The Work I Love

Lately I've been working on a project I started quite some time ago. I finished the original experiment and it was successful. However, I wanted to do some testing. I wanted to do some refining.

But in the busy world we live in it takes a lot of effort to make the time for the things we really want to do. And there's so many things we’re told we should do instead.

After my very successful efforts in finally making a working design for a miniature holiday tree I decided to immerse myself in another experiment. Another design.

In 2021 I created a nightstand using matchboxes as working drawers. I was very happy with this experiment, but there were things that needed to be refined. I drew up plans for my next attempt, but then didn't get around to it.

Over the last few weeks I've been working with that design again. I worked out some of the issues. I run low on used matchboxes and as such spent the better part of a day figuring out how to make a matchbox with repurposed cardboard. (sans the striking surface)

Then armed with my new matchbox design I came to two additional quandaries. 

1. Can I change the dimensions to get a different sized matchbox?

2.  Can I make different shaped nightstands?

I'm currently in the process of working through the many steps of testing out a new design for a nightstand with a beautiful image I found on the internet as inspiration. 

And that's about where I stand on the project.

This brings us to the lesson of the matter. 

I've often found the parts of work I love deeply and intensely. And I've often been told I should not focus on them, because there are other things I should be doing. 

Things that are faster. 

Things someone else thinks will sell more easily. 

Things that I don’t have to “waste time” or “waste materials” developing. 

But then eventually I keep coming back to the things I love deeply and intensely.

 For me so far that is detail work and designing.

If you've seen any of my larger pieces, my figurines on bases filled with objects, or my figurines with the fine details along hats or other portions of them, that's what I mean by detail work. 

And the designing I love is the noodly process of figuring out how to make something. Actually diving in and getting my hands dirty. Failing, but examining how I failed so I can try again. 

I have a handful of ideas. Things I want to create. Things without instructions. 

I’ll have to experiment and study and maybe even learn a new skill or two. That process is fun to me. It's an adventure in creativity. I think one of the reasons I love it so much is it is very intensely the intersection of two separate things I love. Creativity and arts as well as science and math. It's the same reason once I found vector art in Inkscape I just wondered why no one had told me about it before. 

I want you to pay attention. I want you to pay attention to yourself and what you enjoy. And if you manage to find something you love, follow it.