It’s early October and Penny is in the finishing stages of her detailed embroideries of classical paintings. This last stretch is an intense time in any creative project, and Old Mistress is no different. Spending hours with needle and thread has provided time for Penny to reflect on how stage one of this project has gone, and note the learnings she’d like to carry forwards into the second stage.
A major lesson has been to shift the order of priorities. The project has been rather ‘front loaded’, meaning that there was a lot of recording and documenting to do at the start. This has left Penny with the bulk of intensive creative work to complete later on, with a greater sense of time pressure.
The biggest lesson has been not to try and get the recording and documentation done at the beginning, but perhaps even spend the first half purely making. It took me a really long time to get into my flow…to get into that flow state you find in the intense stage of working.
Rather than kicking off with videos, social media etc, Penny feels it may be better to spend the earlier weeks focusing on the actual making, getting into the flow of creative work, and bringing the recording and documentation in once this is properly underway.
Penny has had trouble with her ADHD medication throughout the course of the project, which has caused further disruption to the creative process (thankfully the meds are now sorted, so this needn’t be a problem in stage two!)
Penny also reflected on her working environment - particularly the need to work in company with others. She has experimented with a mix of working alone at home, and working in shared spaces such as a local co-working studio, Mach Makerspace, and in friends’ homes. The learning is very clear: that being in friendly company with others is essential to her own creative focus.
I really need to be around people when I’m doing this kind of intense work. Working alone I don’t have the momentum, I don’t have the body-doubling, I don’t have the focus I need.
Penny has now joined the co-working group, so that this kind of social working can be easily structured into her week.
One last reflection is on how times - and time - have changed since the height of the Covid pandemic, and how this impacts our sense of what’s possible:
I can’t expect to work as I did during the pandemic years. Life is just different now, there are more interruptions, one cannot have those full days where we were, you know, forced to sit on the sofa! I can still carry on with embroidering and the project, but I think my expectations were a little bit unrealistic around the amount of focus I’d be able to have.
Despite the obstacles she’s faced, Penny is optimistic about Old Mistress. On the ‘finishing streak’, she’s looking forward to stage two, and keen to take with her the learnings from these first few months.
Want to see the completed pieces? Follow Penny on her Instagram page @pennytristram for ongoing updates, and on TikTok @pennytristram.