Tell All Tuesday ~ Featured Artist: Sooz Weissberg

Hello everyone, hope y'all having a great week. I've had a tough week with some of those life decision thingamajigies going on, one of them being an area our artist is going to talk about today: finding time in your life for prioritizing art. If I think about it, this moment in time is the best for me in terms of be able to do what I want; no responsibilities of kids/partners/grandkiddies to take care of, but that still doesn't mean that sometimes it doesn't come down to art over life, or life over art. And when you can put in some art time, but have a million and one ideas you desperately want to do, which on earth do you actually pursue? This alone this week has left me wobbling around questioning, and not actually doing! Ugh for this reason I'm glad Sooz is our featured artist on TAT this week:

Tell us a little bit about yourself & what kind of artist you are.
My name is Sooz Weissberg. I work with books, and fabric. I alter books with paint and collage and I also create books from recycled and painted paper and cardboard. I quilt, too. I make greeting cards from collage and/or fabric bits. 

What is the biggest challenge you personally face as an artist and how do you overcome it?
The biggest challenge I face as an artist is setting aside time from my husband, five household pets, maintaining a household, and making time to exercise and stay healthy. I work mornings from home, and afternoons are not only for housework and meal managing, but also exercise. I can only do art or sew on select evenings during the week, parts of the weekend, and holidays! Being a small business juggling a home means that you work pretty much every day, because you juggled your work to fit into the rest of your life. The only days I’m really, truly, off all day, are Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Day. But I share what I’m doing on Facebook to hopefully encourage other busy women to try a little art, here and there!

What do you love most / least enjoyable about your art?
When I work with book-making, what I love most is getting lost in the moment, pulling pieces and themes from my stash and contemplating what can be added to a page. I love the complex and satisfying textural quality of various kinds of paper, especially when they’ve been painted, or torn. In my quilting, the thing I love most is designing the layout of the colors. I don’t design blocks, but I select my own colors and layout, instead of following someone else’ pattern. Since there is no way to charge enough to compensate for what it costs to make a quilt, I don’t sell them; I continue to make a quilt for each person in my family. I didn’t have children, but I have nieces and nephews. Sometimes, a certain type of design seems to call to me and I work with the colors and fabrics in my stash before I know who the quilt is intended for, but as the work goes along, I begin to see that it suits a particular relative, and then I tend to move into faster gear, because I get excited about giving this gift!

Do you ever lose your mojo, and if so, how do you get it back?
If I ever lose my mojo I use that time to either organize, or to make “original supplies”. I will put away all the bits and pieces from completed projects and tidy up my workspace; fill new or more interesting organizational containers; post inspiration pages up on the walls of my studio; organize my fabric stash and consider donating or trading stash that might have gone un-used for too long. These types of “replenishing” activities never fail to make me feel invigorated to work again!

Tell us where can we find out more about you & your art?
I am not a professional artist but you can find me on my Google Plus and my YouTube channel https://plus.google.com/108058048926782593631/about . 

Thank you so much Sooz =) one thing that struck me in your interview (but not because you didn't have a ton of good points, but because I am reeeeeeeally bad at this particular one!) is making time for exercise, to me if I do have time, I'm arting because I put a priority on my mental, but not my physical health. It's really bad, and typing this I'm realising that it's one of those things in the closet I try to ignore, but if I did occasionally choose half hour exercise and half hour art, then I might have more time and energy for art. So okay, pledge on here (eek! that makes it seem so 'must do'-able) I will, from now on, choose to look after myself in ALL aspects of myself, which means both creativity and health! If Sooz can do it with all she has going on, so can I! (So there excuses, don't let the door hit you on the way out!).

You up for a TATing???

Email me or click the link to find all the details here =)

Much love

Jennibellie