Fire

We used to joke, back in my art school days, about the day you go home and tell your parents that you want to be an art major.  That instead of  more lucrative degrees like accounting and engineering you are going to spend four years learning how to paint portraits, how to manipulate clay, how to make a block print.  We used to joke about it because it was a way to fight off the internal panic that set in whenever we thought about actually having that conversation in real life.  And once a semester the professors in our art department actually put on a special lecture entitled “How to survive telling your parents you are going to be an artist”. 
Somehow I survived those conversations (which proved less scary in real life than they were in my imagination, but did end in the sad shaking of heads by the four adults that are my parents), graduated with honors, and left college to make a life in the art field…and fell flat on my face.  I never wanted to be a teacher of public education, the obvious choice for artists who need to pay their bills with something else.  I wasn’t particularly interested in marketing.  Truthfully, I wasn’t exactly sure what I would do with my degree, I just knew that what I was good at, what I enjoyed and felt passionate about, was working with my hands.  Taking raw materials and forming them into something functional, useful, beautiful, thought provoking, or at least intentional – this was what I was good at, this was where I felt at home.  This was my fire.
Simply knowing what your fire is or feeling at home in your own skin does not pay the rent or buy a new car or help pay for the paint that you just know will transform your house, and so like many people who identify as artists, I got a real job…or several.  And when people asked me what my profession was I told them “I am an assistant preschool teacher, but I went to art school” or “I am a craft store manager, but I went to art school” or “I am a transaction coordinator for a mortgage broker (and later, a real estate agent), but I went to art school”.  I stopped identifying as an artist and started justifying my current, non-glamorous positions with the fact that I had made a mistake and gone to school to learn about art.  Away from the college setting there was no studio space, no group of fellow artists to support and critique my work, there was no more fire.
Fast forward many years.  We live in a house with studio space, an entire third floor that can be whatever I need it to be.  My hands are kept busy with textiles…knitting and sewing replace paints and pencils.  I feel good.  And then my mom convinces me to take a felt making class at the Troy Shirt Factory Building.  I walk in the door of the Luckystone Studio and I can feel it, that long lost sensation of being at home.  I almost don’t recognize it at first, but I find myself grinning, overly cheerful, my adrenaline pumping at a much higher rate than normal.
Do other people feel this way about the thing they love to do?  Does it make them feel as though they are burning from the inside out?  Does it light them on fire?
It didn’t seem to matter that I had never tried felting before.  The colors, textures, surroundings, and process were so familiar, deep in my bones.  Working side by side with other like-minded people, our work different but our goals the same, brings me such immense joy.  I love the easy camaraderie and chatter of people working at their own pace, trading ideas, offering up suggestions, and just that comfortable silence that comes with mutual artistic concentration. 
The felting process is harder than it looks, takes more patience than I am used to directing at my projects these days, but it was entirely invigorating.  For the first time in a long time I feel like an artist – I think I could even say it out loud with a straight face, without even a hint of apology in my voice.  I came home today with a scarf that is on fire with color…reds, fuscias, and oranges.  I also brought home a huge bag of wool roving, silk, and mohair fibers; my head is swimming with ideas, things to try, places to take color and form and concept. 
My fire, I think, has been rekindled.
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It’s Madhouse Wednesday again.  These are the others who participate…check them out!
Allison – Allimonster Speaks
Barb – Spencer Hill Spinning & Dyeing
Batty – Batty’s Adventures in Spooky Knitting
Dave – Notes from the Field
Eileen - Art Deco Diva Knits
Evil Twin’s Wife – The Glamorous Life of a Hausfrau
G – Not-A-Box
Haley - Aimless Tangents
Jennifer – Ask Poops, Please
JMLC – Daydreams and Ruminations
Kate – One More Thing
LC – LC in Sunny So Cal
LeeAnne - This is the life...
Lisa - As If You Care
Louise – Child of Grace
Marcy – Mittentime
Melanie – usually, things happen
Nikki – Land of the Free, Home of the Depressed
Peri - knitandnatter
Sara – yoyu mama