Rant: Remember what a hobby used to be?

We’ve forgotten what a hobby was.  It was sewing, crafting, drawing, for the pleasure of it alone.

Maybe once in awhile a friend or neighbour offered to buy our latest crochet project for a little money.  We made things in our spare time at our own tempo. We kept making stuff which got given away or sold for a charity or sold so we could buy more supplies. It was a natural cycle of enjoyment, energy invested and a kind of gentle return on that. Sometimes it involved money, but it was about appreciation as well, and exchanging new techniques or materials with others.

Now every human with two hands and a knitting needle has dollar signs in her eyes it seems. Our society’s obsession with business has invaded even this homely domain. Now our knitter makes a ‘product’. In order to sell, she needs a logo, a label, a website, an Etsy store. She needs to be a good photographer to take images of her work to promote it. She must work the social sites, keep up with her Etsy contacts to make sure her work gets featured on others’ blogs, keep up with her networking. She needs to fill orders, set up an online payment system. She needs to become a good postal worker and get her products in the mail on time. The administration has to be done well and regularly. And soon she has to face it- she isn’t a knitter anymore, she is a retailer or depending on the product, a wholesaler. Her arm is hurting from staying up doing all that knitting to fill orders. Should she hire someone to do the drudge work?

Good grief, people. Keep your hobbies hobbies!  Keep part of yourself off line and out of the marketplace.

Here is my latest creation from my hobby of crocheting- fully copied from delightful Lucie’s generously shared instructions.

And it is so not for sale.

Decorative birdie

Oh,  but if you are interested, let’s see, it took around 5 hours, at 35 euros an hour- that will be 175 euros, thanks.

And, no, I can’t make 12 more.

The beauty of imperfection

Els’s apples 2
Oil on canvas board

This painting was started in the spirit of a 37 minute one, with the intention of working into it.

I enjoyed using the same fast approach, avoiding too much polishing. The discipline here is to find the balance between getting it ‘Right’ and letting it be. When you are limited by a 37 minute deadline with no opportunity to go back and correct, there is a better chance of a raw but honest painting. The catch when I do allow myself to work into it, is to let things that are ‘wrong’ stand anyway in service to the  whole. But there are degrees of ‘wrong’, so as usual, it is an ongoing discovery process.

This one was painted over a strongly textured painting I’d done years ago, I liked working on that rough surface and how it influences the overall texture.

I learned something important from working with Jovica Veljovic, type designer and calligrapher. He advised, when working on a piece of calligraphic text, to not try to make too perfect letters when you start the piece. That way, if anything went wrong later, it wouldn’t jump out so much. If there were irregularities in the strokes, let them be there. In that way, all the little natural flaws would add up to a consistent looking whole.

Trying to make too beautifully perfect letters usually results in dead work. But allowing imperfections makes personal, alive pieces. Eventually, I have found, all the small quirks in one’s own writing form a unique visual vocabulary and over time, infuse the work with one’s own signature.

Title for magazine article           Walnut ink and reed pens,
S. Zoutewelle

It is the same with painting.