April 20, 2010

Everyone gets stuck. Call it what you will (a mental block or a brain fart?) when it hits what do you do? Where do you find inspiration? How do you come to terms with it?

When I woke up yesterday morning I knew I was going to be stuck, so I went for a run. It was a beautiful morning to be outside! I focused on breathing and enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine. The 30-minutes I spent outside motivated me for several hours and I crossed something off my list.

The next item on the list was to finish a series of self-promotional pieces. In order to achieve the self-gratifying pleasure of yet another single line through another task accomplished I had two things to do: 1. Design a pattern and 2. Re-write the copy.

I didn’t have time to go for another run; It was late and I was making excuses. Instead of calling it quits, I decided to look in every folder and look at every file on my hard drive. Yikes! That’s a lot of stuff. A lot of bad stuff.

But I did find this: A photo assignment I completed at the University of Rochester, before I knew RIT was my future.

Several things jumped out at me upon rediscovering this forgotten assignment. First and foremost, I saw sewing with paper! I remember making Rolling Stones purses in high school, and I remember the tedious sewing lessons on lined paper, but I had forgotten this moment, when I was using the sewing machine creatively.

I was also looking at patterns and textures, two things I have been focusing on since September and that are inherent to my self promotion concept.

And, perhaps, and yes, I think this is a bit of a stretch… but the Brick? RIT? Brick City? Umm… yeah I just went there.

It is so interesting how ideas from the past, ideas that were not even fully thought out, can become inspiration for the future.

And inspiration isn’t even the right word anymore…

Seeing this image didn’t inspire me, it reassured me. It reminded me that even though the ideas were flowing slowly in that moment, that at least I was in the right place and doing the right thing.

And I was able to go to sleep and sleep peacefully, even without crossing those last two things off my list.

Filed under: Job Search, RIT, Textile design by admin