Now that growing season is over and all my garden produce is processed, the colder months bring on different projects that I’ve been thinking about all year for which I haven’t had time. Creative projects, old crafts, new skills I’ve been dreaming about. Winter for me is a time to hunker down and explore.
All too often, though, I lose my zeal for these projects when faced with the dilemma of what purpose they serve. Who am I making for? Will this skill actually be useful? Am I doing this craft the “right way”? And the most painful of all: can I monetize this? These questions sap all life out of my creative endeavours and squash the deep rooted seed that is planted in me, begging me to make.
With my writing lately too, I have found there are these questions that derail me: who will read this? is it good enough? why do I bother writing when others have said the same things? Is it long enough? Is it too short? Can I massage this into a post with 2200 characters and appropriate hashtags???
Yesterday I stumbled across this Andy Warhol quote:
Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make more art.
– Andy Warhol
It’s the kick I needed for sure. Whether it’s writing, weaving, sewing, making music, or anything else I take on, I need to make it about the practice and not the outcome. Create with reckless abandon, without filtering or censoring or catering. Make it just for me. And then if others enjoy it as well, that’s a bonus but I need to focus on creating out of the need rather than validation from others. I wish this for me; I wish this for my children; I wish this for you.