Weaving and Blogging

I subscribe to a newsletter by Robert Genn. The newsletter is intended for artists. It arrives in my inbox twice a week. As a weaver, I find much of interest in his newsletters. Perhaps a reason for this is that I have been learning to think of myself as an artist. Or perhaps it is his newsletters that are teaching me to think that way.

Recently someone posed a question to him about how to good at making art and also make a living at it. He responded with a list. If you are interested in seeing the entire list, go here. One item on that list in particular attracted my attention:

"Cut back on impedimenta and outside distractions"

I think the word "impedimenta" has such a nice sound to it. But what does it mean? Is blogging
an "impediment?" Is it an "outside distraction?"

I had hesitated to start blogging because of the time it would take from my weaving. I feared it
would be an impediment, an outside distraction. But when I finally plunged into the world of blogging, I discovered something quite different. I discovered that the more I blog the more I weave, or do things closely related to weaving. And the more I blog, the more intensity goes into these weaving activities and the more focussed they become.

And another surprise: the more I engage in weaving and weaving-related activities and the more focussed I become in this area, the more I have to blog about. And also the more I engage in weaving activities, the more intensity goes into my blogging. So I find weaving and blogging actually feeding each other.

I have been blogging about 6 weeks now. I would have thought by this point I would have lost interest in blogging. Blogging, however, has become much more for me than just blogging; it has become journaling, but journaling with an important difference. Because the blog is public, I think about what I am writing and take some care with it. I put more thought and care into my posts than I would into journal entries. I don't quite understand, but I think that in someway this care and thinking is the key to the intensification of my weaving and so of my blogging as well.