Interview Tuesday: Posie Gets Cozy

Hello friends. Tara again, today with my most inspiring creator (create-ress?), Alicia Paulson, who blogs here and sells the wonderfullness here. Ever since hearing her interview on the Craft Sanity podcast, I have been smitten by  the Posie aesthetic; from her collages to her little dog to her phantasmagoriac studio.  I'm not the only smitten kitten, you can see how the press loves her here.

I ask each of my interviewees for some background info, so I can put together a little intro, but Alicia wrote hers so fetchingly, I'm just plopping it  here, in her own words:

Background stuff:

Though I grew up in a family of artists and crafters, I always thought I’d be a writer, so I went to school for a long time to study English and creative writing. Nevertheless, even in graduate school, I was constantly skidding tardily into my writing workshops, carrying some kind of illicit art supplies; making crafts had, all my life, been so much easier and more fun for me, though it had always been more of a hobby than a career. (Now, short-story writer, there’s a solid career!) II never really thought I was allowed to make a career of making crafts.

 

In 1996 I got an MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana, and by 1998, I was working full-time as an editor in Portland, Oregon. That spring, I was run over by a garbage truck one morning as I walked to work. During a recovery that lasted almost a year and involved many surgeries and many months in bed, I began embroidering daily. By 2000, so much about my life had changed I hardly recognized it, and I moved into a house with a studio, quit my job, designed a web site, and started to sell my handmade things full time. Over the past seven years, I’ve done everything from wholesale with sales reps and showrooms, to trunk shows, to owning a brick-and-mortar boutique. Now I just sell my work exclusively through my web site, and ship orders weekly all over the world. I like being in my home studio,  selling directly to my customers, best of all.

Okay, now on to the questions:

• What prompted the beginning of your blog?

 

I started my blog in the fall of 2005 when I was sitting in my store day after day with wi-fi and no customers. I’d never had high-speed internet until we moved to our second store location, and it was like a whole new world. While searching for new products from local designers for the store, I ran into Amy Karol’s blog and the others she linked to, and I was pretty flabbergasted by what I saw. I’d had a web site since 2000, but I really didn’t like the computer, and I HATED taking photos of my stuff. I think the format of the blog was so user-friendly and unintimidating that it was just perfect for me at that time – I was starting to lose my joy in making thing s, and owning a store was really losing its charm for me, as well. So the blog started as this little place where I could just play and chat and fool around and be myself. I’d been writing Posie newsletters for my customers once a month or so since about 2003, and I’d always really loved that. But when I started writing the blog, it was the first time that I’d really written regularly in first person, or, for that matter, written at all since I’d been in school. It is a good medium for me. I find it really easy. I find lots of other things hard, but this one comes pretty naturally.

• Do you consider yourself an artist?

Oh, sure. If an artist is someone who interprets and organizes their world and tries to share that vision, than yeah, I’d say I do that.

• Who/what are your major influences and inspirations in your work?

I’m inspired by current trends and all that stuff, but I’d say I’m mostly inspired by some weird need I have to manifest my own personal nostalgia for things. I’d say there is hardly a thing I make that isn’t required to fulfill a job within the particular context I’ve created for it: the bookbag that feels like the summer of ’77, the doll that reminds me of when I saw The Nutcracker with my niece, the button barrette that conjures The Brady Bunch. The things I create always have some context that has been inspired by longing, o r an effort to hold on to my own, imagined or real, history.

• Do you consider yourself a maker or a designer first? Do you make a distinction? Which allows for the most creative expression?

Hmmm. Maker, definitely. If someone told me I’d have to make things from somebody else’s patterns for the rest of my life I’d heave a huge sigh of relief. Whenever I make things for myself, I almost always use really classic concepts and explore color and arrangement within those boundaries – I think there is more than enough room for interpretation to keep one busy with granny squares for a good long while. I find the simple things to be deceptively “simple” – there are myriad opportunities to “design” within their parameters. That said, that’s only what I think – since I’m always designing, as well. Maybe I would really miss it more than I think. But mostly I guess I just like to have my hands busy, so I’m probably a maker. And as a rather conservative person, I believe that the things I’ve discovered while “making” have more to do with finding peace and relaxation than with creative expression, but peace and relaxation is a-okay with me. And when I’m happy, I guess I feel more able to be “creative.” So – it’s all connected. I guess I like and need both.

 

• You work in many mediums; do you have a favorite? Is there one you find "comfortable"? Why?

 

I never get tired of crocheting, so I guess it’s my favorite. And I find it inherently more comfortable physically, as I mostly do it on my sofa with my feet up and my big TV and lots of snacks by my side. Everything else needs more complicated equipment than hook and yarn: sewing at some point needs a pattern, or a machine, or scissors and colored thread and needles and pins; painting needs newspapers and is messy and you can’t do it while lying down; knitting is sort of fragile and unforgiving. Crochet is perfect for someone as lazy as I am, someone who has a monogamous relationship with the couch. And if you’re making, say, a blanket, it can keep you warm as you go, which is nice, and then you don’t even have to get up and turn up the heat! I really am this much of a slug. It’s brilliant. Just perfect.

 

• Do you feel the light and mood of the city you grew up in (Chicago,) or currently live in (Portland) influenced/s your aesthetic?

Ah, yes, very much. I’m sure people are sick of me talking about it because I never stop, on the blog, but I’m terribly homesick. I’m always going on about the light and the mood. I think my sister is probably the only one who even knows what I’m talking about, but I like to see if I can get it right, and she might be the only one who would know. It’s hard to explain. I’ve been trying, all my life, and when I was a fiction writer, I tried then, too. I’ve often wished I was not one of those people who cared, one way or another, where they lived. I’ve always cared too much. It’s a problem.  I try to connect the past and the present, and the old places with the new through my work, I think. They feel so disconnected to me, so I'm always trying to fold things up and make them touch corners.

 

• What impact does blogging have on your creativity?

 

Oh dear, I could really go on about this. I just find it the most fascinating medium. It seems to fit my natural tendencies just perfectly. I like the nonchalance of it, I like the brief glimpses of prosaic details that become magical through examination, I like the cumulative effect of having written all that. For me the blog serves very much as the context through which all of my work exists. Now that I’m starting to repeat seasons, I’m interested in the patterns, the changes, the startings and completions of things, then the startings of new things. So much of what I do gets sold, and so disappears – the blog allows me to “collect” it, and keep it, and see things in it as a whole. I see themes I never would’ve seen, and that’s helped me understand my life, and why I do what I do, and don’t do what I don’t. In addition, I feel like my life in general is so much more organized since I started the blog, and organization, for me, truly fosters creativity. I can’t think when things are a wreck, and the blog has forced my hand; I feel that I have to keep things as organized in life as they appear to be on the blog, so that’s helped real-life quite a bit.

 

• Has blogging (and being involved in the crafty blogging community) impacted your direction? 

 

Oh, I’m sure it has. I’m grateful to have any kind of audience. It’s been very meaningful to have my work or writing or photos received in any kind of way by the creative community, and there is something very powerful, on just a general human level, about having an audience, about having people say “we hear you.” As someone who grew up in a family where personal expression was actively discouraged, I would say it is somewhat of a colossal relief to have a bunch of random peeps indulging me, saying, “Okay, yeah, I get it.” So how it all plays out in my life remains to be seen, but I’m sure that finding a voice, and then being heard as I feel I have, will have been a major watershed for me, when I’m able to look back and see it as such. Right now I’m still just in the trenches, enjoying the daily digging.

 

• Where do you hope to be in your creative life in 5 years? Still blogging?

 

Mmmm, I don’t know. I’m sort of a crap planner, but when pressed I say I’d like to write books, and make my ideas available, more than my actual products. I’ve sold a lot of stuff, and I seem to be less interested in how to sell it than I am in how to make it really cool – the two can be quite mutually exclusive. When you’re selling your work, you have to be stricter and less dynamic about what/how/when you can produce. When you’re designing patterns, you’re just going for “super-cool!” not “low price-point,” so it’s a totally different experience that I am SO ready to have. The crochet patterns that I released in 2005 sell better now than they did when they first came out, and better than the actual products made from them, so that’s taught me something. Plus, any day now I’ll have carpal tunnel so, it’s time to slow down the production.

 

As far as blogging goes, I’ll definitely just keep doing it as long as it is rewarding, but when it stops being, I’ll definitely quit. Maybe when I’ve told all my stories, and gotten it down, I’ll be done. But I’ll still read blogs, because I am, first and foremost, interested in peoples’ stories – I want to know, and I’m very grateful to have the privilege of being invited to listen.

Thanks so much, Alicia, for the great answers and the continued inspiration!  I found myself nodding along as I read, totally getting what you meant, how about the rest of ya'll?

 

 

 

Comments

[jennifer Paganellli]

love this place!!!! love Alicia too!!

[izzy herriette]

I had (what I considered to be)an amazing opportunity to actually speak with Alicia one day not long ago. I too am a creative person and have been all of my life. I've always gone 'wild' with it 'behind closed doors', I guess you could say. No one ever entered my house without making the exact same comment, "You should have a shop or a store; or you should be an interior decorator; or you should sell to market'. I shared with Alicia, when I spoke with her, that I so admired her inner freedom which allowed her to pursue such 'out there' endeavors. I, myself, have always been somewhat of a recluse. Here she is, with a physically crippling factor operating in her life and yet, she had the emotional stability to 'go for it'. I, on the other hand, am not physically challenged but the emotional fear of being 'revealed' is overwhelming to me. How sick is that? Anyway, I love the color, creativity and candidness of her site; not to mention that I think she is brilliant in her expressions as a writer and seems to me to be somewhat borderline comedian. I actually laugh out loud at some of her stuff! So there, Alicia, we're all drooling over you. (Just kidding!) I do want to say that I thought it was so awesome that she took the time to speak with me and she is the same in person as she is on her blog - at least it sounded like it to me. She definitely has inspired me too. I'm starting my own blog now, or at least, attempting to and it feels releasing. Thank you Alicia.

[Terri Conrad]

I think I found the motherload of creative women! I came via a post at MM magazine to Posie (LOVE your style), and now here. So glad I found you :o)

Lot't to look at, and many to connect with. Merci.

[hazelnutcottage]

Thank you Alicia and Tara! Alicia and Posie Gets Cozy is my inspiration. When surfing the net researching what avenue my life would take next, I stumbled upon her blog. Largely due to her work and the other links I discovered (Another Girl at Play), I started up a blog of my own and finally made the leap towards being an indie myself. Literally, before that, I never knew there were all of these amazing female artists out there making a go at it! Thanks again for sharing yourselves…

[Zabrina]

Oh, I just loved to read this...Alicia Rocks!

[Tammy]

Here's what I like about both the interview and Alicia -- both convey simplicity and creativity in a wonderful, enthusiastic way that can't help but spread itself out to the rest of us.

I read her blog every day...look at her work...I'm thinking of trying to crochet a granny square -- isn't that blanket gorgeous? -- and generally find a nice symmetry between what's she's doing and how she presents it.

Love you Alicia!

Tammy (Ideagirl)

[Penny Sanford Fikes]

Very insightful interview, Alicia and Tara! I've enjoyed Alicia's blog and photos since I started blogging 12/19/06. Lately, I have been probing my emotions about why I am drawn to this blogging thing....and how it is impacting my art.

Organization that Alicia mentioned is a definite plus. Spurring creativity is another....wanting to come up with free patterns that others will enjoy. I liken my attraction to blogging to my love of sharing plants (friendship gardening) and my love of sharing a new recipe we tried and enjoyed.

Why is it when someone TALKS about an award, about appearing in a publication, or some other individual accolade....it can seem like bragging. But when I READ a blog mentioning an award or an interview or showing one's purchases that day or showing what one is sewing.....it does NOT feel like bragging. It feels like a best friend sharing what is interesting and important to both of us.

Why is that? I can see that I will be pondering the psychology of blogging for a while to come!

Great food for thought, Alicia and Tara! Thank you!
Penny
www.pennysanford.typepad.com

[an9ie]

Alicia has been one of my favourite bloggers for a long time, so I was thrilled to find this interview! Every morning, the first thing I do is get a cup of tea, and then check her blog on my laptop. The two things seem intrinsically linked to me now. I would have blog envy if she weren't so lovely!

[Corvus]

As a newish crafty blogger, I really enjoyed this interview. This sums up mu hopes (and even the things I've noticed in less than two months) for blogging wonderfully: "I see themes I never would’ve seen, and that’s helped me understand my life, and why I do what I do, and don’t do what I don’t. In addition, I feel like my life in general is so much more organized since I started the blog, and organization, for me, truly fosters creativity."

[Alicia P.]

Blushing. Thank you everyone, so nice of you. And thank you Tara for asking me to play, and for making my endless corrections. xo

[Donna]

What a great interview!

[Lisa K.]

Yes, nodding here too. I'm fairly new to blogging, but Alicia inspired me to start.
Great interview, and her blog is a pleasure to read!

[Anna Maria]

Yes, nodding. I hear you on all of it Alicia, the making, designing, owning a shop, selling stuff on every level, having an audience, the organization factor that blogging gives you, and aspiring to live the perception. All of it. Well done :)
xoxo`AM

[Suzie Q]

I have thoroughly enjoyed catching up with Alicia's blog today. I love how she writes, and have sat and crocheted an entire bag since reading her blog and this interview this morning! Thanks for a great day! :)

[Tammy]

What a fun interview!! Thanks!

[nyjlm]

I was so excited to see this pop up in my feed reader last night. I just subscribed to Alicia's blog a few weeks ago- she's so much fun and I'm so glad to learn more about her. Thank you Tara, and thanks Alicia!

[Cynthia]

Great interview and the accolades of crochet make me want to pick up my hook again. It's something I don't make time for ::: sigh ::::
Ok, yes, that's going on the list of things I am adding into or back into my life!