One of the things I do when I finish a piece of art is write down my “take aways”. These are the lessons I have learned throughout the journey of making a piece of art.
If you’ve followed along for very long you know that once I find a process that works for me I stick with it.. so, every time I sign off from time in my studio I write what I did that day.. a lot of times it says things like, “cut fabric and then cut more fabric” or reminding myself “one spool at a time.. one spool a day”.. this seriously may take me a grand sum of 15 seconds, but the pattern is established and I know no one looks at it except me.
There are other times I want to make sure I remember something very important like, when making a zigzag over appliqué layers I like the machine set to a 2 stitch length and a 1 width stitch. These notes I highlight and come back to later.
And, there are times when I write something deep that I want to carry into the future.. like, “Mellow out. You make art because you like to. Sure, making money at it would be cool, but either way, you’re still going to make art.” Can you see my brain explode when I highlight this knowing it’s going on the big list?? 🤯
So when I finish..meaning, the binding is on. The piece is hanging somewhere. The website is up to date. I’ve filed all the pictures properly.. THEN it is time to sit down with my journal and go back over my highlighted notes..
I read through the pages.. and then I give myself five minutes to make a list of five “takeaways”. I never need the full five minutes and I almost always write at least 10.. most of those 10 are redundant, but I have to remind myself because it hasn’t stuck yet..
And then, because I am a natural born overachiever I highlight the ones I know I’m going to really need again and again and again so that in the next journal they will all be one one page together.