Thought Spaghetti

The past few months have been taken up with work that isn’t needle felting, and it’s thrown me off kilter. I don’t think we realise how much structure a routine provides to our lives until it’s gone.

I used to be a graphic designer, and when I left the job to needle felt full-time, I threw myself into felting in a way that wasn’t sustainable long-term, leaning over a desk and stabbing wool for the same amount of time I used to spend in the office. I turned myself into a production line, which changed my relationship with what I was doing. I still loved designing and making the Woodlanders, and put the same level of focus into each, while working as efficiently as possible. But working this way gave my creative brain no room to breathe – to stop and be playful with creating. And I think that’s a key ingredient of the Woodlanders – the playfulness.

When I was a child I used to spend hours sitting in front of a dollhouse my grandad made for me and arranging Sylvanian Families/Calico Critters inside it. I suppose making Woodlanders transports me back to that time, when there wasn’t an adult’s ‘to do’ list waiting for me to stop playing and get on with doing the important stuff. But isn’t playing ‘the important stuff’? Animals do it, children do it, but then we grow, and the weight of our adult responsibilities takes over.

I started making Woodlanders in order to play – as a break from work. And now it is work, and a necessity, to buy food, pay the bills, and when I’m faced with a day of felting, I think of my back, my arms, and the monotony, and I struggle to begin. Once I’ve started, I enjoy it. But I’ve trapped myself in a cycle of make, sell, ship, repeat. And the problem is, I can’t take my foot off the pedal without losing income and then panicking about if I have enough money to pay the bills.

But this current model is unsustainable, so I’m going to unscramble my thoughts and work out what a healthy career looks like, define the line between my work and personal time, and try things a little differently.

I’m not sure that made any sense, or if it’s all a bit of a whinge! But it was my attempt at untangling my own thought spaghetti.

Oh I mentioned ‘work that isn’t needle felting’. Two projects. One was a reel for Red Nose Day which is on my instagram, and the other is the only piece of graphic design I still do, aside from Woodlanders stuff. I used to work for a company who did the poster and other various things for the Isle of Wight Festival. The original festival was very famous (Joni Mitchell played there) and whilst I worked for the company, I began drawing the poster for the festival. Below is the first one I did, and I’ve been doing it since. When I left the company I was very lucky to be asked to continue on a freelance basis.

Wishing you a lovely week. Spring has definitely arrived on the Isle of Wight.

And Pippi says 'hi'. :)