Possessiveness: once again it is all mine

Lovely isn’t it?

To create that piece of art takes lots of patience and I mean lots in huge bundles as the work is very fiddly. It requires concentration, dedication, and TIME.

Time is one of the most precious tools when creating art. Artists could paint a picture in five minutes as it could take up to years to complete it.

In this case where Julie Roces the designer, a colleague in Philippines delights us with her creativity that it must had taken a considerable numbers of days to develop the above creation. I calculate about 1-2 weeks to complete the pattern during long hours a day and it must had taken about 3-5 days to complete the whitework which is the actual card you are looking at.

Opposite picture of a sample of the actual design for the above card. Julie Roces©2007.

Browsing through my once upon parchment it brought memories to a sting I went through with a pattern of mine, an experience that related to a situation I had to face few days ago.

Long ago I designed a card for Julie’s birthday, it was meant for her, I created the card, posted it and I kept my pattern. A year later browsing one of the craft’s sites another parcher had displayed "my" design created on a card of hers and she was offering my pattern as a free gift as her design. Politely I asked her to remove the pattern as it was not hers but the ones benefiting from the “freebie” made me an ogre and a dispute started.

I fought about my “possession”… "it was mine", at the end it was just a pattern I could had recreated on another application and learn from that experience, “it was mine” , I was attached to that work and part of me was stolen, so I felt. As the years pass by my tools are still waiting to be caressed by my fingers… hmmm maybe one day Julie, maybe one day.

Since I was born I was very independent, and possessive with what it is mine. I only shared with my sister. As I grew older I became possessive with my work.

My work became my signature, my icon, my identity. Nothing wrong with this quite the opposite, I am very proud of my work, very proud of my successes and also I am proud when I step on the mud without invitation because I feel I need to do it.

Being my work I find it difficult to accept that my efforts get thwarted carelessly by the deceitful. I have been in and out of court for intellectual property cases, oooh those copyrights are a very sensitive topic with me. By the way Julie, thanks for the photos.

Being retired it should mean I am not working at all, fortunately work we do since we are born. As babies we sleep and drink, as children we play and study, as adults we work for reward and as elderly we enjoy life the best we can, all these are wrapped up as WORK. Some activities are joyful others bearable and to some we just conform ourselves to do our best.

In the past year through my activism I spent a lot of time helping others, there have been situations where people find themselves without identity, displaced, no place to call home due to their governments, wanting to adapt to new ways and customs.

I took the task of helping some with their challenges to become refugees, reading forms, finding information, where they could go to stay, locating maps and the list goes on, it became a full-time job. It was my WORK as in MINE, although I was committed it was not one of my obligations neither any of my priorities.

Some trusted me, others just had no choice others thought I was their slave to do as I was told at the call of theirs wishes.

It did not matter for a while, but when I found out that my “golden time” was stage-managed then my possessive side flared out claiming ownership for what it was mine and it should had not been jeopardized by their irresponsible and uncontrolled personal matters.

Once more I found myself attached to the idea that work is a vital part of me, I let my temper flare out and the persons that caused the outburst were gifted with the negative side of me.

Now my questions are:

How to detach from possessiveness?

What do I have to do to curve the possessive side of me and learn to let go?

Maybe I need to learn to detach from other’s misery and let them find their own way, we learn as we go in life, we learn on our last breath. Thank you Thomas.

Have a great weekend.