BLOGTOBER FEST 2013 DAY 17

My circle of life...

I have had one of those days where there is not enough time to start anything new and barely time to finish anything already started...During this time of messing around and gathering  stuff for a workshop coming up I started thinking about the cycles I have gone through with the things I love doing. I know myself well enough to know I do not stick with any one thing forever as some people do. 

I learned to sew when I was a wee girl about 8 years old and have loved sewing my whole life. I think it is probably the 'creating something wearable from a flat piece of fabric' part I like best. I sewed all of my own clothes since at least early high school. Then after becoming a mother I sewed my kids clothes priding myself on being able to make a quality garment from not much of anything money wise.I continued sewing on into my later years, dabbling at photography classes for a couple of years at Indiana University, until I discovered doll making in the mid 1990's

I still did a little sewing but became obsessed, as I frequently do, with a new discovery of cloth dolls that looked life like. I passed through that phase after a few years of doll making and into an art doll phase.I still play around a little with art dolls but not too much though the ones I made were fun to do. During my doll making phase I discovered a love of teaching so I started or helped start several different doll clubs where I taught cloth doll making...

Moving here to Florida I soon learned that  quilting was all the rage and was the only creative outlet in my area with access to quilt stores, quilt guilds and quilt clubs so I took up quilting along with my doll making and learned a new skill but not a satisfying skill. I am not one to follow the crowd and did not like making traditional quilts but loved the art quilts. No one here wanted anything to do with 'art' quilt so after making many dozen quilts of all sizes I gave it up and left myself with shelves full of many yards of pricey quilt fabric. But now I found a new outlet for my creative inclinations...

Cloth doll making led to clay doll heads and that eventually led me to sculpting  with air dry or baked clay. I made several types of sculptures and incorporated the clay into doll making but mostly into art projects other then dolls using a variety of mediums...I call it  'mixed media' art.

Through the doll making I met, a now good friend, Ellen. The two of us have explored so many different venues and types of art from assemblage to sculpting to recycled art. We have discovered new and exciting ways to use the ordinary to make an extraordinary piece of art.  We scavenge and recycle.and enjoy ourselves to no end. I still enjoy all of that but..

Now I am getting the urge to re connect to sewing. I have not done any to speak of in ages and what I did do in the last few years  was mostly quilts..no garment sewing. Not too long ago  I came across a designer, Alabama Chanin, who I have mentioned in the past and now I am working on hand sewing along with machine sewing of garments. Now again I will stick with sewing for a bit until the urge hits to move on to another medium but one thing I do know is I will always do some type of creating. Even if it is mud pies in my dotage...

.It will be interesting to see how my circle spins the second time around.