MISTAKES AS COSMIC MESSAGES WITH FASHION DESIGNER ISABEL OSGOOD ROACH

The artist and founder of Feeling Space reframes mistake making ☁️

THE 16 CREATIVE ARCHETYPES, DECODED

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Isabel Osgood Roach is an LA-based artist and small business owner, and a social media manager, copywriter, and copy editor for writers, visual artists, and independent brands.

ISABEL’S DIVERGENT CREATIVE STRATEGIES: ACTION/INACTION

• A day job is a creative pressure valve. If you play your cards right, it’s actually so chill to have a day job. For Isabel, this season calls for extra support in the form of a yob so they can take the intensity off of monetizing their art practice and just allow it to exist and vibe.

• Community is burnout’s anti venom. When you feel your internal “keep going” batteries fading, plug into the group to jump start your artistic impetus. Nobody said you had to be the only source of inspired action. Draft off your crew for a bit when things get tiring.

• Mistakes are messages. Dancing full-out at Pony Sweat every week inspired Isabel to rethink their relayshe to perfectionism. Now, they see mistakes in the garments they make “as messages from the garment about how they wanted to turn out.”

What’s your metaphorical Adderall — something that slingshots you into an inspired creative tornado of action?

Cranking up the music in my headphones! Going on a walk! Sticking my head in a rosemary bush! Looking through art books in my studio, especially David Hockney. Looking through my saved folder on Instagram and getting inspiration for color combinations.

I also try and be patient with myself — if I’m really not feeling any willingness to create, I find other ways to move the work forward and trust that that desire will come soon. Forcing the process usually results in an outcome that I don’t love as much.

Forcing the process usually results in an outcome that I don’t love as much.

What idea or concept are you chewing on? Has it shown up in your work yet?

Honestly, the idea I’ve been most consumed with lately is getting a full-time job. I love my clothes business and running QUEER MALL, and want to continue doing both, but don’t see a way to scale them in a way that will be financially abundant long term.

I’m looking for a job (copywriting, content management, social media management, copyediting, executive assistant) that would provide stability so that there is less pressure on my creative work to pay all the bills. Here’s hoping!

How particular are you about your notebooks? Pens? What do you write in and with?

I love the idea of beautiful notebooks and sexy pens, but in practice I don’t end up using them. I admittedly have never done morning pages. I do love making lists — I usually write them in my Gmail drafts folder so I can always pull them up anywhere.

I also write handwritten thank-you notes with all online orders — I love a thin, colorful Sharpie.

I love my clothes business and running QUEER MALL, and want to continue doing both, but don’t see a way to scale them in a way that will be financially abundant long term.

What was going through your mind when you first decided to share your work?

Excitement mixed with fear of being seen/vulnerability — classic Gemini moon…

What’s your media diet, at present?

Episodes here and there of Love on the Spectrum, True Detective, The Bachelor, Celebrity Book Club podcast, Murder on Sex Island podcast, Too Far podcast, ilovecreatives jobs listserve, TikTok (I study it to try and figure out how the heck people grow a following on there).

To be creative and to make things in 2024 is objectively difficult. You have to square off with distractions, global anarchy, and perpetual haunting of the existential question: “why bother?” What keeps you coming back to the ring?

Finding something that I genuinely love to do and doesn’t feel like a chore. I like doing things that come naturally to me, so playing around and figuring out what those are.

Incorporating community into my creative practice — producing photoshoots with friends, organizing Queer Mall, collaborating with other artists— helps quell any existential crises because time spent together is always nourishing, meaningful, and generative.

I’m also a lot less uptight about “mistakes” and view them more as messages from the garment about how they wanted to turn out... my expectations are fluid and loose.

John Cage was inspired to develop his practice of composing via random chance and chaos after reading a book about the Chinese divining practice, The I-Ching. What influences or inspiration from outside of your field or profession have made the biggest impact on your work or process?

I work part time for my very close friend Emilia’s business, Pony Sweat, as a digital content manager. Taking class with her 2-3 times a week since July 2020 has had a huge impact on me. Pony Sweat is dedicated to the practice of anti-perfectionism and tapping into our deepest desires and curiosities. Practicing being uninhibited dancing in a room full of strangers (many of whom have become friends) has helped me be more experimental in my creative work.

I’m also a lot less uptight about “mistakes” and view them more as messages from the garment about how they wanted to turn out... my expectations are fluid and loose.

What do you do “wrong” that makes your work successful?

Being approachable and friendly, both online and in-person! “Too cool” and/or intimidating is NOT my way. Bring people in!

You’ve been working on something and it just isn’t coming through the way you’d like — do you kill your darlings and scrap the whole thing? Do you compost the idea? Do you file it away in your cabinet of misfit concepts to review later?

I primarily work with clothes and I hate hate hate to waste anything, so if I dislike the way something came out, I keep iterating rather than toss it.

One of my favorite qualities of the fiber-reactive dyes I use is that you can keep building on top of them. There’s always another layer to paint. If that isn’t going well, bleach is all-powerful! And if I REALLY can’t find a way, I’ll bring pieces up to Portland and drop it off at my parents’ store (Paloma Clothing, open since 1975) where they have a larger in-person clientele and a sale rack!

What’s a weird superstition you subscribe to?

Hmm, I can’t think of any! Knocking on wood? Celebrating (even if it’s just a quick acknowledgment and a smooch) me and my spouse’s dating “monthiversary” each 24th day of the month, even after 11 years together? Trying to find the moon every night, and texting my dad about it because wherever you are in the world, the fact that you’re looking up at the same floating object in a big big sky is a small, connective miracle?

What’s your Creative Archetype?

I got the Star archetype :)

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