Clearing Out Cobwebs

This is a Welcome Friends sampler I cross-stitched when my son was a toddler. I believe it was from a sampler chart which I purchased. It was long ago and far away and as you can read I can't really remember where it came from(but it is a lovely cross stitch sampler). Back then I didn't even know I had something within myself that others would want to see so I did charts and kits and other people's patterns(Knowing what I know today I would give credit to the designer but unfortunately it so long ago and far away that I wouldn't even begin to know where to look for it). My topic for today sort of relates to it so I decided to share it.

Today was a day for clearing out cobwebs. Last night I dreamed of rejection. Faceless people rejecting me and me confronting them. Very vague and I guess I could have forgotten it altogether if I hadn't woken up with that dreaded feeling of rejection that hits you right in the gut. I thought embroidering would somehow knock that rejection feeling out of me, it didn't. So I put on my exercise clothes and figured a little exercise might clear out the cobwebs and help me to understand why this was so important that I felt it physically.

While I was walking I realized rejection is part of being an artist and perhaps I have to take a few chances and work on that feeling. I like anyone else I suppose am very fearful of rejection. It's been a constant in my life. Somebody, somewhere or a lot of somebodies always think it's fun to make someone else feel inferior or left out. But being an artist doesn't really work very well if you are afraid of being rejected. We as artists have to take risks, jump into the big wide blue yonder and be afraid to fail. Not everyone will understand and love us and not everyone will understand or love our work, but as I walked around and around the track at the Y I realized that it doesn't really matter if noone understands it, because art is a relationship between the spirit and the soul and the artist. It is the same reason why dozens of photographers can look at the same thing and take a different picture because their photos are a window into their soul, into what one little detail jumps out and catches their soulful eye.

I have to be open to the possibilities and live in that everchanging moment when someone may see my work and embrace a detail or may not. But the idea that all of us offer something a little different and that some might reject it is the feeling all of us as artists have to get over. I guess all of us as people doing whatever have to get over that fear or we will just let life pass us by.

I guess this is where I say keep stitching and pay homage to the wonderful unknown designer whose design captured something in my imagination.

Just a quick addition. I have added another link to my blog. I read an article by this talented fiber artist/quilt maker from my former neck of the woods and love her blog as much as the article inspired me. Don't forget to go to her blog and see her beautiful work. SpiritCloth is the blog.