I'll start out "Getting Started" with where it ALL starts:
Your work. Your art. Your craft.
There are three ways people fall into a business with their art. I call them the materials, the process and the story.
Materials. For some people, this is the easiest part. They love a certain concrete "thing"--wood, fiber, metal, flowers, glass. They knit, or weave or sew. They throw pots. They make jewelry, or carve wood. Their questions are about, "How do I take it to the next step?"
For some people, though, it's harder. They want to make SOMETHING. But they aren't sure what it is yet. These people may enjoy the PROCESS.
They take classes, they experiment, they putter around. They do a little of this and a little of that. Many people are content with this level of craft in their life, and enjoy the process for what it is.
But the people who are trying to find out what their "thing" is, it feels like torture.
I know. Because I'm not only the president of this club, I'm a member.
All I can tell you is, it's like any other "life process" you go through in life. Finding a job. Finding a house. Finding love. It's rarely something you can achieve systematically. But you have to go through the motions until it hits you.
And when it hits you, you have to go for it.
Sometimes it's something you're really good at. But sometimes, it's something you just really love doing.
And sometimes, it's not "the thing", it's the process you go through LOOKING for "the thing". One friend of mine was bewailing that she had never really made her mark in any one medium. She loved them all, and dabbled wholeheartedly. I pointed out that she then turned around and TAUGHT these same crafts, and was considered a hugely successful teacher. (In fact, she was the person who first introduced me to polymer clay--in a KNITTING guild!) Maybe THAT was her talent--teaching. And the crafts were what kept her grounded and passionate about teaching.
I advise people to keep trying new things, until either something grabs them, or some COMBINATION of things grabs them. That's what happened to me. I went from traditional quilt-making, then miniature quilt-making, to adding beads and buttons to my little quilts. And finally, one day, it struck me that I could make my own buttons and artifacts from....polymer clay.
And finally, there is the STORY.
The story part can be tricky, too. I ran a workshop on writing press releases, and made everyone in the room take time to think about and articulate their STORY. It was hard! Sometimes their story was not what they thought it was.
Sometimes it went back to a special time in their life ("My dad taught me how to work with wood") , or time spent with a special person. "My grandma took care of me when my mother died, and she taught me to knit...."
Sometimes it's something special about us. ("I'm a native American, and this craft is part of my heritage, part of who I am.")
My favorite was a young woman who struggled to find her story. She started to explain, "I had a baby, and I nearly died, and everything changed." "THAT'S your story!" I told her. Her eyes lit up--she could see it, and it all made sense.
Because our story is something that helps us make sense of our lives. It's what we tell ourselves, some truth about ourselves, that gives us something bigger to look at. Something bigger than the grocery list or the alarm clock in the morning or the train we have to catch. It's something that's always been with us. Or something that changed us overnight. Something that helps us see things no one else could see, until we share it with them. Something that goads us on, or simply helps us to be better people.
For me, all these craft media came together because I wanted to tell a story. A story about a prehistoric cave that resonated with me. Suddenly, the materials I used didn't matter. As long as they carried the story, I would use them (or learn how to use them.) Along the way I learned a new way to layer and sew fabrics. I learned new imitative techniques for the polymer. I learned enough about dyeing to create my own color pallete. I learned how to carve stamps and pattern my own fabrics.
As the story moved into jewelry, I learned how to make well-constructed pieces. How to create pleasing and balanced designs. How to do simple soldering and wire-working. How to drill out pearls and semi-precious stones, make my own toggle clasps, and how to make pendants and charms from found materials. I educated myself about antique African trade beads, and met a whole new community of people and collectors in the process.
So go ahead and fall in love with the materials, the process or the story. Any one of these can take you where you want to go next.
