My goal today was to complete a woven artist trading card, and I achieved that goal! Well, almost. I have to put a backing on it, but I think that I’m going to wait until I get about half a dozen woven and back all of them at the same time.

Earlier this month, I wove two other little tapestries which I meant to be artist trading cards, but the size was not quite right. The only two restrictions for an artist trading card is that it can’t be sold and it must be 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. Think baseball card. So those two will be pins. When I hit the size right, it will be an ATC, and when I don’t, it will be a pin.

The theme of Art & Soul is “By the Sea.” From what I understand, most of the attendees carry with them lots of little handcrafted goodies to trade. I’m weaving these tapesties on little cardboard squares, and they are doing double duty - they will be trades and they are studies for my next tapestry bag.

Weaving these little tapestries is one of the most relaxing things I’ve done for a long time, and it is so easy. Taking photos of the little weavings, not!!!!! Also, I planned to do a lot of beading on my collages and art quilts and fabric journals and weavings. I might need to get my bifocals first - it is definitely ten times harder than it used to be to thread a needle and poke it through those tiny little holes. So, to recap, weaving = fun! Photography and beading = frustration.

Substitute any dream for the word “artist”…

“Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

“When I make this point in teaching, I am met by instant, defensive hostility: ‘But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano/act/paint/write a decent play?’

“Yes . . . the same age you will be if you don’t.

“So let’s start.”

~Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

I started a project that’s been on my mind ever since I received the book Artist Trading Card Workshop. I want to make my ATCs out of fiber and recycled materials when possible. The section that appealed to me most made nests of fibers on the card and melted them together with embossing powders and fusible webbing tape.

So I have been weaving tapestries from thrums and discarded warps and dyeing mistakes, and now I have a way to re-use the thrums from the thrums. It feels like, I don’t know, like I just found the last piece to a jigsaw puzzle. Ahhhh. It drove me crazy to throw those thrums away. Usually I give them to the birds or toss them in the compost heap when there gets to be too many.

Anyway, here’s what I came up with. Backgrounds for four sets of two cards each.

I had no freakin idee whut I wuz doing. I just played. If you were around in September when I began to have my meltdown, you know that this was a major goal for me. I’m a planner. It’s my personality. Weavers generally have to be. I needed to learn how to play. Squirt had a lot to teach me about that in his last year. He became more playful than he ever had been in his middle age.

I was so afraid that I had lost my mojo for good. Now I’m in the middle of four projects! Whee!