Two creative hats, One creative head…Oh, and Christmas in July!!
I've been sitting with a question lately: when I'm building a pattern for a nursery collection versus when I'm layering paper and paint for something that might end up on a gallery wall — am I doing the same thing twice, or two completely different things?
For a long time I thought the answer was obvious. Designing is for them. Fine art is for me. One has to repeat cleanly, scale to a mug, look good on a swatch. The other answers to nothing but the work itself.
But the longer I sit with both — often in the same week, sometimes the same afternoon — the less that split holds up.
Here's what I mean. When I'm working out a wildflower repeat or figuring out how polka dots should breathe across a page, I'm not turning off the intuitive part of me and turning on some cold, market-driven machine. I'm still asking the same questions I ask at the easel: does this feel balanced? Does it have rhythm? Am I bored, or is there something alive here? The constraints are different — a pattern has to tile, a product has to print — but the instinct doing the deciding is the same one that tells me a piece of fiber weaving needs one more pass of color before it's done.
And the traffic runs both ways. A shape that shows up first in a charcoal study sometimes finds its way, months later, into a surface pattern. A color relationship I stumble into while doodling for a Zazzle collection will occasionally sneak into something on canvas. I used to think of these as separate rooms in the house. Now I think it's more like the same room with different lighting.
Maybe that's the actual lesson, if there is one: the "vs." isn't real. Designing for a market and making art for its own sake aren't rivals pulling me in two directions — they're two different jobs I've handed to the same set of instincts, and both jobs get better because the instincts don't know they're supposed to behave differently.
I'd love to hear from you — do you feel a hard line between the work you make for others and the work you make for yourself? Or has it blurred for you too?
In other news…..
I have been diligently adding products to my print on demand Zazzle store. It’s been fun designing home decor, invitations and all types of products and accessories that people can personalize!
My latest product line is a collection of invitations and party supplies for pregnancy announcements, and if you can believe it….Christmas cards and ornaments!.
Trendy Holiday photo Christmas cards
Red Floral Christmas pattern home decor
Baby’s first Christmas ornaments
Simple minimal pregnancy announcements
Please visit my zazzle store to check out all my products:
I would love it if you would visit my store!