Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009 - 9:18 a.m.

There's no denying that I've been in a creative slump lately. It happens every January. And it sucks every time. Ideally I should be able to use this extensive down time to get some good work done, get ahead on my production for the year (especially a year when I'm totally going to get into all the kickass shows, right?)

Part of it is that I feel pressure to come up with some new thing to do with the art-- a new look, whatever. Even when my last new thing debuted only 2 months ago and no one's really seen it yet. And there's value in producing the best sellers, especially when no two of them are alike anyway. But still I feel like I need to do something new. I tend to want to move on before I've even fully explored the last new idea.

Sometimes I have new ideas, but can't get them to actually make them look as cool as I know they can be. So I leave them. I have these great ideas for mulri-stage dyeing and overdyeing, but I haven't got the patience to plan it all out. One of my many limitations.

I rely on freshly dyed paper to help me get excited about cranking out more of my old reliable line of work, but it's winter and the colors won't take. Especially the blues. All the blues wash out-- purples turn pink, deep blues turn pastel, greens turn ghastly yellow. I've wasted so much paper that turns out ugly. Or pastel. No one really likes pastels except my mother in law. I think she's the only person who buys them.

Grrr. One thing about art as profession, it's a lot tougher to just phone it in when you're not feeling it. The extended period without feedback of any sort is tough, too. Now I get even less of it, now that I've taken so much off Etsy to concentrate on wholesale. Those wholesale buyers don't give much feedback. Even the virtually meaningless page view clicks are fewer and farther between.

Wake me up when it's spring.

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