If it's Wednesday AND it's November, Small Works must be going crazy.

I get a little worked up
about things like shows. . .


In fact, today I'm going to share with you a

Small Works Little Known Secret.

When I reveal it, you may say "Susan -- it's funny that you think it's a secret!" but I'm going to humor myself by pretending that only those in my inner circle have actual knowledge regarding the issue:


I am a nut case.
Completely wack-o.




(I'm happy
to confirm
that diagnosis.)






You may have suspected there was something a little off, but let me make sure you understand that  
if neuroses were people,
I'd be China.

I'm not, however, going to offer a specific list, because at Small Works we like to encourage the use of your imagination.

Now I'll excuse you all for a moment
to whisper behind my back . . .
 



But we can all take heart, Dear Reader, because it turns out that the old adage I have oft repeated to my children is true:


Genius is touched with Madness.

(Actually, I believe the quote is "There is no great genius without some touch of madness." But my version sounds a little less pretentious.)

What greater authority is there than the op-ed page in the newspaper, after all? So imagine my delight when this illustration by my old favorite L.K. Hanson turned up there:

"You Don't Say," L.K. Hanson

Please do not misunderstand --
This post is not to say that I am a genius.

I do take comfort in the fact, however, that my madness may someday prove to have been a pre-cursor to genius.

I mean, if one is crazy might not one assume that one has the potential to be great as well?

Director David Cronenberg said:

"Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos."




I'll drink to that.

Lindsay and I were having a conversation about working styles the other day, and we both agreed that much of our work takes place in our (wracked) brains.




We think A LOT before anything else happens.

She told me that in art school, her professors used to be frustrated by her process. They would ask, "But what are you working on?" because the other students were turning out studies and sketches. Lindsay was turning them out too, but she was doing it in her brain. As she explained to me, "Then when I do something, it comes out complete. All the glitches have already been worked through."




That's it! Me too! (Which may actually be a manifestation of some perfectionist neurosis, but for the purposes of this essay let's call it a "personal working style.")

Anyway, we will call sketches and models and studies "thinking out loud," and then we will call stewing and pondering, worrying and puzzling "working in your head."

I think Alexander Hamilton and I
could have had a conversation on this point.




A.H. said: "Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought."

I've been thinking about this 

-- the fruit of labor and thought --

as I've been involved in creating my new collage work, Small Works' Conversation Pieces. It feels as if I've been working on them forever, when actually, compared to my fabric pieces, they require much less time.

But the figuring it out!




The logistics of adhesives and printers, papers and mounting techniques, new dimensions and a new style of framing and on and on and on . . . I'm exhausted from it all!

And as soon as the frame shop calls
to tell me my mats are ready,
I'll begin actually assembling them. . .





What??!!!

You haven't
started to put
them together yet?
Susan, what have you
been working on?














Trust me,
I've been
working
in my head.













(But enough about me. What about you?
Do you "think out loud"
or do you tie your noggin in knots?)