CREATE 2020 Contest: Identity as Inspiration
‘A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.’ Coco Chanel
Britain is bracing itself for the second lockdown starting this Thursday, moods are varied. This morning I checked in with our local baker, who assured me that they were going to try and stay open this time around, and then I got a message from a dear friend. She said, I finally got my sewing machine out, I am going to get back into sewing with this lockdown, and you should draw! (I am an illustrator and yet I haven’t drawn properly in months, which inevitably has made me question if I am, in fact, still allowed to call myself an artist. Quite a load to carry for a creative lacking creativity.) Post-Covid has stripped me bare to mothering my children and paying the bills, with occasional dips in the cold British seas to stay sanely positive about everything that is happening to us.
For a lot of creatives, their work is the essence of their identity so we can probably agree that it is absolutely paramount to find the time and space to create.
Nayila reminds us that learning new skills and implementing them into new projects is a wonderful way to grow the self and feel replenished. Sarah has written a whole article on the “Doldrums of Creativity”. She observes: ‘it’s not that I don’t have ideas, it’s that I don’t have faith in my ideas. It’s not that ideas aren’t flowing, it’s that in some ways I’m holding myself back from creating them.’ Morgann shares her own story on how to pursue a creative life through sewing. Today I wish you to sit down at your sewing table and make something quite wonderful however small or challenging. If you are a bit like me, struggling to find your creative mojo and with it your own self and identity, the best thing to do is just sew, (or draw in my case).
Image: Sewing Circle 1946
From: The________Thread