I’m interested in the way I work and particularly in the creative process. I’m also interested in other people who work in similar ways, and wonder about why they do, and how they do it.

Here’s my research so far into concepts related to the idiom ‘having your fingers in too many pies’:

Too many pies viewed as DIVERSIFICATION

Image by Simon Cunningham

I am diversifying when I am doing lots of things.

That’s a positive spin on too many pies. I am expanding interests. I am finding out more about those interests. I am expanding my ‘business’ by creating more products, indeed, more VARIED products.

I could just paint, or just make digital works, or just make knitted works, or just write dance education books. But I feel there is a connection between some or all of these things (and the other pies not mentioned here). If I don’t do them all, then I don’t find those connections.

Too many pies viewed as being a DILETTANTE

Image by Ron Frazier

I am an amateur, dabbling in the arts.

That’s a negative spin on too many pies. I love all my various pursuits but my interest and knowledge in these are superficial—and perhaps can only ever be superficial?

A dilettante is an amateur, as opposed to a professional or expert in a given field. I can claim some expertise in dance education and art education but what about the rest? At what point can I claim some expertise in digital art, or fabric crafts, or food photography? And given that we are operating in an age of ‘prosumers’ (Toffler’s term for consumers who become active to personally improve or design goods for the marketplace), is there another level of operation in the arts and business that sits between amateur and expert, but can still be viewed as professional?