Abbie Groves Creative

Finding Joy in Your Craft: Why Clicks Don't Define Meaning When I first started weaving seriously, I had this vision of what it would become. I imagined a beautiful Instagram feed. A growing following. People that are excited about my work. I thought that external validation would be the thing that made the craft feel real and valuable. That lasted about six months before I realized I was exhausted. Not exhausted from the weaving itself—the weaving felt good, felt necessary. I was exhausted from performing the weaving. From thinking about how it would look in a photo. From counting interactions and watching metrics like they were the heartbeat of my practice. From feeling small when a post didn't perform well, even though the thing I'd made was beautiful and true. Grand Prix towel in plaited cobalt twill Clicks Don't Mean Quality Here's something I wish I'd known earlier: clicks and followers and likes don't measure the quality of your work. They don't ...

Inspiration - What is it and Where Does it Come From? Have you ever wondered why, as a maker/creative, you have chosen certain design elements for a particular project instead of others? Conversely, have you ever looked at something, tilted your head and thought, "I must include that into my next (painting, knitwear, woven item, etc...)"? Or maybe you read a book which caused such powerful visualizations that those made the cut into your next design. I have often wondered about the relationship between ideas, objects that inspire, and creativity.   I recently had an experience with the effect of inspiration on creativity and design that really surprised me. I had discovered that an obejct within my home that I see every single day had a significant influence on an object I was weaving and had designed using some software; however, I was not aware of this until I was about ninety-five percent done with the piece! Instead of bringing me answers, this realization brought more qu...