My Craft Journey - Inspiring Others

My journey of craft and arts has not been easy and I have learnt being self taught and asking for assistance. I'm hoping by writing about my craft journey it will inspire others where they want to succeed in theirs but not seeing any movement. Craft and Art if you are not doing it as a job, it's about being comfortable what you are doing, having fun and having the knowledge of experimenting with different materials from your imagination. This is what makes your pieces your pieces. It's also about keep doing the pieces until improvements and knowledge come that make you feel you have success. It may take days, weeks, months or years. If you lose the passion of fun. Take a break and come back when you are ready. There are groups where you can join in the arts and crafts where you can take a group journey to start you along and get some knowledge and education to get you started. There are heaps of classes for different art and craft classes. It just depends what you want to do. If you have no knowledge look for the beginners class take your time and just have fun. If the class is not for you look for something else, however my suggestion give yourself some time before changing.

The main knowledge is colors.. knowing what colors can make what, what they match with. Then you are able mix and match. There are heaps of educational books or go and get a cheap painting set and do some painting mixing colors and see what color you come up with. Learn the style you want to create. Do you have a vision of what you want to create?

My Craft Journey started over 25 years ago when it took it's turn. Looking back at the school days I was in art class however my scores were failed. It was not until I reached adulthood that I started to draw what I could see in my mind. I decided to choose my craft I want to attempted. Pottery. It was a group class it had the wheels where a lot of the women had choose. I could do the wheel however I was not getting satisfaction from the wheel. I wanted to get my hands dirty and feel the clay and create things. My pottery teacher at the time came up to me and saw that I was not enjoying the wheel that much and asked me what was on my mind. I told him I wanted to build things.. I was the only one in the class that wanted to hand build. He said to me I'll tell you what there are some books in the back. Go through the books and find a sculpture you like and give it a go but do not do a face on it.

I was on a mission yes a purpose and I went through a few books and found what I wanted to attempt. I was in my glory taking my clay, banging the air bubbles out of the clay. I choose white clay as of the sand inside it. By the time class was almost ending I had completed the piece by viewing it from the book. My teacher realized that I had a talent by viewing things and being able to do creations and adding my own feel to it. Sadly over time my pottery left and I got a new pottery teacher. She was also a teacher at the local Technical College and still I was the only person in the class once again that was the hand builder. She enjoyed giving assignments and seeing the result from my clay pieces.

On one of my days I was in pottery class, my teacher came to me and said have you ever thought about entering your pieces at the Royal Easter Show, it was wow over 1 million people attend this show over the period it is on around Easter. No way I suffered lack of confidence. I said No. However she saw I need a confidence boost and signed me up and told me and said now you need to do it.

The class watched me build my piece for the Easter Show from beginning to end other students would come and view the piece in the process of being made. The excitement was buzzing around the grounds. Let me explain one of my pieces. I created a glider plane by looking at my son's foam plane. Yes I did this in clay. I was allowed to do the glider in parts and able to glue parts together, then I painted the glider and having a comic character with his legs over the body of the glider danging in the air, with one arm was holding up a foam balloon that I painted and it was held up with thin metal string. The piece was all done in bright colors.

It was fun creating and the thrill of knowing so many people enjoyed my piece, now I had to add my price to sell it. back then I just added the cost of my materials and time. I was not going to throw up my price so high like many others did. The piece was put for $70.00 part of this went to the show for consignment for donation. I was so proud when i won my ribbon and sold my piece.

Each year over 3 years the Easter Show (RAS) was asking me if I would put more pieces in, and each year I did and sold my pieces. My confidence had improved and so did my work and love of clay and hand building.