I’ve been sewing the last few days. It’s the last step in making my fiber sculptures and it’s a meditative process. It’s actually the fastest and easiest of all the steps in some ways, which amazes the non-sewers. But it’s also one of the places with the least margin for error. There’s not much tolerance for mistakes.

As I sew I’m looking very closely at my pieces and I’m making decisions all the time, some are small–a fraction to the right or left. Some are medium–which color to choose.  And some are big–what pattern am I making? Which area of the fabric am I emphasizing? What does this piece need to finish it?

Blade Nine in process

And so I’ve been thinking about how we, as artists, look at our work and how we see it. Sometimes when I’m working closely, like I do when I’m sewing, that focus needs to be laser sharp to not miss a detail. The eye and the hand are joined, the attention cannot falter.

Then there is the time to take a break and step back, to look from farther away, to consider what the hand is doing from a greater distance. See it as part of the whole. Is it right? Now what?

We need to step back further to consider the piece as a whole. We need to look critically and we need to see it holistically. Is it missing something? Does is need more contrast? Is it finished?

And then there is the furthest step back–time. How does this piece fit into a body of work? How does this body of work fit into our career? We need to look into our future and see where we are headed. We need to ask questions of ourselves and seek directions.

The work of the artist is to ask all of those questions and to make all of those decisions. Each decision is a step, looking deeply and seeing clearly, in our artist’s journey.

Blade Nine, finished