About a year ago, Quilting for Community began hosting a Guided Autobiography group and I joined to fulfill my latent desire to write, of which This blog is also a manifestation. It ran for two five-week sessions, then paused. The writers conferred, reconfigured, and relaunched the group in January as the Q4C Writers’ Block. We meet on the second and fourth Mondays of the month, where we are presented with writing prompts. Many of these next few posts (including “They Will Always Break Your Heart,” posted on March 7) started out as responses to those prompts.
Dreams and Desires
Feb 26, 2024
I can’t believe it’s the end of February already. I was just preparing to do a recap of 2023, and write up my personal challenge for 2024, and here it is a full two months into the year. For the past couple years, I’ve been setting myself an annual personal challenge. It’s usually a list of 20 items, either individual projects or a type of work that I would like to do by the end of the year. The challenge is dominated by knit and crochet, but my other artwork gets listed on there also. Even before that, for many years I made myself lists of projects and short-term goals for my work. Often, I’ve put the list away somewhere and have forgotten about it, only to rediscover it sometime later and find I actually completed all the items on the list.
The inspiration for my annual personal challenge list was Instagram. A lot of things have been inspired by knitters, crocheters, and other artists on Instagram. For many years people have been posting annual challenges for the fun of it. At one point I looked at the list and knew there were things on it that I had absolutely no desire or intention to do – like color work mittens or something of that nature. So, I began to make my own challenge list, and it’s been interesting.
On the 2022 challenge list, I stuck stars on the items that I completed. I bought a package of classic classroom-reward-chart stars from Office Depot and gave myself a star for every item I completed. I got stars for 10 out of the 20 items on the list. I can easily see the things that I like doing, as I accomplished them easily and with a sense of celebration. I was also able to use the list to identify things that are just not going to happen for me, and so I decided to stop expecting myself to do those things.
“Finish the socks“ was on the list, and then a note at the end of the year “forget the socks.” With that, I released myself from the expectation of knitting socks. Socks are very popular. Knitters love making socks. Socks are all over the knitting social media. And I’ve come to the conclusion I simply don’t want to make socks. It’s very freeing to make this kind of decision.
Items 16 through 19 had to do with writing and publishing a pattern for a knitted item. Then the year end note beside it says Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope; so maybe this isn’t my path. But writing and publishing patterns is still a desire, I haven’t released myself from the expectation of doing it.
My 2023 challenge was an entirely different type of list. I listed specific projects that we call WIPS – or Works in Progress – and I only listed five of them. 3 have stars beside them, and one is my current project in the family room that I’m working on in the evenings. On a second column I listed projects to do, there are only two, one is complete. Below is a list called Wants to Do with four knitting and three artwork projects. One has a star; one has a check mark because I started it.
By the end of January, I added at the bottom of the page, “what actually got done”. When I make a list of projects for the year, I’m not super disciplined about following it. There are always what I call drop-in projects, things that I do for some particular reason such as a gift or a baby blanket. This list has 18 individual items that I made during 2023, including 3 cashmere knit quilts I did for The Elder Statesman and fixing up and presenting the Reseda yarn garden at Cyclovia in North Hollywood in September.
In January I got quite sidetracked before I could compose my 2024 challenge (See “They Will Always Break Your Heart”), and now I find myself, two months into the year, not really knowing what to put on my list.
The question of dreams and desires has been a bit of a sticky one for me lately. Two years ago, I had the occasion to talk with a therapist and she suggested I should set some five-year goals. My initial thought was, well I mainly want to still be alive in five years. My older brother died at the age of 62, and my younger sister has numerous health issues. Neither of my parents lived past the age of 72. My parents both had medical issues that I either do not have or am already addressing in a way they didn’t. I do know – intellectually if not emotionally – that I could very easily outlive them. It just nags at me; I could be in the last 10 years of my life.
For about the past five years I’ve had no larger goals than simply existing and continuing to exist. I have no problem making short term goals like an annual challenge list. But projecting farther than a year into the future or conceiving of larger accomplishments, it’s just something I havn’t been able to think about.
And at the same time, I’ve been invited to do some really interesting art projects. A few of these have been the largest and best paid pieces I’ve ever done. Lately, I would have said my overall goal in life is to use up the materials in my stash so that I’m not leaving a huge mess for my children to have to go through after I die. I’ve learned about the concept of Swedish Death Cleaning. But that’s not a very inspiring dream, I would say.
Last week I was at my nail salon, it was a relatively quiet afternoon. There were only two other customers in there while I was getting my nails done, And I could overhear their conversation, as is often the case in the salon. These two women were talking about work and careers. They are in the TV/film business (because of course they are, it’s Studio City. I mean it’s right there in the name). I heard one of them say, “I reinvented myself in my 70s.” And this struck a chord with me. I don’t know, no one knows, how much time is left, but it could be 20 years, or even more. Someone could get an awful lot done in 20 years. Look how much I got done just in the past one year.
So maybe a 5-year plan, some five-year goals are not such a bad idea.
Update 4/6/24
In the six weeks since I wrote this essay, I have thought about what I should include in a five-year plan. I restarted work on two in-progress coiled pieces and have formed mental plans for completing them by the end of this year. I made some sketches for coiled pieces whose ideas had been rattling around in my head. I entered a couple of juried shows, decided to pass on a couple of entries. My current challenge with entering juried shows is that since I had a five-year period where I wasn’t creating work, I have very few pieces that are less than two or three years old. It’s my main reason for passing on entries, I just don’t have the work to enter.
- My five-year plan is also a work in progress. Here are some broad outlines:
- Build (rebuild) my body of artwork
- By end of 2024, complete three full sized works; defined as up to 36” length or width
- Complete up to 6 small works, 6”, 12”, or 15”
- Do coiling work consistently. Goal: 2-3 full sized pieces & 3 small works per year
- Remain flexible so I can respond to yarnbombing/public art opportunities
- Continue knitting, knit down my stash. Make a challenge list every year.
- Work with Q4C. be ready to hand off grantwriting to someone else within 3-5 years.
- Keep Friends of Fiber Art going, launch free instruction at Q4C
- The Swedish Death Cleaning will be less fun:
- Clean under the sink in our bathroom
- Clean out the drawers in our bathroom
- Ugh! The garage, pick a corner or section of shelves to clean each quarter of the year.
I can’t face adding more items to the SDC list.
Now then, I’ve done what you’re supposed to do. I’ve set goals, made them specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. I’ve written them down. I’m telling someone about them.
Is that what a five-year plan is, just a longer-range list of things-to-do? Each of these items will have several smaller steps within them. I’ll probably write those out as I go along. I have a system of post-it notes on a white cabinet in my Studio A, where I keep my annual challenge, which is handwritten in pencil on graph paper.
This could work. I may post updates, stay tuned…
