Left Brain/Right Brain
Welcome to a blog that's been almost 25 years in the making! This is a place about the things that make me happy, mainly my projects and how they've taken shape. A one-stop shop to showcase my "skillz," how I've adapted and learned along the way, and to hopefully disclose where some of my crazy ideas come from. And in the end, of course, I'll have a journal of my accomplishments to look back on.
I started out to say that I'm a "serial crafter;" I always have something in the works, something that's not done and something that I don't know when I'm ever going to get back to. But "crafter" didn't seem like a broad enough term. Sure it all started with a piece of yarn, plastic canvas and a needle when I was six. It grew into counted cross stitch, designing patterns, and making elaborate dresses. It further evolved into self-taught crochet, a mission to figure it out if I didn't know how, and has lately rested on the excuse of making my home as customized to my imaginings as I dare to dream up. So it's not just about crafts. They're projects: requiring multi-fauceted skills, planning, budgeting, trial and error, problem management and complex execution. My goal is to, this year, break ground on the most expansive project yet - building a house. Obviously, that's a bit more than just me, a trip to Michael's and a scrap of fabric.
Which is where, something besides the crazy, imaginative in me has to be driving this bus. Hence, the right brain/left brain reference. In this article, Jason Ward outlines left brain thinking as detailed, organized and quality-control focused. While right brain thinking is imaginative, inspiration-oriented, and deals with the realm of possibility. In other words, my anal side is left brained, my creative side is right brained. It's a struggle to be good at using both sides of the brain. And my left side tends to win. But the things that make me happiest are on the right.
I'm hoping someday to transition the show casings of this blog into a business endeavor. I could sell some of my projects and take orders or commissions to make customizations of things I've already done. Or I could plan and manage larger scale events and projects for someone. There's a lot of play in between. But the point is, my grandfather used to tell me the old adage, "Find a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life." Well, the things in this blog are what make me happy. And wouldn't it be a dream to channel that into a way to make money, make my living, make my mark on this world? To succeed, I know I'll need to successfully use both sides of my brain. So this is where it starts. Let's see what emerges when my right brain meets my left...
