On Doing My Own Thing

“To hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.” - Eddie Van Halen

 So Eddie Van Halen died. I was never a fan not of his, not of his music, not of his guitar style, not of anything. But I am a fan of this quote.

I've been doing my own thing since I was born, much to the frustration and aggravation of several family members and friends.  I've never really been one to follow the rules anyway, kind of figuring things out along the way, making mistakes, seeing what works and what doesn't.

Once, as a teen, I irritated a cousin because I took a standard game of solitaire (cards) and began playing with the rules to see how they could change to make the game more interesting. She was so mad at me for doing that, we ended up not talking to each other for the rest of the night.

Another time, I dared to add cumin to my bolognese sauce , and my then-friend (of Italian descent) said I couldn't add cumin because it wasn't authentic. I questioned that and she reacted disgustedly. We aren't friends anymore.

When I first learned how to quilt, I selected some very bright solids in primary colors to make blocks. I was repeatedly told by a small quilting group I was acquainted with that using bright and bold colors wasn't how quilting was done and it wasn't up to me to change quilting. Far more experienced quilters were the only ones who could do that. It certainly put a damper on how much I could learn from that particular group of quilters.

One of the most enjoyable things about quilting - and art in general - for me is how much freedom there is to do, well, almost anything! If I were or wanted to be a very traditional quilter then yes, there are very specific rules that I would need to follow. Certainly there were the basic rules I needed to learn (and in some cases am still learning) in order to begin.

But after that, what I'm interested in is what “sounds right” or “looks right” so I am going to keep doing my own thing, follow my own rules, my own path, as each of those feels “right.” I am an intuitive, after all.