Post Eurosynergy

And actually post wedding but written before hand as internet availability expired.  I am nearly caught up!! (How much of an illusion is that eh?)Having been on the move for several months, and pretty preoccupied with tasks at hand, I am looking forward to some unstructured time in my studio. After the wedding!  Time to integrate all that I was exposed to at Eurosynergy; time to think about the ideas and techniques, themes, discussions and dreams. Time to look through my notebooks of random thoughts and to allow it all to percolate. Time to play.  And Lindly Haunani (L) is a great one to inspire play!There was discussion about copying and inspiration and I think a very important step in that journey from slavish copying (or just making what you have been taught in a class) to finding your own artistic voice is that of play.  Taking what you've learnt and pushing it, experimenting, adding ideas of your own.  Asking yourself what would happen if I...?  Mixing that new information with what you have already discovered and using it to say what YOU want to say.  You could do a million classes with Melanie West (R) and even though she was a generous, skilled gifted teacher, what you made would never look like hers. Nor should it.  I want to explore how using some of the techniques she taught can be adapted to making something that looks like mine!  All the teachers of the workshops and seminars I attended were incredibly generous and giving.  None of them want people to go out and make reproductions of what they do. They want to equip us with resources to find our own voice.For me, that means experimenting, fiddling, playing, not putting pressure on myself to MAKE something good.  It means looking through my journals and seeing if a sketch I made might happen if I do a bit of this and that that I learnt somewhere.  It means telling myself I do not have to make the perfect piece, the one that totally expresses all I want to say.  I can put an awful lot of pressure on myself which means I am much more likely to start cleaning my desk, or eating, or (less likely unless really overwhelmed with a procrastinatory need) do something domestic.For a terrific way to see how one design can inspire a whole range of voices, read about Dan Cormier's Broken Internet Project here.  We are going to share this with the ladies as it powerfully says so much so succinctly!