inspiration trio

1 episode of Project Runway. //photo

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this adorable blog //photo

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this breathtaking shop //photo

In the last week, these three things have overwhelmed me with inspiration to sew and design.  Just a warning…

 

What has been inspiring you?

the moment

When it’s cool and grey.

When the babes are asleep in their beds

And it’s just me with the stillness. The calm.  I feel it inside.  I know it is time.  To waste this moment would be neglectful and foolish. 

I gather the supplies.  I arrange them in front of me.  I pause. 

And then, I play.

The Inspiration: When I was pregnant with my little boy, I started singing the song, Godspeed, from the Dixie Chicks, to him.  The line goes, “My love will fly to you each night on angel’s wings.”  On Tuesday, when I opened my sketchbook, I drew this.  I’m crazy about balloons these days.  I mean, I don’t actually like balloons, but I love them in art and pictures. They are so sweet and cheery, such delightful little messengers.

It felt so good to paint again.  It feels even better to have such strong inspiration that demands to be expressed. 

Hello dear friend. It’s been too long.

 

Today’s music: The Middle East

Drink it in, Soak it up

I will be taking a few days to dream and scheme about the blog.  I have some ideas of what I’d like it to be.  I feel like I’ve said all that I have to say right now, and I need to refill the well, drink in some inspiration, and sort the effects.  I don’t want to just fill posts with words, for the sake of blogging.  So…

In the next few days, I will be:

• Pouring through pages of books.
• Writing  in my journal.
• Gathering inspiration.
• Re-collect my vision for this little place.
• Drinking coffee (a given).

I hope you are seeking and finding inspiration, purpose, and meaning… and living a life full of good stories.

Don’t worry, I won’t be gone too long.

New Workspace

I am so inspired lately, by all the workspace photos that I have seen lately in some of the blogs, that I follow.  Until today, I had been doing all my projects on a small table in the corner of the living room.  Yeah, that was craziness and I mean all, sewing, painting, cards, drawing, everything. So, today we turned the third room into my work room.  It was previously the storage room, laundry, workout, and home to our movies and bookshelves.  It still is all those things, but we just turned the piles of boxes and tubs into a desk.  We stacked them to a good working height and then placed the doors that once enclosed the laundry closet over the stacks.  The doors had to be removed for the washer/dryer to adequately fit, so they were just a part of that massive storage pile anyway.

I took one of my cute polka dotted sheets from college and covered the area below, so it would look prettier and them put up a giant piece of foam board for my now inspiration board, it's HUGE.  Inspiration Capacity : Endless.

Now I have a huge space to work and all my materials are placed in front of me.  It also allows me to be in a different room while I working on my projects, which is great while the husband is working from home on his book.  We will probably accomplish much much more, not always distracting each other with conversation.  Plus, it's nice to think that I won't be 

spending so much time in the living room, it seems like I'm always in there.

Our extra TV is also in my new work room, so movies/music are an option, plus Baby Einstein can be a great distraction for the Hudson baby, while I work.

So, I'm loving it, and can't wait to start creating in my own little office.  Maybe one day the shoe boxes and oatmeal containers will be replaced with all sorts of "proper"  storage compartments, or... not.  I don't think that my creativity requires new store bought storage containers, as if they are anywhere near the top of our "We Need List."  After all, my workspace... my organization, right?  

And that my friends is what I love about art.  It can be anything you want it to and you can make it happen in a fancy studio, (which I will have one day), or in the spare/laundry/storage room in our little apartment.  Art is everywhere as long as we are willing to create.

So, I encourage you to use the space and materials you have right now, no need to spend a dime, and start to create the life you have always wanted.

Donald Miller Strike Back

It took a few days, but on this late Sunday morning, as I'm home with the baby who isn't feeling well, and myself feeling the same, the rain is falling and the peaceful nature of my home allows me to share my thoughts.

As promised, I wanted to share an excerpt that I desperately needed to hear, myself.  It was one of those perfect moments when the world stopped around me and the words jumped off the page and burrowed deeply in my soul.  

As an artist, writer, and dreamer, I bleed inspiration, I bleed belief in the seemingly impossible, yet there has always been this underlying thought of disbelief.  Can I really be successful?  Can I really write books, that seems so huge, impossible?  I constantly envy those who tell me, "I'm writing a book," with confidence, because I know I want to, but I have never said to myself, I am writing a book.  The very concept of starting such project launches me into this state of feeling incapable of doing so, again and again.  Then, I'll find a speck of possibility and think, "I will write books."  Yet, that remains only long enough for me to feel overwhelmed and then returns the impossibility.  This cycle has happened more than I can count.  

Part of my hopes in journeying through The Artist Way is that I will attain the discipline to start that daunting project.  I don't know what I want to write, but I know I need to write.  I just get caught up in realizing the completed product, rather than just the actually writing page after page.  So, on Friday, I read a quote that will never leave me.

As I mentioned previously, it's from Donald Miller's newest book, which will be available in the fall of 09, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.  I hope Donald isn't upset that I'm sharing this, but it was published in the back of a newly released edition of Blue Like Jazz, so I'm thinking it's OK.  Plus, if after reading this, you don't want to pre-order a copy, then there is something wrong with you.  Oh, and if he changes this part of the book in his editing, I'm gonna have to have words with him.

Here goes,

"But the truth about writing and the truth about life is we don't actually know how it is going to go.  If we take action, it come back to haunt us, for sure.  What's worse is that we might not be up for the job, but no good story was ever told without the character taking a dramatic risk."

Yes?  Does that affect you as it does me?  Even now, after thinking about it all weekend, I am amazed at how it answers that question I have asked so many times.  It reminds me of a line from Coldplay's, Fix You... "If you never try, you'll never know, just what you're worth."

As of today, I haven't started that book, but I am starting to believe that if I do take that risk, my story will be better for it.  So thank you Donald, thank you.  I'm glad you decided to take that dramatic risk for yourself.