Embroidered Collage

When I decided to shift my perspective away from trying to make a profit from my art as a business, then I had to really look inside and figure out why I was doing it at all. 

One thing I cherish is the the making of something over which I have total control.  I strongly value working collaboratively at my job and love how all the different parts of a business interact, but it's nice to pull into my own little world.  Yet I could get that feeling by going back to cross-stitch and other traditional needle arts using other people's patterns.  It would certainly be less stressful.

A common answer to "why create?" is "self-expression", but that just doesn't really apply.  Although my self is in my art, putting it there is not why I create visual art.  It is why I write, but that's a whole different matter.  

I came up with three reasons.

Tactile Satisfaction

I love the way creating art feels.  I love the way creating art feels.  I love layering the paper and stitching rhythmically.  I love running my fingers over the fancy fabrics and the rows of beads.  I love good drawing paper and the swish of the brush.  I can get some of this with basic embroidery, but not the full range.

Community Involvement

Being part of art groups is important to me.  It feels good to connect over what I'm creating or over what someone else is creating.  Sometimes I'm able to give help, sometimes recieve it, and sometimes just enjoy the general atmosphere.  There's always a sense of possibility.

Option Expansion

In other words, the growing my skills.  I just felt that the concept needed a two word phrase to go along with the others!   I need to be learning and developing to be happy.  I can be content for a while with what I know, and I enjoy those quiet times, but then I always come back to asking myself what's next.  In art I can actually see what's next.  It's concrete.

As I write, I realize I could have applied these last two answers to traditional needlework communities and skills, so is tactile satisfaction really the only driving force?  Surely not.  I guess I have more thinking to do.  But in the meantime, I've been using these answers to help me determine the form my art will take by adding them to the focus on the evolution of texture and pattern that I figured out last year from working through Finding Your Visual Voice by Dakota Mitchell.