I was flipping through old photos the other day (sort of – browsing through them on my computer, but that doesn’t have as evocative a sound), and found myself missing my big camera, and the time when I took photos regularly. Don’t get me wrong, I love the ease of my camera phone (even if the pictures do tend to have crappy quality), but there is something about seeing the world through my viewfinder that I miss. I’m hoping to do a photo shoot with the girls around Easter, maybe jump start my photography hobby again.
I play around with a number of creative hobbies, without getting super serious about any of them. I quilt, but not brilliantly. Sewing clothing, same. I used to scrapbook, but haven’t in about … well, I think the last time was when Joy was a baby. And occasionally I like to stick my toe in the waters of sketching, though I usually pull it back out again at once because that water is cold. I like baking and cooking, though having to do them every day or else we don’t eat does tend to diminish their appeal. Knitting I pick up at the start of every winter and lay down at the end and consequently never finish anything that takes longer to complete than a scarf. I adore music, and one of my goals is to someday take piano and voice lessons again, because without them my voice has turned to a rusty squawk and the piano winces every time I get near it.
I used to feel kind of badly about myself, that I dabbled in so much without ever feeling the drive to become expert in any of it. Of late, though, I’ve come to think of it as a good thing. I think it’s good to have something, a creative something, one can do just for fun, just to relax, without ever feeling the need to perfect it. I work to perfect my writing. There’s my passion. The rest? They’re more like … palate cleansers.
Sometimes my mind needs a rest from writing. But it doesn’t want to veg, it just wants to relax a little. So picking up my niece’s baby quilt (yes I’m still working on that NO I don’t want to talk about how long it’s been it’s pretty well a standing joke by now OK?) as a chance to rest those creative muscles without letting them get all flabby? I’m pretty sure I’ve killed this metaphor dead, but you get the picture. IT’S A GOOD THING.
So yes, I will pull out my nice big camera soon and enjoy once more the creative effort of setting up and pulling off some great shots. And I won’t feel bad that I don’t feel so passionate over my photography that I could totally make it my life, yo. It’s a fun hobby, and it’s just fine if that’s all it ever is.
Between colds and early pregnancy, my mind has not been on writing lately. I DID, however, quickly compile last year’s photo book for L. It didn’t take long, because I realized that I did not use my good camera often, rather using my phone, which did ok in getting the more candid moments.
There’s a couple of reasons for the lack of good photos though. The first being L was two years old. Actually getting her to be still for pictures was almost impossible. The second was that I spent a great deal of time last year jumping back into my first loves of writing and reading. I became absorbed in it.
Though I sometimes feel guilty for not using my camera more, I was devoting more time to a creative outlet that had been far too long neglected. What I’m saying is, I totally get this post. I think we’re all better off when we can regularly rotate our creative outlets so that nothing becomes stale. Another metaphor is crop rotation, I guess.
Crop rotation! I love that metaphor. Perfect image.
Heh, I’m the same. The number of creative hobbies I’ve started and put aside again is, umm, another one of those standing jokes. Like you – music, cooking, baking, sewing, quilting, knitting, candlemaking, soapmaking, painting, pottery, etc etc. I go crazy on it until I’ve mastered it *to my liking*, and then move on to the next thing. A serial master. But there’s actually a word for that: it’s called being a Scanner, not a Diver. Divers dive into something and go really deep (so I have friends who are fanatic knitters, and have been for years. It’s their passion, and they’re GOOD at it). Scanners scan all subjects, and know a bit of everything – and *that’s* our passion.
It’s, incidentally, an ideal gift for a homeschooler – you can teach your kids the basics of most subjects – and also for a writer, because you can bring that knowledge into your stories. Like, for me, Guy’s pottery wheel and throwing technique in SEVENTH SON, those are *my* wheel and technique. And Ouska’s sourdough bread, I tried that out before I wrote about it. And Cat’s librarian’s skills. And so on…
Incidentally, my husband has a sweater that took me nine years to knit. Yup. And that’s not because I’m a slow knitter.
I’ve frequently referred to myself as a “jack-of-all-trades, master of none,” and it’s nice to see I’m not alone in that!
Speaking of pottery – Joy got to use the pottery wheel in the art class she and Grace are taking, and she loved it. I thought of you, and of Guy, when she came home chattering about “using the wheel”!