When we share and teach, we grow.

On my last day at Black Duck before I leave to do a week of consulting for the Printwear Tune-Up, I find myself reflecting on the time I’ve spent educating. I’ve written an interminable stream of words from my earliest time on mailing lists and forums through my years of blogging and into what amounts to a second career in writing for trade magazines. Even so, through all of these words and actions runs a single thread.

When I started digitizing for embroidery, I was very much alone. A good deal of time stretched between the first time I set a stitch in my DOS-based software to the time I had any significant contact with people in my industry. I started out entirely on experience as an operator and what I could glean from the manual to my software, and the first glimmer of hope and community I had came from the writings of other digitizers, some in the self-same trade magazines for which I have written.

I can’t tell you how I looked up to these people; though I’d never met them, nor did I count myself likely to meet them, they were my mentors. Each time I read one of their columns, it felt like visiting with an old friend and talking shop. That sense of community, however one-sided, meant a great deal to me in those early days.

Ultimately, that’s the first reason why I share and teach. I teach because I know how it feels to stand before the daunting tasks of this creative and technical work on my own. I know what it means to hear or read words telling you not just how to do the work, but encouraging you in your ability to do it.

It’s always a two-way street.

My second reason is admittedly a little selfish; sharing, giving, and teaching doesn’t just enrich the recipient, it rewards the teacher, the giver, equally. It does so in an immediate way, as those you teach and those you help reciprocate in kind and support your efforts. When you care, they care. It does so somewhat indirectly, as you find yourself learning from others whose experiences and influences are different from your own, or people who are at other stages in their career, and thus have a different outlook. Unexpected questions from curious beginners drive so many of my attempts to develop and teach new techniques. With no assumptions or frames of reference holding them back, they ask for what seems outlandish. It’s those outlandish questions paired with execution driven by the experience and skill of a consummate practitioner that can become industry-altering innovation.

When we discuss, when we share, when we teach, our opinions are not diminished- each of us returns with the combined wealth of all those viewpoints our peers can offer.

As I embark on my first lengthy face-to-face consultation, I can’t wait to see what I will learn. As social creatures, there’s no substitute for meeting and being able to communicate in real-time. New as this is to me, it excites me to think what that will mean for someone like me who has most often had to suffice with the written word. Even with podcasts and webinars, there’s an element of being a broadcaster, but in this venture, there will be a natural back and forth that I sincerely look forward to.

As for those of you who will be reading my words in the mean-time, I can only hope that this voice I send out into the embroidery world finds you, and encourages you when you need it. I hope one day to meet and share with you, too- there’s so little time and so much for us to learn.

It takes a long time to learn one’s art, and we have short lives in which to do so, but it goes more smoothly with a little help from our friends.