Putting Yourself Out There

Why do we create? Is it for yourself . . . . for a living . . . . for recognition?

Whatever the motivation, it is nice to get feedback. This can be a passive act. . . . or a conscious decision to participate in your community.

While I have a wide variety of creative interests, I am passionate about polymer clay. I have taken dozens of workshop and actually have about 8 years under my belt working with polymer clay. But I have mostly been creating in a bubble, just for myself and am an on-line lurker . . . . there I said it!

Since this is the year of pushing myself out of my comfort zone, I did something that was uncomfortable and even a bit scary. I submitted a proposal for presentation at an upcoming conference called Synergy. This is a conference specifically for the polymer clay community (www.synergyconference.net). It is a conference held every 2 or three years in the US, and this is the 4^th one. They are an amazing educational experience and you see work from all the professionals in the biz.

No they didn’t accept my proposal. I honestly didn’t expect them to. I am not a recognized name (yet) and when you put together conferences you have to have the names to draw in the attendees. I get it . . . I have been a conference chair (in another life).

However, I did have a solid idea. The title was Kadinsky to the Jetson’s – an evolution of an idea. The concept was describing a path for developing an idea, the obstacles, the tangents and pit falls. I was going to use a recent project of mine as an example, so that the concepts weren’t being addressed in simply an abstract way, but with a real-world example.

Original interpretation of inspiration

On the path, working on the series

Change of shape took us on tangent to the Jetson’s

I do plan to ‘finish’ developing this idea, flush out my presentation, and find a venue to present it. I was even thinking about submitting an edited version for publication in one of the polymer magazines. We will see.

So you go ahead and put your creations out into the world. What’s the worst that can happen? . . . . . someone doesn’t like it, they say no, you refocus and you get better! Doesn’t sound like there is a downside.

PS – Sometimes they do say YES! In 2013, I submitted some art journaling pages to Dawn Devries Sokol (www.dawnsokol.com) for a book she was writing called A World of Artist Journal Pages. And they were accepted!! So you just never know what is going to happen when you take a chance and step out of that comfort zone!