Deadlines
In my work life, I often am working towards a deadline. On a day to day basis, it's the deadline of preparing for class, or getting graded work back to students. When I was doing scholarship, I would figure out deadlines that would help me get the work done. In the early stages of a project it would be finishing a paper to be delivered at a conference; further on it would be the book deadlines supplied by the publisher. I know how helpful it is to have a deadline to get work done. But when I stopped doing scholarship, and quilting took up that space in my life, I self-consciously eliminated the deadlines. For the bigger art pieces, the ones that are deeply personal, I wanted to just go at whatever pace developed, settling into the piece and the experience of putting it together. That's been a good thing. But now I have a self-imposed deadline approaching on "Shelter." I scheduled myself to give a talk in late April on my turn from scholarship to quilting, and...