Creativity Catalysts -- Exhibition Edition

(drum roll, please...) After this summer, I'll be able to say my work has been exhibited internationally. Even better, you could say the same and, more important, experience the power of exhibition calls as a creativity catalyst.

Let me back up. In April, my friend Becka Rahn posted about an upcoming Stitch London partnership with the London Science Museum. They've put out an international call for entries called Stitch Yourself. The museum will celebrate the reopening of their interactive Who Am I gallery with an installation of handmade figures.

This brought to mind a call put out in 2002 by the Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Shoes: The Soul of Humanity. There are personal reasons why a shoe show would appeal to me. For that unjuried show, I made a piece that really came from my heart. That piece was then juried into another show in 2003, and accepted into Fiberarts Design Book 7, which was published in 2004.

Would I have done Grass Slipper if it hadn't been for the call from Kohler? Probably not. And I would have missed out on something even more important than the book, the juried show, and the house payment I made after selling it. That piece taught me to look for catalysts.

Catalysts cause reactions. In chemistry, they make things smoke and bubble. Imagine the same thing happening to ideas in your head. Things might bet a little cloudy for a while, but when the smoke clears you've produced something new.

Last week I got busy on a piece for Stitch London. I cut, stacked and stitched a piece of heavy wool felt to make a lost form for the body, added a wad of fleece for the hair, and worked looping in waxed linen for the dress. Here's the work in progress.

To finish the piece, I added ruffles to the skirt and bodice, a hat, full-length red gloves and red fishnet stockings.

How does this represent me? My hair isn't quite so gray (yet), and I haven't worn puffed sleeves since the 70s. But on the inside, I feel a little like Mary Poppins most days. My world is filled with magic, much of it created with a needle and thread.

So my stitched self will dance across the pond to London this summer. She won't be coming back. That's part of the deal with this exhibition. And that's OK. She's already done her job here by reminding me to pay attention to the creativity catalysts that come my way.

What kinds of catalysts spark your imagination?