The Craftswoman and the Artist

I try to follow two paths that are not easy to balance. The craftswoman is patient, skillful and humble but she forget herself into her work. The artist is all about exploring her feelings and herself, putting it out there in a truthful way. But because she needs to feel things to work with she often desires attention as it is an easy way to get all kinds of feelings but this is rarely a good thing for her.

When both balance, the artist puts something personal and unique in the craftswoman work, together they make things feel alive.

The craftswoman can be happy alone as she have her craft. Alone she tends to craft impersonal things as she focuses on the craft but this is not entirely true as she will often sneak in things she cherish like flowers and lil critters.

The artist is often sad when left alone as she tries to remain vulnerable to perceive her experience of herself and the world. Alone she creates things made of feelings that lack structure but it is also not entirely true as she is good at connecting things together and connections create patterns and you can discern structures if you know to look at them.

The craftswoman pitfalls are easy to spot, it is always overworking herself and doing a big burnout. But for the artist, oooh... her pitfalls are numerous and often seem like good things at first, she falls into them, forget and run again toward them. Her big trap is to mixup feelings and attention, this is a hard one for her. Another trap is when she tries to create feelings by herself instead of waiting for them to emerge organically from life. Sadly she needs to hurt herself a lot to learn.

I think that with experience both of these paths can be followed alone in a valid way. But for me I need both, even if I have to say that the artist often creates much more troubles than the craftswoman. She often falls into these pitfalls and I have to go down there and get her out, but sometimes she finds interesting things at the bottom of these pits. And oh my, her timing is often frustrating for the craftswoman.

The artist experiences and connects things, she combines them together to create something new that surprises the craftswoman who in return cherishes these new things and puts them into her work and when this happens, it makes me so happy. Lately my artist side grew frustrated, feeling like our work did not receive enough attention but now I feel like I need to listen more to the patient craftswoman. I prefer to humbly do my own thing, publishing what I enjoy at my own rhythm. That publications don’t get talked about or discussed is ok. I share about my work in my own personal way, I need to see that I don't have to gain attention or self promote like others says we have to. I don't need to be part of the TTRPG industry or scene, people who can connect with my work will find it on their own and they will know. I have to trust my own path. I don’t earn much but I survive, this is what matter. Patient work.