[MUSIC] Sometimes I solve a tough problem in a creative way. This is interesting, I'm actually knitter and a crocheter, and one day one of my friends asked me if I could make a buffalo. So I go online, I look for research and stuff, and I found all these different pictures of buffalo. So I make sure everything's anatomically correct and everything. And then, I make the swatch of the buffalo itself, it doesn't look very good. It's off and misshapen. So when I go back to do the swatch again, I had to unthink everything I've done before. I have to, basically, in my head what I did was get the feel for what a buffalo would look like, just the general shapes, and then work from there. I worked, I made the swatch from that, and it turned out a lot better that time. So I had to just get the general feel of what a buffalo would look like, as opposed to, seeing it directly. I'm actually, I've been home schooled for all my life, and I started knitting when I was eight years old. My mom is a crafter, and she taught me how to knit, cuz I thought it looked interesting, and I just took off with it. I started learning all the new techniques and just keep going, I still knit to this day. The swatches I made, the first swatch I made, it didn't come out looking good at all. I made it with the correct colors, based on the evidence I saw, and it just came out misshapen and looking a little bit fake. I try to be as correct as possible to the photos I saw, and it didn't really look like a buffalo. So the second one I did, I thought of what a cartoon of a buffalo would like, or what people generally think is the shape of a buffalo, and I worked from there. So I ended up making what looked like kind of an ice cream cone shape, for the general shape. And then, I did different colors over the top, and I made different textures to go on that too, so it ended up looking genuinely like a buffalo, I made big cartoony eyes, and it went well. So, the environment at home I worked in was very comforting, a very comforting and nurturing environment. Nobody would, even my dad, nobody would shoot me down for knitting, as being a girl thing to do or something that was quaint and outdated. People were very supportive of me, and they let me really explore. Sometimes I would neglect my studies to explore different knitting techniques. But people were very encouraging. My siblings, they were like, oh that's really cool the stuff you can do. And, generally, people were very supportive. And not, they wouldn't shoot things down. Okay, my creative process. So. This goes for anything I knit or crochet, cuz I do a lot of custom work. I'll, generally, I'll get an idea, or somebody will present an idea to me, and I'll let it mull over in my head. I'll think about it, let ideas sprout. Sometimes I'll write things down, sometimes I'll draw. And then, when I want to bring the idea to fruition, I will, I'll work out swatches. I'll make little small, knitted pieces that'll show the texture or the color work, so see how those work. And I'll show them to the customer, whoever wanted that, and see how they like it. So I'll have them input towards the process. And then, if they enjoy it, I'll make the finished piece. I'll keep getting input from people who wanted it, or I'll put more input from myself. That was the one who designed the piece. And I'll go with that, I'll make that towards the finished work. The first swatch wasn't very creative, cuz I only worked with data, and I didn't incorporate other things until it was finished. Then I looked at it and said, oh, this doesn't look good. So the second swatch I did, I would say that was creative, because I really had to, I had to think about it. I had a little bit of data, like what a buffalo would look like. But I had input from some other people, on what they thought a buffalo would look like, I had to get the general feel of what the buffalo would look like in my head, and bring it into the swatch. The feedback I got from them, once it was finished, they said this is creative because you used different techniques. I turned the fabric, I turned it inside out, to get different feels for how the fur on the buffalo would go. I used, yeah, I used different textures from the buffalo. I made it very big. So they were expecting it to be a small hand held thing, so I made it pretty big, very hugable. And as far as people who were giving input on it when it was being made, they thought it was creative because I took different bits of fabric and folded them, like origami to replicate different effects in the buffalo, so they wouldn't have thought of that before. I think art brings out creativity because, you're doing things with your hands, and manipulating, and in today's society, a lot of things are done on cell phones and computers, flat screenish things. When you have three dimensional objects that you're working with, it can bring out creativity in new ways to use things. It brings out new ways to see things in the world. [MUSIC]
