all content © 2010 Elizabeth Ohlson

TRIFECTA III

I have just finished Trifecta III which will be my submission to the Hoffman Fabric Challenge. It was the most difficult kaleidoscope composition yet, and it's hard to explain why. There seemed to be roadblocks all along the way, and I was reminded of a friend's comment that when things aren't going right, it's time to step back and let it rest for a while.

Is she right? I think it is true in many cases for many people. The muses don't like to be bull-whipped. But my inclination, perhaps my compulsion, is to forge onward, and to regard the pitfalls as obstacles I need to climb over or go around. It seems to me I've talked about this before in my blogspace.

I do wonder, though, when too much effort is too much. Can you beat a dead horse to death? I'm listening to a philosophy course on my MP3 player, and the teacher recently gave the example of cutting a toothpick into sections. You can cut it in half, then the halves in half, then those pieces in half and so on and so on. But at some point, there is no longer a toothpick. There is something else, sawdust like particles.

I took apart various parts of the kaleidoscope carefully removed quilting stitches and seams, sometimes several times in order to make the block lie flat, to make points match as well as I could make them, etc., to the extent that I wondered if I might have weakened the fabric in spots. But I believe--I hope--that I stopped the taking out and resewing in the nick of time.

I've seen paintings that have been overworked and the last thing I would want would be to lose the dazzle of a kaleidoscope. I think the trick is to give one's best to make a piece work, to make it the best "it" it can be, and sometimes that requires a lot of extra thought, a lot of extra altering, a lot of correcting.

Something goes on behind the scenes in the creative process. There may be a lucky plunk of a few words all in a row creating a marvelously rich poem: "The fog creeps in on little cat feet...." I'm betting that was a lucky plunk. For me, for this particular piece, that was not the case. In fact, at times the effort seemed Sisyphean! But a few days ago, I looked at it and said: "It is done. Elizabeth is pleased."

I'm hoping all my efforts to create Trifecta III pay off--ah! a slip of the mercenary tongue there--I mean I hope it is the Trifecta III it needed to be. I hope Hobson Pittman, RIP, would not look at it and gently chide that it is too beautiful not to be more beautiful. No more tearing out. It is finished.