Wrangle That Cat!

I have been sharing my recent adventures in teaching, and I had fun making this piece as a sample of Katazome paper dying. Katazome is a Japanese technique that utilizes paper folding and ink to create patterns. In this example I rolled the rice paper around a long, wooden dowel, then dunked the dowel into the ink bath. It’s sort of like tye dying without the rubber bands. Once the paper was dry I giggled as I wrote this quote from Mark Twain:

If you hold a cat
by the tail,
you learn things
you cannot learn
any other way.

– Mark Twain 1910

We had play date in our studio this past weekend, and some new people attended. I demonstrated gel printing and it was fun to see people hold the proverbial cat by the tail. They learned how to apply the paint to the gel plate, then added texture, then pulled that first print and finally the ghost print. It was very rewarding to watch them encourage each other as each one pulled yet another original print. And before I knew it I was irrelevant and they were having a blast sharing their paper creations.

Learning something new can feel like you’re holding a cat, or maybe an angry cat by the tail. Whew! It can be exhausting, especially as you get started. The hardest part is getting started. And once you do start, you feel awkward, hesitant and maybe even a bit frightened. Your hands don’t seem to work, your brain can’t remember the next step, or question if you did the last step correctly. And as you near what should be the end of the process, you simultaneously question if you did things right AND celebrate your new creation! WAH-LA! This thing you didn’t know how to do is suddenly something you have done, and will keep doing to get better.

There is a real joy and camaraderie that builds when we learn new things. And to get there an abundance of excuses or rationalizations creep in to prevent us from trying something new. Let me encourage you to just sit down and get started. Yes life is busy, and time is precious, yes there are many, many reasons NOT to try something new. Yet, if we only do the same things we already know how to do, when will we grow beyond who we are today? Having the courage to get started, to grab that cat by the tail and hunker down, THAT is when the fun and personal growth kicks in. Suddenly that problem that was keeping you up at night is a distant flicker in the back of your brain. You are fresher, encouraged and have a new perceptive on your world. So give it a go and wrangle that cat!