Deanne Fitzpatrick Rug Hooking Studio

Tree Roots in Winter

Dear Diary, It was Walt Disney who said, “We don’t make movies to make money, we make money so we can make movies.”  When your reason for creating is money, you might as well find a widget you can manufacture. It is simpler and requires less spirit. Making things requires passion, interest , and commitment. Whatever money follows these things will belong to you, but the money itself can never be a reason.
I like working with people who are excited about ideas and want to see them through. When I call someone with an idea, I can hear the interest and commitment in their voice. In my experience if you do not hear that right off the bat, you might not really have a partner to carry out your idea with. I have never been a good one to use persuasion. If someone wants to partake I welcome them, but rarely do I try to convince, because I believe that people are best motivated by their own spirit, whether it is about going out to dinner or a great big art project. People who are acting on their own momentum are the most fun to work with. Working together requires time spent.
Today on the radio, I heard a famous musician say that for a duet, she and the other famous musician, each laid down their own tracks in separate studios and sent audio files to their producer. Well, I know that this is how it is often done. I know that is true. When they played the song immediately afterward, all I could feel were two sepatrate voices singing their own song. It was not a duet in the intimate sense. Now, perhaps if I had not have known, I would have heard that song differently, or perhaps not. What the song lacked I believe was immediacy, that essensial human connection of being together, the way spirits meld, making the moment better because you are together. It is something that happens between people that makes us better for being together. It is something that would not happen were we not in the same room. Connectedness.
When you have an idea and someone wants to run with it with you, run with them, side by side. Join your ideas with someones elses. If you hire someone to help you, make sure they embrace your idea and believe it is worth bothering with. Surround yourself with people like that, people who like to mmake stuff, just for the sake of making stuff because that is what bringing an idea to life is about. It is no different than taking a bunch of strands of fabric and creating a rug out of them. At the root of everything are all these loose strands of the mind that are brought together, melded, regenerated, and energized into reality. Ideas are such lovely toys. I hope everyone gets one for the new year.