Patience & the Art of Repetition
I’ve been a knitter for longer than I haven’t been a knitter if that makes sense. My mom taught me the basics when I was seven or eight. It was something I did now and then as a kid. In my final semester of college, I went back to it - I needed something different than studying. When I began working full time, and my paints sat in the depths of various storage units, I went back to knitting. Wool became my best friend. It is soft and comforting, it was and is creating while resting, and it has taught me so much about going back and getting things right. And when things go poorly, knitting taught me it’s okay to knit a simple striped scarf pattern as often as it takes for things to get better.
Noro Silk Striped Scarf #12
The repetitive motion of knitting is soothing and brings so much comfort. Ripping out a project multiple times and wanting to rip out one's hair is also a part of knitting. Still, the end product is generally always worth it.
This repetition and the patience to repeat things allows me to paint the same painting multiple times. To continue to hone, refine, tweak and nudge. I do this not in pursuit of perfection but to capture the scene's mood and essence. With encaustic paintings, I might paint the same image five to fifteen times, depending on how taken I am with the color scheme.
With watercolor, it is not uncommon for me to paint a scene at least twice, sometimes three times. If I were not a knitter, doing a painting again because it was not quite right would be devastating - so much time is invested. But honestly, nothing compares to the amount of time invested in a cabled sweater and discovering a mistake by the left shoulder when one is already working the final waist shaping.
I became enthralled with this boat and the disappearing bridge. I wanted to continue working with the water, the clouds, and the different color combinations of the ship and tying those colors into the background.
Patience and some well-directed obsession can go a long way in creating art.