To all of you folks who’ve come by from Blogging it Forward, welcome! Fiona from Cafe Cartolina has handed over the torch to me, and I’d love to show you a bit about what inspires me. Actually, I do this quite a lot! I’m finding that the more I am able to talk about what I find inspiring, the more I learn about my artistic process, which is making it easier to get past a block, or to figure out what’s working in a piece.

As a quilter I “draw” with my electric needle – my sewing machine. When learning free motion quilting, I spent several years trying to perfect the size of my stitches, the smoothness of my line, the spacing between my lines… At some point I realized that “really good” free motion quilting is so perfect that it could (and is) programmed by a computer. This really had me stymied for awhile, until I realized that this machine quality was what was bothering me, and I came up with a way to use my machine and still keep that fact that the lines were made by my hands evident, I call it free motion machine sketching.

Anyway, as a prolific reader of blogs, I scroll through lots of eye candy every day! There are certain things that make me gasp, and I’ve noticed that one of the themes that run through what is gasp-worthy is work where the fact that something was made by the hands of a living, breathing individual is still apparent! The 1st example of this is a new fabric design of Jan DiCintio, a.k.a. Daisy Janie:

She posted the other day about how she took a sketch from doodle to design. That design is amazing to be because of the delicious unevenness of her lines – this is most evident in the corner marked by the red 3. She starts with a hand drawn sketch and manipulates it with the computer – but that hand drawn quality never disappears, and that is what takes a geometrical design to something special! Bravo Jan!

Daisy Janie || Shop || Blog

I had another gasp this week when I saw the rustic silver jewelry of  Madison Reece. I love the texture she gets in her silver – look you can see her fingerprint in the upper part of that flower necklace! How cool is that?

Madison Reece Designs || Shop || Blog

Now let me show you some woodblock prints I just bought from Sean “Deacon” Neprud. He carves,  inks & prints each piece by hand. I’ve enlarged one so you really see the layers of color and texture he gets – I love those layers! he’s got a crazy promotion on right now where he has just finished carving and printing 101 different pieces and is selling them crazy cheap, check out his shop link below to sign up and get in on the fun.

BadDeacon Design ||  Shop ||  Blog

Finally, the stupendous work of Diana Fayt. Look at that perfectly intricate flower…the marks on that bowl…those pears! I really can’t even describe how incredibly awesome her work is to me, but I DO know that part of why I love it is it is completely evident to me that each perfect piece is made by hand, and what makes it perfect is the fact that it isn’t, the little wobbles & wiggles shout out to me “Someone made me!”

Diana Fayt || Shop || Blog

It’s been a long, difficult week, it sure was nice to talk about some inspiration! Next up on Monday…Carla Kay White! Have a great weekend y’all!

Are you familiar with the work of the photographer Jennifer Squires? She’s a fellow artist over at Art Wall Online whose work is peaceful & still. SHe works with a very subdued color palette and natural images that are so much more than yet another outdoor scene. Katie Stephenson described Jennifer’s work perfectly in her interview as “quiet simplicity”.

I’m a big fan of Jennifer’s blog, she does a great job of featuring other photographers work, and she creates a fantastic free downloadable computer wallpaper each month. She also has a shop in Etsy. I’m a lucky duck, once again, last month she was looking for people to send a review copy of her newest photograph to – and she chose me! So I now own my very own Jennifer Squires, this beautiful photograph called “Elviage Pearl”:

There is an incredibly subtle horizon line that I don’t truly see on my monitor, but is perfectly just barely there in the print itself. There is a subtle shimmer to the whole print that keeps this work from being just a stark black and white print. My frequent readers know how much I struggle with photography – what Jennifer does with a camera is so much more than photography – I don’t even bother to ever wonder if I could ever take a photo like that – this is her art, and I’m so glad she’s shared some with me. Thank you Jennifer!

Here’s a post that I’ve been saving as a draft since early November. I find that some of my best posts start as a response to a thought provoking question asked by a fellow blogger. Megan Rhodes is a fantastic landscape photographer – her work is truly beautiful. She’s pretty new to blogging, but every post that she does write causes me to stop and think. She wrote a post titled “Finally Friday” , the gist of her post is found in the middle of her post:

Why do we have so much invested in this one day of the week?  We allow ourselves to relax more, be more happy, have more fun and be more free, and we do this all because it is Friday.  What is it about this one day that gives us all this cause for celebration and relief?

<This is where you’re thinking “well, duh, it’s because tomorrow is the weekend and I don’t have to come to this dumb job that I hate and deal with my jerk boss who is less qualified then an ant to…”>

I know the reasons why people celebrate this day.  What I am really after here is this: why can’t we treat every day like it was a Friday?  Think about how much happier we would be if we found a reason to be happy and to live life as we wanted to EVERY day.

I had an aha! moment several years ago. I had switched from an academic schedule to a year round job, and realized how much we had been putting off something until…summer…christmas vacation…summer…christmas vacation…you get the drift. With my new schedule I no longer had those long blocks of time, and I realized how much we had been wishing our lives away. I now TRY to live each day as best I can…I try not to let yet another week go by where I’ve been worn down by the grind of laundry, homework, chores, job, dishes, and I’ve got no room for things that give me joy. There will always be laundry and dishes…but that need to create a certain something, well that is fleeting. Everyday should have a bit of Friday, let’s not rush through each week to get there!

For some reason, I never finished this post, and after not posting today and feeling totally exhausted but wanting to get something posted, I found this draft – and realized that I need to listen to myself! My older son has been ignoring some things at school, I’ve been to busy to notice, and they’ve now caught up with him – and me! Scrambling to get a big project finish as well as some makeup Math pushed through, I found myself wishing some time away. But I need to STOP, or I’ll blink and he’ll be in 8th grade, 9th grade…

I need some inspiration right now, and I need go no further than Megan herself! I was lucky enough to win her “Intro to Blogging” giveaway, and chose her “Olive and Lavender” photo. It is so perfect for me! The light, the mist, the flowers and the tree, it’s a wonderfully composed piece of Sonoman goodness that reminds me of a wonderful week I spent surround by olive trees in Crete!

Much more than a photo, this is an incredible archival print on soft watercolor paper – the colors are so crisp, the white so bright, the paper so think and rich – it is so lovely, I am truly lucky to have been gifted this! This is how Megan describes the scene:

In the light of dawn, shaded by a low olive tree, the lavender field shines with the morning dew. As the sun hits the blossoms the air is filled with the rich smell of fresh lavender. Bees are starting their days work as the birds fly around overhead… If only we could start every day like this one.

But wait – she also included a second smaller print, called “The Way”

In the lavender field there are paths that lead this way and that. The fun of it is that each path takes you in a different direction and you get to decide which one you want to take. This particular path was the way I decided to go that day. And, to quote Robert Frost, “that has made all of the difference”. (from his poem ‘Road Less Traveled’)

Thanks so much Megan, for this much needed breath of beauty, as well as the reminder that I CAN’T wish my life away, even when Liam has too much to do and not enough time to do it in, and I’m a horrible Mom for letting it get this bad!

Megan’s contact info (click over for some major “Oohing &Ahhing”)

• Blog: http://blissnbeauty.wordpress.com/
• Shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/meganrhodes
• Website: http://www.meganrhodes.com/