The Joker Jacket

Epiphany. Paradigm shift. An ah ha moment. All those phrases describe something pivotal that happened this weekend and I can't tell you the details because it's not my story to tell. What I can say, is that it was a settling moment in which I realized that here, in my studio, doing what I do, is exactly the place where I'm supposed to be. In the past, I would get to this spot and then something would happen - typically with our finances - and I'd start debating this or that job option. With this new awareness - which hopefully sticks - short of a major catastrophe - I can't see any reason to think along those lines again and that's fabulous.

And then... having settled on doing what I do best... I spent some time searching online for wearable art purses. I enjoyed seeing the details of specific bags and I especially enjoyed seeing some decent pricing structures. Only one artist's work was along the lines of mine except that mine is more labour intensive. My work is multi-layered with dense thread work, embellishment, and a huge attention to details. With one of my bags, a handle might take as long to produce as another artist's complete bag because what I do is highly involved. While I could see how those other pieces would be faster to produce and could sell for a lower price, that's not a compromise I want to choose because I really like making my bags my way. Good. Enough.

I've been referring to my patchwork cardigan as The Joker Jacket. I worked on it a little bit each day last week and - luckily - with the way the house viewings were scheduled - had two and half days in the studio which allowed for significant chunks of progress and good stopping points before vacuuming and defluffing for whoever was coming next. It took longer than I thought and thankfully I finished Friday afternoon as I have other plans for this week - jewelry plans.

I like it. Howard doesn't. Watching him try to be diplomatic gives me the giggles although I must admit to egging him on just a little by asking terrible questions like what do you think of my sweater. In reply, he uses telling phrases like it's certainly interesting or I'll need to wait to see it on you to decide. I guess he can't like everything I make - LOL - which is fine. I love the creative journey of sewing something like this and then it's hilarious to wear it and watch how people react, what they say. My daughter doesn't like it either but she just tells me outright.

Sunday morning when I came out dressed for church and wearing the sweater, Howard's comment was you look perky. Too funny. He still didn't like it and - oh well - there was a lot of interest and numerous comments at church including one from Ralta which I was so waiting for.

Ralta is in her late seventies, early eighties. She LOVES clothes and dresses amazing. No old lady clothes for her. We like many of the same things. In fact, we have some of the same clothes. Whenever I sew something that I know for sure Ralta will like, I ask her what do you think of my skirt, jacket, dress, top, whatever and when she says she loves it, I say well you can't have it because I sewed it which gives both of us the giggles. She knits. The last time I wore a sweater that she wanted I had to take it off while she figured out how she was going to create a duplicate. It's a fun point of connection.

Above is the YouTube video that Katwise links to in her how to make a Katwise sweater tutorial. A friend sent the link on Saturday and I've watched it several times since. It's zany - happy - colorful - and incredibly organized just as I anticipated she'd be. You can't put out that much product without some kind of system.

With the coat in the video, the seams run in one direction, either vertical or horizontal - a time saver - while on mine, they run both ways and intersect - more labour intensive.  I pressed every seam. She doesn't appear to press any. I measured and cut. She eyeballed. If I do something similar ever again, I'll be more informed.

After watching the video, I bought the tutorial hoping to learn more about her organizational process because I'm always intrigued with how people work. The tutorial is a well produced, slow motion version of the video with great advice but no additional organizational details. The last few pages intrigued me. They were along the same lines as this paragraph from her Etsy page...

If another artist on etsy inspires my designs, I delight in giving them credit with a little shout out in my item description. My elf coats have inspired a bit of a trend here on etsy. I've put a ton of heart into developing these designs over years, and they are precious to me, so please respect that. If you are going to use my designs, please give my shop a mention in your listing, and we can all be good etsy neighbors.

And so I went looking, searching by sweater coat, and found LOTS of look-a-like sellers however only one had the same kind of artistic - and especially color - ability as Kat and that particular seller had changed her design in such a way that although you knew it was inspired by, it wasn't a direct copy. AND she gave credit. Most of the others were a poor imitation and I wondered why they would want to copy someone so directly. It's not unusual even as it's not understandable to me.

A few weeks ago, I watched a clutch purse video. At the beginning, the presenter says she's been working hard on producing a new video and then word for word with one teeny tiny exception - she can't remember the exact seam allowance, you know, it's that regular one with the line on the sewing machine - she quotes and demonstrates a clutch purse demo from a Martha Stewart show. Later, in the tag line, she credits Martha Stewart but IMHO that isn't nearly enough. To me, the world is too small and too interconnected to build your reputation by directly and obviously copying someone else.

I like this quote from Herman Melville - It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. One of the reasons that I stopped designing quilt patterns and teaching quiltmaking and instead started to teach the fundamentals of design and how to develop your style was because of cloning in QuiltWorld. Big name teachers were going around teaching their students how to be just like them. You'd see a quilt in a magazine, think it looks just like teacher X's work, and glance down to find out it was someone else entirely. To me, that's joy sucking. Similarities of work happen because we're all exposed to the same influences however, with our own twist on things, we can be original. There's no need to be a direct copy. At least that's how I feel - the only person I want to be is me.

With The Joker Jacket, my goal was to make a sweater purely for fun, inspired by a magazine article and a few pieces of RTW clothing, using a T & T pattern developed years ago. I didn't copy the article. I was inspired by it. Being original - or as original as we can be in this visual overload world - is really Really REALLY important to me. Quite possibly, that drive makes things a little tougher for me than they need to be but that's the way it is. Oh well.

I sent Kat some images of my jacket and got a lovely email back in which she said that she understood why people might think of her work looking at it but from what she could tell it was done entirely differently and looked original and... she liked it. That was nice to hear.

This morning, I have an appointment and then my studio is clean and ready for a new project. I'm going to work on some necklace and bracelet pieces this week and would love to have one, maybe even two, of each done by the end of the week, depending what this week ends up looking like.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - a wonderful talk about art and imitation with another artist. Those kind of opportunities are always thought provoking.

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Personal Growth - I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. - John 15:11

Yesterday's sermon was about choosing joy in the middle of life's stuff. Joy was defined as internal peace and comfort in God as opposed to giddy optimism. God promises - I will be with you. In the middle of "stuff" it's always nice to have someone to hold your hand.