Thursday, August 17, 2006

On Writing Articles

I was asked to write an article for Quilter's Home Magazine, which I promptly did, and I have to say now I regret doing so. What was supposed to be a small article is a large quote, so the article is hard to find - hey I wrote it and I couldn't find it!!! It's called "Plant Your Stash" in the August 2006 issue on page 53.

No I didn't pick the title. And no the "easy-for-a-moron" comment is NOT mine!!! The person who wrote part of the article made that comment. I find my techniques while quick and easy, to be quite respectable, though the person commenting on my techniques clearly does NOT.

I told my husband that this just supports my idea of including compost dyeing under the "Mark Making with Nature: Surface Design with Natural Dyes" title instead of writing a seperate book under the Compost Dyeiing title. Hopefully this book will be done and delivered from the printers by October 1st (ish)!!!

He finally conceded that I may be right after all. I can see the book "compost dyeing" being placed in the gardening section of a book store - actually that is NOT a bad thing, but it may make it hard for surface designers, who are interested in learning my techniques, to find the book.

But I never thought of compost dyeing as being an unrespectable thing to do. Rather I see it more as being cutting edge, incorporating nature into ones own work, the act of relinquishing control over the final outcome, but I never saw it as a disrespectable craft.

So I think it goes without saying but I'll say it anyway, it's interesting to hear and see other peoples perspectives/perceptions on what you do artistically. And sometimes you hear things you don't want to hear!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

K - It is frustrating when your ideas get remodeled into something that fits a publication. I made a huge ruckus over a quilt book that was published several years ago, which resulted in a complete reprint - THAT doesn't happen every day.

On another happier note, a friend of mine saw your article in QH and emailed a bunch of us artsy types about it. The funny thing was, she said: "To my [dying] friends - I found this article about [dying] in a compost heap." We all got a huge chuckle out of that, and it made your article very memorable!