Thoughts for the New Year

To quote my dear friend, Cheri Olney, "We do ourselves a disservice when we hurriedly move on to the next thing before gleaning the learning, beauty, and value of past experiences.  I suggest there’s a treasure chest waiting to be opened when we look back over our shoulder to see where we’ve been.   Rushing through or away from our experiences and towards a new path without reflection, compromises the integrity and wisdom of the lessons we might learn.  This reflective time provides spaciousness to discern what works, what doesn’t work so we can travel on with a lighter load allowing plenty of room for what’s waiting anew."  This resonates with me these days.  

These past couple of years making jewelry I have been on the treadmill, making, making, making.  I haven't taken time to reflect.  I knew there would be time this winter, but I did not realize how much time.  I thought I had until the first part of February and then I would have to kick it up a notch.  However, the show I applied to for the end of March fell through.  It was disappointing, but now I'm really looking forward to more time to reflect and learn.  I had to ask myself, am I making jewelry to make money, or am I making jewelry to fulfill my need to create? 

I am a creative person.  All my life I have been creating something, whether it be paintings, sewing of some sort or jewelry.  Heck, my whole family is creative.  My grandmother and her sister were painters.  A couple of my aunts draw, my little sister is a cupcake wizzard, and my middle sister and my mom make scrap book layouts and hand stamped greeting cards.  The reason I started making jewelry was to fill a creative gap.  However, this last year I lost sense of that a little bit with the craziness of readying for shows balanced with a full-time non-creative job.  It got me a bit burnt out.  To be totally truthful, I've been a bit of a couch potatoe lately, too tired and creatively dried up.  I so want to come up with innovative jewelry designs that will blow your socks off!!!!  I want to enter a competition or two and to participate in the PMC Guild's Masters' Registry.

Cheri reminds me of what my goal is for this year - to look back and reflect so that I can move forward.  What did I love about this last year or two.  What can I let go of?  My load this year was far too heavy.  I don't have the energy for all of this.  I know myself.  What I really want is the time to create without the competition of a full-time job.  I want to garden and I want to go to some summer shows.  I really like connecting with people and sharing with them what inspires me and how I create my jewelry.

I feel a little vulnerable sharing all of this with you...