Once upon a Time

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

I do not know what creativity feels like to other people. I suspect, of course, but who can know really?

Just as I know what sweet tastes like, or what warmth feels like, I only know it from within my own body, using my own senses. For you it could be entirely different.

When I am considering a new rug, the idea has to present itself...nearly fully formed. Like Zeus giving birth to Athena, my ideas simply come forth. Never before they are ready and they will never be forced.

Because of this, I listen to myself when I know I am ready to create.  The window does not stay open forever.

Tonight, I sketched the base of the next rug - based on Snow White and Rose Red  - but more-so on Tender Morsels and my still reverberating reaction to the story.

Some of you have asked me about how I make the rugs, so here are the first sketches of the pieces that will become a full five foot long rug.


This is the bear. He'll be big and shaggy and many-brown toned and take up a fairly large part of the rug. He will have a forest, quite dark behind him. I am not sure yet if you will see sky at all, or if I can simply make the perspective of being very deep in a very old forest.


This is the cottage - stone wall with flowers. The tree might have a branch cutting across the roof...I haven't quite mapped it all out. I was thinking of a muted but warm yellow for the cottage. Very eastern european.

There will be two flowers, a Red and a White, and the girls will have to be incorporated too. I might hide them peeking behind trees. Or the bear might be following one.

Those things will come as the rug emerges.

I don't worry too much about knowing every single detail in advance, since I have learned to trust that they will come if I give them time.

I have decided to do a whole series of rugs based on Fairy Tales that I loved. This will be the first in the group.

And here is a bonus sketch I did tonight: An Octopus. He joins the other ideas waiting for their time and place ( if ever) to emerge and be created.



1 Baleful Regards:

Dawn said...

By the way, I am by no means a Good draw-er- usually I have to look at something and work to re-create the lines. Please do not think I am imagining these things all up on my own, but rather am looking at different pictures and trying to get a feel for the outlines.

 
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