Class Discussion - the third project

I went to class feeling pretty good about my project, I was excited to get going, whereas my classmates - many of them were still trying to find materials that worked; wondering about the mechanics of doing something large; some were sort of paralyzed, not with fear, but with uncertainty; maybe feeling that what they were about to do was "wrong" in some way?

We went around the room looking at what others brought in. Some of the work I thought had really interesting possibilities - the beads and glue with its "molecular" qualities and the bamboo sticks which could turn out to be a wonderful structure.

When Layne, the instructor, came over to mine, I said the inner tubes represented travel to me and I liked to ride my bike. Well it took her about a half a second to say it was too pictorial, too obvious. So there it was... spoken out loud, my inner fears expressed. She said I should depict how I feel when I ride my bike not the situation, what she liked about the sample was the freeness of the design. I'm thinking "crap" now I have to start again, make it more abstract, more pattern. Now what? Nothing popped into my mind - slight panic - how am I going to fill up a large space with a bunch of squiggles?

Starting again... what are the different feelings I have when I ride?