design happens

I had the fortunate experience to be around a very talented stain glass designer many years ago when I was trying to understand my own creative musings. We were at her home / studio and just wandering through it when she talked about how she "assembled" her designs. She would look through many of the books that she had to get ideas and reference the images that traditionally surrounded the topic (most of her work is religious)... of course, she also was very familiar with the subject as well.

What I learned is that design happens over time - not, that it just happens. Who I am and how I experience life informs my work. The time I spend in the garden helps me to develop my sense of and knowledge of color and texture.
Witnessing other people's work, looking and asking and looking again, informs my work. Surrounding myself with art from other artists allows me to see the work again and again through the prism of time and during major life changes and with friends who share their insight of the pieces.

I want to create designs for fabric...
I have wanted to do this for years. I want to use my digital photographs, computer, a scanner and botanical prints.
I collect clippings from catalogs of fabrics that have the kind of prints that I like.


Today, I noticed a card that caught my eye. I realized that I want to start photographing these treasures that are allowing design to happen for me so that I can start to develop my own designs.

Does design just happen - no - inspiration happens over time.

Elizabeth Alexander is the poet that President-elect Obama chose to compose and read a poem for his inauguration. I heard an interview with her on NPR this morning called "Weaving Words For The Inaugural Poem". She was asked how she writes her poems.

"Pen, paper, computer? How do you write?"

She says that her inspiration comes as she moves through her days so she starts with notes on "scraps of paper".

She spoke about being "humble before the muse" and how she has many false starts.

"I begin, often, with scraps of paper, because, poems for me begin when I am in the midst of doing things that I do on regular days - teaching, picking up my children, making dinner. I always have a pen and paper nearby because in the meditative snatches of time, in the midst of the day, I find that many, many, many phrases often come to me. And then, once I have some clear time to myself, that's when I gather the scraps and see what's there and see what has a life that goes beyond the fragment. After I've drafted it on legal pad that's when it goes on the computer."

...meditative snatches of time...