February already!  It’s always a month that seems to slip away before it has barely begun!  Here is a recap of the past month’s activities and musings:

My readers are hopefully now familiar with my “light” artisan wearable collection, petal-una (www.petalunacollection.com).  I have been working on these seasonal collections since 2012 and the upcoming Spring/Summer 2016 group builds on this foundation.  My desire throughout the design/build process is always to further my understanding of cloth, form, fit and finish as well as to successfully present my completed work at market.  Until now, I have generally approached the collection from the textile, rather than the garment, per se.  But things are shifting.  For a number of reasons, my textile/fiber artist-self is beginning to catch up with my landscape-designer-self.* 

As my creative selves become more fully integrated, the petal-una collections become more integrated, conscious acts of art and design.  That means I am taking into account cloth, surface and garment while also holding a variety of production variables in mind like time and cost, work-flow, utility use, marketing (including, but not limited, to social media activities), and a host of other allied considerations.  All of these undertakings figure into each piece created in the studio.  And, since I am still very much a solo operation for the time being (and there is only so much this body/mind can make manifest in a given calendar year), it is vital that I work as efficiently as possible from concept/design to development, production and completion, without losing sight of my mental and physical well-being.  This is particularly important since I still want to make room for art-making!  If you would like to see more day-to-day snapshots, please follow me on Instagram! (www.instagram.com/kathycoltartisan).

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The fact that I am finding the time and energy I require to undertake all of my creative work is in no small part attributable to coach/consultant/project manager-extraordinaire, Mary Quinn Templeton (www.maryquinntempleton.com / mqpmatl@gmail.com).  Mary Quinn and I met as fellow fiber/textile artists.  At that time, I was at a turning point in my work, not sure what I wanted or where I wanted to go.  Since we started working together, the path has begun to clear and my foot-steps are more deliberate.  (If this sounds like a testimonial…it is!!)  Obviously we are all responsible for making our own “it” happen, but we also don’t live in a vacuum – fresh insight can be liberating – I highly recommend it!  

In the process of getting my work back on track, other beautiful gifts have been bestowed:

A Rekindling of Deep Joy. Somewhere along the way, and for a variety of reasons, I started to lose touch with the sheer joy of making.  I am now remembering and reconnecting with the reasons why I choose to do what I do in all of its multi-disciplinary, multi-hat-wearing complexity and glory.  Bring it on!

Befriending and Embracing Fear. Letting go of judgment and anxiety about myself and my work, the future (and anything else falling into the “monkey-mind” category) is huge (and I don’t think I am alone here!).  Radical acceptance of the what, where, when and how of it all, the now of it all, and just getting on with it all, has opened up new and previously unimaginable pathways.  After all of these years, I can finally get busy living and doing the Work, and be at peace with that!

Restoring the mental/emotional power grid: Taking responsibility for how I react to all phenomena and circumstances in my life is an on-going process, taken one experience at a time.  It’s not always easy, but cultivating equanimity makes for a clearer mind and greater capacity in one’s creative and life work.  Why not make more room for that, right?

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I am constantly reminded that being a working artist is not for the faint-hearted.  Luckily I was blissfully ignorant of the pitfalls or I would not have taken the first step.  Well into the journey now, I realize I do it because I must; however, it takes a lot of heart, soul, metaphoric blood, and a lot of sweat, persistence and constant insistence on a daily basis.  The day-to-day experience moves back and forth along the continuum: sometimes the process is uneffing-believable in its rich, diverse upwellings; sometimes it is incredibly physically exhausting and/or highly anxiety-provoking to an intensity which weakens creative flow and output.  Somewhere in the middle is the Balance, and in that space is the “zone”.  After all of these years of designing and making, I recognize a cultivated ability to access the “zone” with greater ease, and finally feel capable of efficiently managing my time, energy and finances to manifest my creative/life vision.  Next level?  Yes, please!

*footnote: I also think that I have been resisting the idea of myself as a “fashion” designer.  However, I am a designer and I certainly work in the fashion idiom from time to time, so maybe it’s time for me to embrace my inner-fashionista more fully!