called to do right at that moment. then if i change to whatever that is, that thing is satisfied, for a moment anyway. would that work for you?
my advisors are not making any sense at all. they are cray-cray. such a long story... i could tell all in a blog entry but i'd hate to bore everyone. i am totally at their mercy, except that i could find new advisors. not an easy prospect this far along, but maybe possible. i'm still totally confused as to where to go with this.