Tues Suz

So, do you just scan the photos, or do you really read what I write? Because this is all about facing your creative demons.....and it starts with Susan! The photos are just fillers. OK, no, Susan is NOT a creative demon! LOL!!! I can just here her giggling as she reads this.

The story starts several months back....well, maybe nearly 2 years ago...when the Basement Babes (take note that this group meets on THURSDAY) had a playday with metal clay. Although I've been working with paper type this month, most fine silver artists use the clay type. It comes in small lumps and you have to knead it quickly and shape it, made your creation before it dries out.

Here is Colorado, the air is quite dry, so this is a learned skill. If you don't work fast enough, the clay will start to crack and eventually it will just crumble. Now, you can spritz it, dip your finger in water and rub over it, all kinds of little trick to extend your working time. And I always use the slow dry brand so my students have a bit more time to play with it.

On this particular Thursday, Susan had a creative demon. She just could not manipulate the clay. It dried. It cracked. It crumbled. I gave her a new block (gasp!) thinking it might have been bad clay. Nope....it was "bad" Susan as she did the very same thing with the second block. And believe me, she was getting exasperated and totally stressed about this time.

So I made a little joke. I told her that we would have to start calling her Tues Suz. She gave me the saddest look and said, "why?" And I replied, "because you can never come back on Thursday if we are playing with clay....you have to come by yourself on Tuesday!"

Guess what? The nickname stuck!!! And we have had many wonderfully funny jokes calling poor Susan "Tues Suz" and suggesting that she return on Tuesday to finish whatever it is we are working on.

HOWEVER.....yesterday was Tuesday. Susan was here. She offered to help me with anything I needed to have done as prep for the Metal Clay conference. We started out with a trip to the Bead Lounge in Longmont, then lunch (I like to segway into my "working" day!) and then back here where I had her looking up product numbers in catalogs for me. Finished that project and I said, "are you ready?" She said, "you bet!" - not having the foggiest idea what my next project might be!

I think Susan thought we were going to go down to the basement and work in my "Lucy McGoo's Little Store"....but I surprised her! I brought out the paper type metal clay and told her we were going to make silver charms!

LOLOL!!!

After being banned from touching metal clay for the past 2 years, Susan did a fantastic job! I think she's even a pro at paper type! And it got me to thinking. What do you do with your creative demons. And I realized I do exactly what Susan did with hers. She flunked our metal clay class (literally) and then set is aside for months on end. When she came back, she approached it with a different angle and had a huge success.

Sometimes, I think we get caught up in the craft media frenzy and push ourselves to do what someone else is doing. Perhaps this is not the moment for us to go that direction. Perhaps we just need to set it aside, give it a rest, and come back to it at a later date.

And then I realized....this is exactly what I do. And it's probably the reason I dabble in so many different mediums. But I truly love it! It also dawned on me that I'm no longer going to struggle with something when it doesn't work for me. I'll just set it aside, give it a rest, and come back to it another day, from a slightly different angle, and see if I can have a success then.

From the photos posted here, you can certainly see that while Susan was here on a Tuesday, I believe she has mastered the art of paper type metal clay!

Susan, you rock! Thank you so much for all the help, fun and giggles you provided yesterday!!!

I really do have the best friends on earth!!!