I have an addictive personality. I've instinctively known this all my
life and thus shied away from the usual recreationally addictive
substances. And that's far from being the only area in my life where
obsession exists. What made me a great reporter/scientist/feature writer
was that I can get very
very interested in a subject very
quickly, research tirelessly for days on end soaking up information like
a sponge, and then like a sponge, when I become saturated, if the right
situation or person squeezes, all the information gushes forth. What
I am extremely bad at however, is maintaining that focus in the long
term. My passions tend to last for a few years at a time, sometimes only
a few months. In my working life my projects were measured in weeks or
sometimes days. I had to pick up an idea, run with it, and become a very
competent
sounding (that word is important) word spout on the
subject, and then be ready to drop the idea and move on as soon as the
piece was written.
It suited me very well.
Sometimes, if
the timing is right I can get back into something again - I pick up
knitting and spinning seasonally and the fimo is something I played with
as a child. Although I've yet to experience that same all-devouring
passion for anything the second time around (except bushcraft). From
what I'm reading about polymer clay (fimo to us Brits) is that it is an
endlessly creative medium. It seems tailor made for butterfly minds like
mine, as it can be used to mimic almost any traditional craft technique
you care to think of from antique glass to zinc. That dichotomy is its
blessing and its curse to me. I'm drawn to tradition and authenticity;
integrity is written through me like a stick of rock, and so
faux
anything rings hollow. I don't want to imitate - I want to create.
I want to find a way to express this craft that is unique to it. Do
things that can only be done with polymer clay. I want to twist it,
shape it, and take a traditional technique and run with it. I think the
reason I hated miscellaneous pagan resin tat was because it was so fake.
It was too much. Too twee. Too much a parody of what being pagan is. So
what I want to do is to let the clay take me where it wants to go.
I want to see if something spiritual can be born from it naturally, and
not forced. Can a manmade material ever be truly pagan? Can it be
authentic? I know that doesn't bother some people, and it bothers me
immensely. I want it to be
real. Real
what exactly I don't mind, just real. True to itself.