Finding Focus, Again!

I recently started a 6 month business coaching group, and we are working on our ‘brand’, and coming up with a version of the ‘elevator speech’. Great, this will be awesome, and so helpful which is immediately followed by the question of ‘which business?” This reminded my of a couple of art pieces I did five years ago, so here’s the story on those.

Income quilt – This piece started from the idea of piecing together an income like a quilt. I had gotten to the point of adding the threads to the piece. My first plan was to use all nine colors of threads and connect each color in a zigzag back to the base color. As you can see below, that didn’t work. It was insanely chaotic.

I tried four more ideas, none of those were going to work either.

     

    

 

 

 

 

 

  By this time I realized this idea wasn’t working in my life as well. There were too many different things, no focus, no cohesion. I needed to get back to my focus, ceremonial cloths and my connection to spirit. I needed to let some things go, and for the piece that meant to leave some of the pins and pieces unconnected. I thought about starting over, decided that this was a transitional piece, and it had become about Finding Focus, which is now it’s title.

Finding Focus — Painted jigsaw puzzle, pins, threads, wire, beads, 20” x 16”, © 2013

While I was finishing that piece, I had the idea for the Path to Avodat ha’Lev, which means the work of the heart.

Path to Avodat Ha’Lev, The Work of the Heart

Path to Avodat Ha’Lev, The Work of the Heart

The gold and silver puzzle pieces represent Spirit. The twisted threads are following the path created by Spirit into the center. As you follow the path inward, colors are left behind, it becomes simpler, more harmonious. And in the center is weaving, a web, the web of life and a heart. Spiritual weaving, the work of my heart. A few months after finishing this piece I finally had the courage to tell someone “I make sacred cloth”.

Now I get to figure out how to distill all of this into a marketing message for my business.

For anyone who was following my “Art Story”, this post skips ahead in the timeline by almost 3 years from the last installment which was published in Jan. 2014. Sigh…

Urban Craft Uprising

Went and saw a really great craft show today. The Urban Craft Uprising now in it’s 8th year is having it’s summer show this weekend (July 7 & 8) at the Seattle Center Exhibition hall.

Several things caught my eye and wanted to share. First of course was some fabulous yarn. For you knitters, check out Yarnarchy who has some gorgeous handspun and hand dyed yarn. And equally as gorgeous were the yarns from Spincycle yarns All handspun using a lot of “Bluefaced Leicester” a long staple fleece with high luster. The ones mixed with silk were luscious. And Yarnia from Portland was there. They will custom ply your yarn from there huge selection of fine yarns. They had cones of pre-wound yarn for sale.

There were also lots of people doing upcycled crafts. Muluk does some very fun things with neckties. And Bella Sisters take old wool coats and jackets and embellish them into some very fun wearable art.

Lots of wonderful jewelry, letterpress cards, pottery and more. And my one purchase was a book called Recipe for Press the diy guide for being your own publicist. The author Amy Flurry was there signing books. Had a great chat with her.

Definitely glad we went today. They have a show the first weekend of December. I’m thinking about applying for it. If you can’t make it tomorrow, put it on your calendar for December 1 & 2.