I spend hours creating, and by hours I mean days, and while I love it, sometimes, I wonder, what’s the point. Does what I’m doing really matter, am I making an impact, am I changing lives?

Over the weekend I watched a family pack all of their belongings into a moving truck, they were in the process of abandoning a home that they can no longer afford.  ( I admit, this is a foreign concept to me, one that I have trouble understanding, but at the same time I empathize. Not able to imagine the many emotions that they’re experiencing walking away, and ending up, who knows where. )

When I look a big issues, like poverty, spending my time weaving, making beautiful , but unessential objects, at moments seems frivolous. But , at the same time , I can’t stop.

“I know these projects are totally irrational, totally useless,” he added. “The world can live without them, nobody needs them, only me and Jean-Claude. She always made the point that they exist because we like to have them, and if others like them, it’s only a bonus.” ~ Christo Javacheff

Art is one of those tricky things, that we don’t, but we do need.

Painter Kandinsky says.

[In great art] the spectator does feel a corresponding thrill in himself. Such harmony or even contrast of emotion cannot be superficial or worthless; indeed the Stimmung of a picture can deepen and purify that of the spectator. Such works of art at least preserve the soul from coarseness; they “key it up,” so to speak, to a certain height, as a tuning-key the strings of a musical instrument.

In each picture is a whole lifetime imprisoned, a whole lifetime of fears, doubts, hopes, and joys. Whither is this lifetime tending? What is the message of the competent artist? … To harmonize the whole is the task of art.

The inner need is built up of three mystical elements:

1. Every artist, as a creator, has something in him which calls for expression (this is the element of personality).
2. Every artist, as child of his age, is impelled to express the spirit of his age (this is the element of style) — dictated by the period and particular country to which the artist belongs (it is doubtful how long the latter distinction will continue to exist).
3. Every artist, as a servant of art, has to help the cause of art (this is the element of pure artistry, which is constant in all ages and among all nationalities).

A full understanding of the first two elements is necessary for a realization of the third.

While there are moments that I doubt the importance of my work, you probably have moments about your work as well, I see around me, that beautiful things make a difference. They make our lives better, fuller, happier. And beautiful objects on display, whether that be on your wall, or on your shoulders, give us ways to connect with those around us.

”

The artist is not born to a life of pleasure. He must not live idle; he has a hard work to perform, and one which often proves a cross to be borne. He must realize that his every deed, feeling, and thought are raw but sure material from which his work is to arise, that he is free in art but not in life.

The artist has a triple responsibility to the non-artists: (1) He must repay the talent which he has; (2) his deeds, feelings, and thoughts, as those of every man, create a spiritual atmosphere which is either pure or poisonous. (3) These deeds and thoughts are materials for his creations, which themselves exercise influence on the spiritual atmosphere.” – Kandinsky

New scarves in the shop, scarves that are full of color and new patterns that I’ve never used, scarves that surprised and delighted me as they flowed off of the loom, and now are ready to surprise and delight you.

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