Ex Penna

Sometimes it's fun just to bring out a blank slate and put down the chalk without having any idea of what will come next.  Being a Capricorn, I don't usually pull such capers as writing/painting/performing/attending events/public speaking, etc. without full knowledge of what I will do, how, when, where, and why, plus a complete agenda and outline.  But my shop is teaching me to let go of that, if only a little.

So I walk into a store or I wake from a dream or I see some long forgotten bottle or jar of something-or-other on a shelf in my workroom, and *flash!*--inspiration!  I've got an idea and I want to run with it.  I don't know what I'll do next exactly, but I've got the seed.  I start putting things together, arranging colors and supplies, researching ideas for more designs and more choices.  But I don't think about prices or consumer demand.  Those things are only secondary to the passion of creating something new.

Not to say that I don't think on a daily basis about pleasing my customers and bringing in the kind of items they express interest in, as soon as I can.  I do, and even now I'm hard at work on fulfilling some customer wishes.  But the chance to fulfill my own--especially when they weren't even conscious wishes until a moment before--is too exciting to ignore!

And yet the last thing I want to do is create for the sake of creation.  I love functionality!  I want it to have at least two uses, if not more.  I want customers to see a world of possibility in what I've made.  And not just a world I dictate, but one that is the child of their brain, one I couldn't have foreseen.  That, to me is the best outcome of my imagination.

Those flashes always come so fast and with such a brilliant light that I am compelled to get to work right away.  Which is a handy thing since the rest of the process is very, very long in comparison.  With an idea and a sketch that took 60 seconds, I can spend the following week in organizing the needed details (sources for materials, comparing prices and sizes, picking colors, correcting problems, drawing tons of design sketches...), and after that, I get to actually create the item (the sitting-still-hand-cramping part of the job).  As an Etsy seller (much as I do love it), the longest part is taking photos and creating listings.  Photos are fun to set up when you're trying for atmosphere, but a little tricky to pull off well.  To strike a compromise between clean, plain images and interesting ones is tough but always worth the effort.  I like the writing part best, naturally.  I try to craft short descriptions of my work that (hopefully) draw the reader into feeling a bit of that same excitement that spurred its creation. 

Being able to see each of these little projects to their end and then send them out to be a part of someone else's world is a real feeling of bliss for me.  And the more I do it, the more often come those great flashes of inspiration that shock me off my feet in surprise.  I see a little object or two colors side by side and *flash!*--there it is again!  Now I have a ever-growing folder full of these flashes, and I'm slowly working my way through them.  Some are ideas that customers have sent me, others are dreams or memories that I haven't thought of in years.  A few are pieces from my first manuscript that I'm working on getting published (cross your fingers for me!)  But most are just from some incredible moment when what I was doing and where I was standing seemed suddenly fortuitous, and a thrilling new idea was born.

Maybe this all sounds a little too grand for such a tiny corner of the world as my shop can market, and a tiny shop it is, but it is a joyful feeling to me to be able to open my mind to such experiences again and again, pluck from them something surprising, and then send them out to you.