Dina Climatiano

Creativity Challenge, Day 9:

Woke up bright and early this morning, and before I could talk myself out of taking action, I went shopping. “Finally,” I thought to myself, “a part of this challenge that comes easily to me!”

Art supply stores used to be a bit of a weak spot for me. For some reason, the sight of paint tubes, crayons, pens, pencils, papers and what-have-yous all organized neatly in color-coordinated stacks always made me want to buy all of them. I would imagine myself presenting incredible works of art that I had made, gaining my environment’s admiration and achieving success and fame for my artistic genius. Well… Maybe not fame, but recognition? Whatever, we were all 15 once.

But this trip was different. I haven’t been in an art supply store in a while, and this is not how I remembered it.

First of all, the store felt intimidating and overwhelming. There’s so much stuff to look at, so much information being thrown at me all at once, and while I still admired the neat color-coordinated stacks and occasionally gawked at something that looked cool or fun to do, I was dangerously close to entering decision-paralysis territory. But I had a really specific goal in mind, so I held onto it.

My goal was to find wool and felting needles. Truth be told I was mostly annoyed that I had to go to four different stores to find those items, and even then, the selection was abysmal and did not include everything I thought I needed. But maybe that’s a good thing, because it took the decision making out of my hands and still left me with the tools to get started today.

While looking for those items, the only thing I was imagining was achieving the next step, even if it’s just to buy the materials and go home. Then I thought about unpacking them, examining the needles, rolling the wool in between my hands, see what I’m working with. Then I thought about how I would form the wool into a little ball and stab it into spherical perfection, like I saw in that random tutorial I found.

I thought about what conditions I needed to create for myself so I can actually finish making a small ball with some ornaments today. A clear desk? Adequate lighting? A cat-free zone? A nice video playing in the background, but not something so distracting that I’ll end up stabbing myself (only stabbed my thumb once today, in case you were wondering)?  

By the time I finally started. I just kind of… Fell into it. The sphere isn’t a perfect sphere, and the little purple flowers that I initially planned had turned into firm purple blobs on the yellow surface. From this angle it kind of looks like the head of a very colorful Jack Skellington from the Nightmare Before Christmas, and not at all the yellow ball with flower power that I meant to make.

But Jack is the product of my own two hands and initiative, so I love him just the same even if he is a bit bumpier than a sphere should be.

I guess I had changed a lot over the years. I’m no longer really focused on the result (at least not when it comes to arts and crafts, or this challenge for that matter), but on the process. I’m more focused on whether I’m doing what I set out to do, and how much I’m enjoying the process (or not) than I am on other people’s opinions or any other type of external validation. When I visualize making things now, I think about how it will feel making them, and not so much how it will feel to finish with amazing results. I think there’s something more practical and more compassionate in this line of thinking, if only because it shrinks the distance between expectations and reality and it leaves room for a lot of flexibility.

So anyway… Yeah Imma be making a lot more of these balls now. There’s something really relaxing about stabbing a pile of wool over and over again.