I’m quilting my way out of a creative slump

Alison and the Fearless Girl, a photo she submitted for this piece

By Alison Ahlgrim, as told to (and ghostwritten by) Haley Young as part of a series spotlighting participants in a passion-project incubator called Gignite

I got a sewing machine for my 30th birthday, complete with the supplies to craft a T-shirt quilt.

I was excited. People who are self-sufficient know how to sew .  And I was going to be one of them.

That was three years ago… and I still don’t have a finished quilt.

Overwhelmed with work, I forgot how to be creative.

I’ve been through some pretty major career transitions since I got that sewing machine. At the time, I was working at a community center. The job was all-consuming.

My schedule had no boundaries . People needed me all the time, and even when I wasn’t actively working I was still worrying about the people I knew.

Did they have safe places to sleep? Were their kids getting fed? Was there something else I could do for them?

I was so busy that I couldn’t even pretend to think about something that wasn’t work. There was no energy left for creative pursuits , so the sewing machine gathered dust.

I’ve always had a strong volunteer ethic.

Since a young age, I’ve been concerned with equity — I was the one who’d invite the bullied kid to the lunch table in grade school just to make sure they were okay.

When I got older, this translated directly into a career of service. I loved being involved in the nonprofit world, and I crammed committee upon committee into all of my “free time”.

My career has helped me gain a better understanding of my privilege, and I’ve spent my adult life trying to use that privilege to advocate for people who haven’t been given the same opportunities. It’s fulfilling work, and I’m proud of it.

But even my servant heart can grow tired.

As much as I valued my position at the community center, it wasn’t sustainable. I was totally burned out, and I had started to emotionally disconnect from the people and the cause.

I realized that as important as it is to feel like I am helping the world in some way, it is also important to be kind to myself.

I needed a change, so I altered everything at once.

In the fall of 2016, I started a new job at a social justice nonprofit and enrolled in the journalism certificate program at Madison Area Technical College within weeks of each other.

Embarking on that certificate was one of the first things I did for myself in years. I had been interested in writing and journalism since I was a child, but when I was in college, journalism looked like a dying field. Advisors discouraged me from pursuing that passion.

This time around, I took 7 to 10 credits, served as the news editor for the student-run paper at MATC, and worked full-time. I threw all of my waning energy into these new things, and as exhausting as it was, they snapped me out of my previous funk.

I started learning to value self-care.

It’s great — but sometimes, I feel guilty.

Part of self-care is listening to your inner voice. So I do more yoga, and I try to take walks in the woods by myself.

But then that voice chimes in, and says I should be shoveling someone’s driveway or cooking them dinner.

It’s tough to find that balance between a lifelong commitment to service and the freedom to take care of myself.

Another big part of self-care is creativity. When I finished my journalism certificate in August 2017, for the first time in a long time, I found myself with untapped mental energy. I was still plenty busy with work and hobbies like ultimate frisbee, but nothing stimulated my creative faculties like I wanted.

I was a creative kid, but through these years of service and burnout, I feel like the creative side of my brain has shut down. Now I’m trying to figure out how to reboot it.

I need to re-learn how to do creative things.

So I’m finally making time for that quilt. When I signed up for Gignite, I thought about focusing on writing, photography, or this quilt.

I chose the quilt because it’s a challenge, but it’s tangible. I want to look back and say I did this.

It’s still hard. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m impatient. I haven’t magically turned into the self-sufficient frontierswoman of my dreams.

But it’s a baby step to reawaken my creativity, paving the way for me to explore ways to use my passion for journalism to help people. Perhaps I can share the stories of the people I’m serving in my day job  —  piecing together their experiences like I’m piecing together this quilt.

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