Make
Stuff
“Let
inspiration lead you wherever it wants. For most of history people
just made things and they didn't make such a big freaking deal out of
it.”
Elizabeth
Gilbert (Big Magic)
As I've said before,
human beings are innately creative. We are compelled to make things,
even if those things are just doodles in the margins of our
notebooks. I was going through old journals yesterday looking for
drawings to convert to fabric for one of my collages. I was surprised
at how angst ridden and passionate many of my written entries were,
but interspersed throughout were drawings, some in color, some just
squiggles and lines. Trees seemed to be a predominant theme—and
diva's of trees, rivers and animals. Some folks take photos; I
draw—compulsively.
My friend, Garvice, told
me a story recently of some old men who met daily at a retired cotton
gin upstate. They'd sit on the wooden benches out back and whittle
all day while they reminisced and told stories. As a child he loved
to go there and watch them whittle and listen to their stories. My
own great aunts were like those old ladies on the Waltons TV
show—spinster sisters, who sewed the most incredible quilts. They'd
sit around a quilting frame and stitch together, and chat and fuss
and argue and gossip. One of them, Lyda, would say things to
scandalize the others. And all the time, their hands were just
working away. I still have a double wedding ring quilt they gave me
for a wedding present fifty years ago—tiny stitches with a
pineapple pattern inside the interlocking circles. It's pretty shabby
now, but still a treasure.
In the past, and still
today, we are creators. We may do it differently, but the urge to
make something is strong in all of us. Sometimes what we make is not
a great work of art, but that is not the point. The point is allowing
inspiration to express itself in the world in a unique way—through
our hands. We are the only animals that have those miraculous
opposing thumbs, and we have them for a reason—they give us
expression. Even with all our technology, we still need to allow
creativity to flow through us. I hope you make something today—even
if it's not “a big freaking deal.”
In the spirit,
Jane
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