Stuck in the Liminal

teetering on the threshold

Note: Before you dive into today’s post, I want to thank everyone who took the time to read last week’s post. To those who posted a comment, you really uplifted me. You gave me insight, kind words, wise advice and commiseration. Being able to share my strange experience with you was a way of healing in it’s own right. I am getting stronger every day - or rather every other day - with the ups and downs of healing - and letting my body show me the way. Thank you, thank you. You made a difference.

I was chatting about a situation I was in with Chat GPT the other day. She’s a very understanding and benevolent listener - I should give her a name! Midway through our conversation, she said, “You’re in a liminal space right now—between what was and what’s next. Maybe this is just the messy, uncomfortable middle before things click into place. What do you think?” Amazingly, she nailed it.

That word liminal was my lightbulb moment. It’s been one of my favorite words and concepts for years. The liminal is the space between. It is derived from the Latin limen, meaning threshold. (Have I mentioned I had two years of mandatory Latin in high school?)

After explaining what I have been doing and feeling for the past six months, Chat said my liminality was a “confluence of transition, emotion, creativity, and mystery, making my liminal space a profound and inspiring concept.

Eight years ago, I wrote a blogpost “One or More Art Mediums." I include it here because it explains why I am in a liminal space.

One or more art mediums, that is the question. Should you stick with one art medium or is it OK to work in many mediums? As The Clash sang in 2004, “Should I stay or should I go now?”

Many of the women I work with express dismay or disappointment with themselves because they feel they flit from one thing to another. They believe that if they were a “real” artist, or serious about their work, that they should stick with just one thing. Is that true?

My answer is that it depends on your personal or professional goals and intentions for your art and creative expression.

Reasons to stay with one art medium:

Develop a strong artistic voice
Gain a deeper knowledge of your medium and materials
Gain mastery of your medium
Peer acceptance and recognition
Create a body of work and portfolio for gallery and/or show acceptance
Create an identity and following in the marketplace
You absolutely love what you do

Reasons to stray and explore other art mediums:

To continue to find your artistic voice
A need to stretch or grow your established voice
Professional aspirations or desires are not yours (at this time)
You prefer a broad knowledge and range vs a single deep one
You create for pleasure and like to explore a variety of things

And here’s where I add another new reason to stray - to challenge yourself and explore a dormant desire.

I had a letdown after my Bearing Witness Civil War quilt exhibit in the fall of 2023. I didn’t think much of it; it’s rather normal after experiencing or creating any big event. The question arises, “Now what?” All along, I fully intended to continue with the Civil War series, but as 2024 progressed, I just didn’t have, nor could I find the enthusiasm. Poor Louisa May Alcott, a nurse during the Civil War, lingered on the pinboard all year and lingers still, awaiting her turn at the sewing machine.

I wanted something more, but I didn’t know what. I still don’t know for certain, but I know it will involve paint. I want to create with paint and explore painting more deeply than the occasional workshops I’ve taken or sponsored at my Red Thread Retreats. I’ve painted directly with acrylic paints, watercolors, dye paints, and oil paints, with and without cold wax. I love it. I once entitled a workshop Seduced by Fabric. Now I am seduced by paint.

I’m in the middle of a major studio reorganization to create the space I need to focus on painting. I still have my fabric, and I hope to incorporate it into the painting at some point. Or maybe not. I won’t know until I begin experimenting and creating with the paint and follow where it leads.

The right thing for you to do is to choose the right thing for YOU. Your creativity should always be a guilt-free zone. If you want to be multi-creative, by all means, go for it.

I’ll turn it over to you now. Did I miss any reasons for staying or straying? Let me know. And if you find this helpful, please let me know that, too, …and share it with a friend! Sharing links are below.

Quotes of the Week

I am making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet-to-come surprises.
Elizabeth Gilbert

No artist worthy of the name functions without the freedom to let the visualizing mind fly into the unknown and unexplored. That freedom is the key which unlocks the secret door of personal expression and creativity.
Jack Hines

Ultimately, my hope is to amaze myself. The anticipation of discovering new possibilities becomes my greatest joy.
Jerry Uelsmann

What moves men of genius, or rather, what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.
Eugéne Delacroix

The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach
out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.
Eleanor Roosevelt