Find a way to enjoy each step along the way to learning your craft. The spark that got you into quilting/thread painting in the first place demanded you to learn more and be better at producing a finished lovely design.
I think I understand what you are saying when you say you have lost your creativity in the process. But, look at the talent you have gained to execute most any design you wish in a beautiful and skillful way. Doesn't that weigh out to be a generous benefit?
Yes we all aspire to be better at making quilted items. That is why we undertake the hard work and hours of practice. Just learn to respect your time and work and hopefully to love it. We may have pulled back a curtain, but, it is still amazingly fun, right?

By the way, never listen to a mean person. They are not an authority to trust or they would never speak harsh words to a fellow quilter. We, here on the board, call them the quilt police. LOL!

I tweek recipes, but I follow them exactly the first time. Then, I decide how to change them. (See orange cake recipe!)
I make stained glass windows, mosaics, and also 3D objects like spinners, candleholders, and boxes. Whatever I can solder together. I once made an applique quilt and matching glass panel!
I learn techniques so that I can change them. I find pleasure in making ideas work!

I hadn't worked on glass for a while, but when I set up my studio in my new home, I just traced a round frame and drew an abstract design to start cutting glass. The nativity scene has no glass in the background, so I had to figure out how to keep the figures upright.

Great discussion! I taught classes about color on the college level. Students who took the classes were mostly majoring in interior design or fashion design. What I observed was that interior designers could be very good, but those who understood color theory did the best work.

In my quilts, color theory is a starting point. It lets me know the type of color combinations I like best, and that's very helpful.
However, if something appeals to me, that's what I use. So I'm informed, but don't feel limited by what I know. If I like it, that's what's important.

It amazes me that I've become an "artist," because my first grade teacher held up my crayon drawing of a purple orange juicer as a bad example. If art classes weren't required to graduate from college, I would never have found my place as an artist. I still can't draw, but it doesn't matter.

When I was a judge for wearable art at a quilt show, I learned that impact was more important than technique. It was an eye opener. I think both are important.

Art quilting is beyond my abilities right now. I marvel it seeing the works of Art quilters and it is not always mastering technique but inventing new techniques. That is part of the artist vision in my opinion. Each artist quilts I have seen I view with different eyes. No two are alike and no two use the same techniques. I always say 'go for it' if you are so inclined.

I once was looking at a famous designer's quilt and noticed how sloppy it was technique-wise. That did suggest to me the idea that super-creative people (i.e., artists) are more focused on vision than technique; but I would guess there must also be artists who are no less creative and, at the same time, practice meticulous technique. Maybe it's simply a case of some people being more detail-oriented than others within the creative spectrum. I have also frequently come across the idea that creative people work in messy spaces; I'm not sure how true that is, either. I imagine there must be some brilliant artists whose work spaces are pristine?

In kindergarten we learn to stand in line. The greatest creators learn to walk to their own drummer.

Love these thoughts

The joy of quilting is that there's something for everyone who wants to participate. I love learning new techniques and improving my skills, but I also like to improvise. I view "mistakes" as problems to be solved or new directions to go in when making an art quilt and some of my best quilts have arisen from technical challenges that I had to overcome, or less than perfect techniques that I had to camouflage. Some of my worst ones have too https://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images...es/biggrin.png! I think the trick is to remember that techniques are tools nothing, more and nothing less. Having a bunch of tools in your tool kit and knowing how to use them gives you options, but the way I look at it is that's all they are, options.

Rob

Seeing many quits in the art category at many national quilt shows, I think skilled technique is not expected. The idea of what the quilter wanted to convey is the goal not the piecing. Those that see sewing flaws are not looking at the quilt as art and should just pass on by.
I have not met an artist of any medium that was swayed from their work because of what others thought of it unless it was edible. LOL

I like modern art quilts to a point but for it to be a random jumble of design, like a child with scissors and fabric then all I see is that the maker had fun making it and nothing else comes to my mind even if the artist says it is making a point about whatever is the point.
I saw the original Gee's Bend exhibit in Boston. The history made the quilts so unique. The guilts themselves were made from that history. I was awed by that history. If I saw the quilts without knowing the history I would have though much less about them.

I know the rules of quilting and the techniques to use to get good results. Sometimes I make my own rules if I want the quilt to be what I want it to be and the set rules are not working.

You are describing the process of acquiring enough skills to become able to translate a vision in your imagination into a concrete work. This tedious apprentice stage is a function of achieving mastery!

This is most evident to me in taking classes: my first real quilting class was Freddy Moran and I bless her for giving us permission to just play with the taught techniques in class without feeling we had to generate a finished work. She herself confessed to not "working well" in class, but found when she returned to her studio, the skills acquired found their way into future work.

I found it took several years of learning techniques, not all of which I liked or plan to use going forward, to get to a point where I could with some confidence "solve" any given design challenge. This has come home to me most forcefully in participating in Round Robins, where you get a quilt top in progress and must "make it better", sometimes within the limitations of a specific prompt.

I now have a suite of skills I can deploy to solve the design problem at hand...so keep at it! You won't use all the things you are learning going forward but you do take nuggets away from every class.

One of the nicest things about quilting is the many separate skill sets involved. It keeps you learning and that is good for mental health and all your little grey cells!

Such interesting posts, I'm so glad I started this! And looking back over what I wrote, how interesting it is, isn't it, that one can put ideas down that, retrospectively, seem completely to miss what one really wanted to say! Reading all the comments I can see, I think, why I wrote what I wrote - I wanted to see what others thought, more than I wanted to analyse what I think myself; because reading through everything you've all written, I find myself saying "YES! Exactly!" so often. What has really become clearer to me is how lucky we are, we who combine art and craft. Because we always do have so much to learn, which can always feed our creativity, as so many of you have pointed out. When we struggle to be creative we can still enjoy our work by turning to learning. Learning is always such a thrill, like learning more vocabulary in a foreign language, to be able to communicate something different. And fun to experiment and break rules, to find ways, using the vocabulary analogy, to say something interesting with those newly acquired words. It's such a huge subject, isn't it. As for messy work spaces, has anyone seen a wonderful little book called "7, Reece Mews"; it's a collection of photographs of the painter Francis Bacon's studio. Bacon was said to find his images, his ideas, out of the chaos around him; he couldn't work otherwise. And it really does look completely chaotic. I'm the opposite, I like to 'clear the decks' between projects, to create clear spaces so my visual field isn't cluttered with all sorts of extraneous 'noise'. How wonderful are our differences and the things we share.