If you follow me on FB, you will know already that I LOVE New Year! Always have, always will. It's that fresh feeling and the excitement of new beginnings.
But not this year!
This year, I have been a little more apprehensive. You see, I have given myself a rather huge goal to fulfil and I think it's playing on the back of my mind.
I have been pottering around with Cheeky Pickle for a few years now. Not being great with the business side of things and looking after my youngest at home, I have allowed myself these excuses to not push the business forward at the rate it should now be going. Seeing other businesses that have not been going for as long as myself, flying way ahead, is leaving me feeling rather pathetic with my silly excuses!
So I decided that if it doesn't happen this year, then it won't happen at all! If it doesn't happen soon, then I will pack Cheeky Pickle up and say goodbye to my business dreams once and for all. I thought that this huge kick up my own bottom would be enough to get me on the right path to where I should be.
However, all it seems to have done is make me question everything I do, stop my creative flow and make me ask the biggie, "am I really cut out for all this?"
I have started designing again this week and I must admit that with this added pressure (that I have put on myself!!!) I have really struggled. Here are a few designs that I have been playing with and the process I am battling with. You can see clearly that at the beginning I am questioning the whole "am I good enough" question. When I see my work so very different to what I'm used to doing, then I know that I am having major wobbles!
The water colours came out for this one!! Water colours! ME! I've not used watercolours since A level Art, never mind Degree level!
It wasn't working. Nothing was working! What I had in my head, just wasn't miraculously appearing on the paper as it usually does. So I decided to take a break and head down to the paper shop and immerse myself in my passion.....paper and colour!
So things now started to happen for me and I was seeing a way forward. The colours were singing out to me and I just allowed myself to go with it.
SO, am I finally happy with where it's going? The simple answer to that is, NO, I am never happy with my designs and I feel like I can always do better, I frustrate myself immensely! Is that just my personality? Is it just being a creative person? Or do I need to go and see a shrink?! LOL! "YES" I hear my husband screaming!!!
Not finished yet, but soon, I promise, very soon! Are you as mad and as frustrating as me? I'd love to know.
Ali xxxxx
I love your new designs, the way you combined colours and the fabric details. I think we, creatives, always strive for perfection:) In the end of the day though, only you know what it suppose to look like (from the picture in your head), to me they are brilliant! You can always redesign and add things later on, right? If I will allow myself, I will be working on one toy for months but most of the time it won't make it better as I will spend hours trying to "reinvent the wheel" lol
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad I am not alone in the way I think. If I carry on like this though I won't get anywhere, so I need to finish something, put it away and move on. Ooooh, but that is sooooo hard isn't it?
ReplyDeleteVery hard indeed Ali but after you've done it a few times, it will get easier. x
DeleteIt's the creative curse. You have to go through all the crap before you get anywhere. It's just a process of figuring out ideas and refining them. If you were ever completely happy with one piece and it said or had everything you ever wanted it to have where would be your incentive to carry on.
ReplyDeleteBecause Art is such an emotionally fluid thing, it's not formulaic so of course you will have doubts about your ability. Everyone who is creative feels the same way.
I find I have the wobbles all the time especially when nothing has sold for a while. You worry what your doing isn't any good because no one wants it, which makes you feel worse when you love what you have done.
Ride it out, it will pass. Experimenting is always a scary place to be. That's why we still do it and don't work in McDonalds.
PLEASE don't give up Cheeky Pickle - I have only just found you via a friend, but I think your work is amazing. Truly, genuinely. I am not particularly creative, but I so admire people who are - you make beautiful things, and your beautiful things make people happy :)
ReplyDeleteSo, what do you think is holding you back from achieving what you want? Other than the ol' mummy curse of never enough time ;) Is it that not enough sells? Do we, the punters, love your work but not buy enough of it? Are your expectations of yourself and your business realistic, and do they actually fit with the life you lead and want? These are all the questions I ask myself when I get frustrated about things (mothering, work, renovating, messy house, no money, no exciting holidays ...) - I ask myself what is important to me, why have I made the choices I've made, what were/are the alternatives?
For you, maybe the questions could be around what makes you happy - do you most want to have a 'successful' business (what does that mean to you?), or are you actually happy just being able to work creatively with paper and fabrics and also have time with your children? Which bits of the business now work for you, and which bits don't?
I've only just found your work, and I loved it enough to spend weeks trying to find it again having lost the link originally (I first saw you via a friend's FB page). And having re-found you I read this blog post and have been thinking about it for days. I hope you don't give up, and that the business can be what you want it to be :)
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