Friday, January 12, 2007

The Process, not the Product...

I just finished ready a book about a cross-country train ride. The book was a little fluff reading left over from the holidays, but the story reminded me that life is really about the journey and not the destination. Similarly, as a designer, my art/craft is about the process and not the product. I'm not talking about the end quality of a product because I believe things should be both beautiful and well made. But rather one should slow down and enjoy the process of creating, allowing one's personality and experiences to show through. When I purchase something from another artist or crafter, I am always intrigued by the hands that have made it. When you hold in your hands a handmade item that was passed down in your family, you feel a connection to it and to those before you. So, my challenge this year is to really enjoy that process and to allow myself to slow down and take the creative journey - less concerned about the destination than the journey itself.

The photograph is a piece I did a while back that we installed in our dining room. It seemed fitting with today's post as adopting Nikolai was really a test of enjoying the journey and not just the destination. I often hear adoption described as a journey - it is often a long slow one at that and the actually journey often begins long before you take that first step into an adoption agency. My journey began long ago, but this piece made from an old window chronicles just a part of it. The bottom photograph is of me and my son Nikolai on the day we drove away with him from his orphanage. It was such an anticlimactic day - our third trip to Russia and he was finally ours - in my arms - never to be handed back to his caretakers at the end of a short visit. I had imagined this day over and over in my mind. I lived, breathed, dreamt about this moment - it was full of smiles and laughter and celebration - theatrical crescendos in the soundtrack of my life. In contrast, the moment was small, sincere, sad, happy, quiet and still. I held Nikolai in my arms. He was so scared. This was the part of his journey that would lead to a better life, but journeys are full of change and he knew to hold on tight. I held him even tighter...

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