UW Fiber Arts program - final piece, and some thoughts

Our show (by-hand.org) opened last week at the UW Towers, and I missed the opening because of continuing knee and back issues. While I am saddened at missing the party, I did enjoy the pictures posted on facebook by some of the other class members. I'm also looking forward to going to see the exhibit during the month of June sometime, as soon as my back and knee will allow. This is even more important as I didn't get a final picture taken of my piece and need to go take a picture, if only so I can add it to the webpage. Here's a shot of the piece in progress. James, my son, is holding it up, so it's a terribly traditional quilt picture complete with fingers at the edges and lots of background clutter.



I forgot to load my piece into the car when taking off for class, so Jeff and James did a quick photo and emailed it so I could present my piece that day. We were all showing our pieces so we collectively knew enough to answer questions and talk knowledgeably at the opening.

And now it's time for the big sigh of relief and accomplishment, and taking inventory of what I've learned. This was a fabulous class. I learned so much it's difficult to list it all. Most importantly, I learned to take myself seriously. I learned how to think about my art, the materials I use, and how to think about creating a piece to maximize its effectiveness. I'll be processing these lessons for quite some time to come but I look forward to my progress as I now feel confident I can deal with issues as they arise rather than feeling overwhelmed. It's a wonderful, exhilarating change that's coming and next up on my to-do list is redoing my webpage to reflect the changes I've already internalized. I'll keep blogging about this whole process as one of the things I've learned is how much I, and others, need the community of other artists to learn from. So, in a way, this blog is a way of paying it forward.