Digitized Shibori

One of my off and on love affairs of late has been Spoonflower. I love it because it is so easy to use, I hate it because--um, well it is so easy to use. I have had fun just cranking out designs and playing with the repeats of them. Honestly some of them are crap. I have also been playing around with Photoshopping some of my shibori samples. It makes me feel unclean to do this to my shibori. Shibori is done by hand, it is a careful zen like process. Here I am playing with it in Photoshop. It almost feels sacrilegious. Spoonflower is like my dirty little addiction.

I have to say some other designers have beautiful work on there that I covet and admire. There is also a lot of crap (my own included, so please, no hate mail.) Recent discussions on Slow Cloth have me thinking more about why I am doing things, what I am learning, and what I am contributing. The good, the bad, and the sometimes ugly. Is it okay to make ugly art if you learn and grow from it? Is it okay to share your ugly work? Or should ugly work be banished and hidden or even destroyed? Should I delete my Spoonflower designs that just did not quite work, or should I keep reworking them?

I took the plunge and ordered more swatches of designs I had previously done on Spoonflower. Time to decide to keep or eliminate. I also need to make a decision about what to make with these designs. I am thinking of upholstering a chair and painting the wood in bright colors?