Tuesday, April 27, 2010

a creative lesson from a dress

my mermaid's gown

Last week was school vacation and since my husband decided to demolish and remodel the kitchen himself (go team), meaning we had NO kitchen ~ I took my girls to a friend's place on cape cod ~ a truly inspirational place for me!! We were only there for 5 days, however I proceeded to make at least 5 dresses ~ many on the beach!! So the next few posts will be cape inspired work.


This dress, my mermaid gown, came to me our first evening. It is a upshot of a silly mind game that haunts me. It is funny how much I catch myself talking myself out of my desire to make dresses. In fact as I was helping to take down the plaster in my kitchen I wanted to chisel out a dress form in the horse hair plaster ~ but i didn't :(. Now this beach dress is a good example of this because my creative desires won out over my unyielding critical voice.
It was our first night on the cape and i dragged the girls off to the beach (because I LOVE the beach). When we got there I thought 'oh, I want to make a dress! but (here comes the mind game) then that 'critic' voice chimes in saying, 'not another one', 'how cliché another beach dress', 'shouldn't you focus on your family and not be making dresses all the time'..... it is amazing how much this critic has to say!!!! So I gave into that voice, ignoring all this luscious dress 'material' staring me down (it was hard). But then Harriet showed me this snail with this delicate growth on it's shell and my creative urges overwhelmed my critic and I plunged in!!!
It wasn't a big dress ~ a petite little thing on the edge of the surf. Harriet's snail would be over the heart. The rest of the dress was made of this beautiful seaweed ~ making it by the water allowed the seaweed to stay wet & vibrant. When I started to really look around I found this curled up piece of seaweed that i felt was perfect for the belly area. And the tide helped me with the shape of the skirt ~ flowing outward to the ocean. And my girls didn't mind - Harriet helped, she even got into the water and talked to the water gods to help keep the dress wet!!! And who cares about making more beach dresses - the beach is so inspiring to me!!! (I have more to say about that, but that will be another post).
So my lesson from this dress is to NOT listen to that voice!!! or not let it edit me. Since my surgery I have been practicing meditation and i am hoping that practice will help me navigate that mind field of my creative mind :).
So more beach and other dresses to come!!! peace!!!

1 comment:

  1. You are truly gifted at making amazing dresses!

    It is amazing to see where you get such wonderful ideas.

    ReplyDelete

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