eQuilter Blog

Just reposting this, for those of you who might have missed my midweek Creative Nudge newsletter:

A few days ago I was blessed by the presence of a beautiful raptor in front of our house. I went out to get in my car in the driveway, and I noticed a neighbor out in the street waving his arms, pointing, and whispering loudly " Look in the tree!" In my adjacent neighbors' front yard was this huge raptor just sitting on a low branch looking at me. On the ground was its mate, eating its prey.

I *always* have at least a small camera tucked in my purse, so I breathlessly pulled out my little camera and snapped several photos. After posting on Facebook the consensus seems to be that it is a Coopers Hawk.

There is a Native American belief that everyone has an animal totem that represents their true nature, or an animal will appear to you to give you a message. I have a short list of wild animals that appear to me regularly (foxes and blue herons), and then there are the ones that appear like messengers. I am still contemplating what a Coopers Hawk might mean for me, but it was definitely one of those special moments where I was able to capture the essence of the bird in this image.

If you read the last issue of Fabric Trends magazine, you know that I like to take photos and then turn them into color palettes. It took me a few days to realize that I could turn this image into a color palette. (duh!) I happened to do this one in Photoshop – all of the swatches on the right were pulled directly from the photo with the eyedropper tool.

The point I am trying to make here is that inspiration is all around us, and sometimes we have to be hit over the head with a creative or color inspiration before we get it. I've been looking at this photo for 4 days – because I knew there was something there for me – but that's how long it took until the inspiration arrived like a bolt of lightning.

Nature is an incredible source of color and design inspiration. I take photos of all sorts of crazy things like rocks on the side of a highway, rotting leaves, and the surface of water. It is my library of textural ideas. Of course it is great fun to capture things like snowy peaks, fiery sunsets, and wildlife…but sometimes the biggest "aha!" is in the smallest closeup detail.

I am teaching my kids to see not only the beauty in Nature, but all the variety of colors in the world around us. Sometimes driving home at sunset, we'll park by the airport, look at the sky, and identify all the colors we see in the sky. Learning to really see Color takes time. You have to sit and look at the tree or the sky or the mountain, and erase all of your preconceived notions about the sky being blue, the tree being green, etc. Then you can begin to open your eyes to see like Monet or the other Impressionist painters…to see the purple in the shadows, the yellow in the highlights, the sparkle of red when the sun falls on dark hair, and fifty shades of pink on the petal of a rose. It's pure visual poetry, and it's all right there in front of us.

In the image above, the first 2 colors come from the plumage, the blue is from the thin crust of snow on the top of the branch, the gold is from the bird's legs, and the charcoal is from the tree branch. It was all there….it just took me awhile to really *see* what was there.

Today I am posting some information from one of the organizations we work with overseas. I received a letter and photos, through the Houston NASA chapter of Engineers Without Borders, with information about this orphanage we help support in Rwanda.

You can go to my Flickr photo page to see photos of the babies with individual notes on each child. These are just some of the children living in this orphanage in Kigali Rwanda.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luanarubin/

Below is a letter and contact info if you'd like to help these children and this orphanage.

L?Esperance Children?s Aid Rwanda
Children?s Village Kigarama
December 2010
THE BABY PROJECT

The second raining season already started and it is raining a lot. This is not an
easy time for our baby house mothers and our ten babies. There is not much dry
place left to play or to fold the cloths of the babies. Nevertheless, this cannot stop
our babies from laughing: Even in the strongest storm we can hear their joy and
we always enjoy watching them growing and becoming stronger. We all are so
happy to see our babies strong and healthy.
During this year 2010 we admitted three new babies: Mariya, Paul and Jean Paul
Mugisha. As you can imagine, ten babies need a lot of attention and love. In
order to make the work of Mother Christine and Mother Grace easier we have
employed another housemother her name is Marie and she is mainly cooking for
the babies..

If you want to help our babies, please contact us. The entire team of the
Children?s Village Kigarama as well as Matthew, Noah, Malik, Mariya, Gasigwa,
Jasmin, Joy, Dativa, Paul and Jean Paul greets you and wish you a fantastic
New Year 2011. Your help and support are precious to us.
Your friend,
Victor Monroy, Director
L?Esperance Children?s Aid Rwanda.
Children?s Village Kigarama
P.O.Box 5026 Kigali, Rwanda
Tel. +250/ (0)788545731
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.lesperancerwanda.org

www.victormonroytrust.com

I posted this on Facebook a few days ago, but thought I'd share it with my other non-FB friends. *smile* This raptor was perched next to my car in my neighbor's tree, and since I always carry a small camera in my purse, I was able to snap this great shot. Its mate was on the ground eating its prey. I tried to get closer but they snatched up the prey and flew off together. I am told this is a Cooper's Hawk. Isn't he a beauty?

Gosh it has been quite a week full of startling news stories. While we have had a big story in Tucson that has dominated the media in the US…and caused everyone to take a step back in thoughtful silence…we've been watching the difficult situation in Australia and Brasil with your floods. Our thoughts and prayers go out to our customers there who may be affected by these vast floods.

We also have a staff member who left us in August to teach English in Tunisia, and now we are anxiously watching the news there as the government imploded. We also marked the one year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake, and follow the reports coming from Doctors Without Borders on the situation there.

I used to feel helpless when I read the news, but since we started our eQuilter charity program over 11 years ago, and invited our customers to join us in our efforts, I feel like together we have truly made a difference for many who are affected by these kinds of natural disasters.

In 2010, together we raised over $100,000 for various charitable organizations, bringing the total donated to over $860,000. (When I say "we" – I mean all of us together!)

In addition to the 2% that goes to the 7 charities on our charity page, eQuilter also donated to these charities in 2010:
Children International, Children's Hunger Fund, Smile Train, SOS Children's Villages, Childrens Diabetes Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Grameen Foundation, Heifer International, Wild Animal Sanctuary, and Wikipedia.

We also sponsor IQA World of Beauty award, Quilt Visions, Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, and San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, and in 2011 will also help sponsor Sacred Threads in Washington DC, and the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, UK.

I also love to hear from other small business owners who are inspired by our business model, and have started their own charity programs, donating a percentage of sales (not profits) to those in need.

This week I will be posting more information on my blog about our partners and recipients – Mission of Love, Altrusa, Engineers Without Borders – so you can look into the eyes of some of the children who we've helped together. It truly does make a difference, and we continue to be grateful for the opportunity to help others, with your support.

This is the time of year when many of us clean, organize, and purge in our homes and our workspaces.

If you are a quilter, that may also mean that you take out your stash, reorganize your fabrics and color stories, and find more efficient ways to store and display your threads, cutting tools, and notions. It is very satisfying after a few hours or even a few days to look across your table or your studio space, and see neatly stacked clear plastic boxes with color coded labels, or your 200 color thread collection symetrically organized into a visual color wheel, or all of your quilt marking pencils lined up in a neat row like little lead soldiers.

Don't get too attached.

Creating is a messy business, and no matter how much you stop and clean up as you are designing, cutting and stitching, let's face it…that magazine-perfect creative space is not going to stay clean and neat for long.

Then there is the question of HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH FABRIC?

My own personal fabric collection was really getting out of hand when we decided to open eQuilter, and then it became not an addiction but a business. *smile*

I still have a textile collection that is spread out in 4 locations between home and work, although I do a yearly purge and try to get rid of things that are no longer tantalizing. But most of it is still impossible to part with, so I focus on organizing and compartmentalizing all my notions, embellishments and other creative doo-dads.

So when does collecting become hoarding?

When you have a tiny little path through the room between stacks of fabric that go from floor to ceiling. (and you never share or give away anything)

When does cleaning and editing become obsessive purging and subsequent obsessive regret?

When you wake up in a cold sweat at 3 am and realize you gave away or threw away something that was PERFECT for a new project… that you just thought of at 2:59 am.

A lot of quilters make jokes about how they hide their stash from their spouses, but I really do know people who keep their fabric in the trunk of their car and then sneak it into the house late at night.

Well if collecting fabric is a guilty pleasure, I say it is much better than doing drugs or becoming an alcoholic.

Even though we have a warehouse full of 20,000 fabrics, I still collect textiles when I travel. I can't display them all, so I store them in an antique chest and bring them out to "play" when I need a picker-upper. Exquisite embroidery, hand-loomed ikats, hand-tied tiny shibori dots, embellishment with metallic threads and glass beads, and 3-dimensional applique… I don't cut these up, but I use them as design inspiration. It is my personal textile petting zoo.

Our Hand-Painted Batik Panels, collectible Kona Bay panels, and Japanese Noren Panels are a great way to start your own textile petting zoo…but these can be cut and stitched into wallhangings and wearable art if you want to do more than just pet them!

Today Sophie started a new season of gymnastics at our city Parks & Rec program. It is an 8 week class and she takes it a couple times a year. My boys took this same class, and the highlight of the hour is always the same – running and jumping in the Foam Pit. (A swimming-pool sized hole in the gym that is filled with large squares of foam) Sometimes they swing on the rings like Tarzan (or Jane?) and drop into the pit. Sometimes they run and jump off a spring board into the pit…but the result is always the same. The biggest smiles and giggles you've ever seen or heard. Pure Joy. Even I look forward to the foam pit. Vicariously.

As I watched the kids, I thought – "That's the way it should be when we start a new project. We should be willing to bounce off the spring board (the inspiration), fly through the air (leap with no expectations), smile and giggle like crazy when we land in the squishy swimming pool of foam. (try something new and enjoy the process, no matter what the outcome)

Why don't we do this more often? TIME.

We are all so busy that we think every creative effort has to be productive. We curse the time wasted when we experiment with something new and it doesn't turn out perfect. We plan everything out with obsessive efficiency and sew blocks like we are a factory worker making 500 shirts a day. Why do we do this? Quilting is supposed to be FUN!

Well ok, I know some of you are saying…'I don't do that!' … so I am speaking to those of you who are productivity oriented, and you know who you are. *smile*

There was a great article in the NY Times this last week, about the importance of play.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/garden/06play.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=children%20play&st=cse

It was about children, but I think it really applies to all of us. My creative time is my playtime, and if I don't get it regularly, I really go nuts. Repetitive quilting is my meditation time. When I am working out a design problem, I seem to be working on other subconscious problems at the same time. I come out of my studio after a few hours, feeling like I have accomplished and solved so much more than just a quilt. Do you know what I mean?

…and just for grins, here is a photo of the ceiling of that same National Assembly room. Can you just barely make out those 2 golden figures in the far upper corner of the grand gothic ceiling??

Wherever I go, I am always looking for the evidence of how we embellish and decorate… how we add ornament…and how we layer design ideas to make a visual impact. When I travel, I especially enjoy seeing art and design that was made by a creative person perhaps hundreds of years ago, which is still relevant and exciting today.

Here is an image of 3-dimensional and 2-dimensional decoration that was tucked way up high in a corner of the ceiling, in the Lower House (National Assembly chamber) of the Hungarian Parliament building. The room had so much ornament, so many murals and sculptures and gold leaf, that one could just be overwhelmed and take it in as a whole. I am so glad I had the presence of mind to use my telephoto lens to its maximum potential, and capture this little slice of heaven way up in the far corner.

Often this is how we find our creative inspiration. It is always there, waiting to be discovered, but we have to pause for a moment and let our eye be drawn to the small detail that can become a big idea.

This reminds me of a scene in the movie Peaceful Warrior,

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0438315/

– when the young novice meets the teacher in the park, and complains that there is nothing going on… nothing to see. The teacher replies that there is never nothing going on…and suddenly the young novice has this powerful experience of seeing all of these things that are going on around him, that he was incapable of noticing until he just stopped and looked in a Zen-like way.

We may experience this when we are in front of a blank white sheet of paper, or in front of a stack of different colored fabrics. When we are anxious, when we are distracted, when we feel rushed to start without a plan or an inspiration, we may not do our best work. It can be fun to work spontaneously without a plan, but when you are working with high quality fabrics you might want to do the experimenting on a piece of paper first!

Sometimes we have to spread out the fabric, and walk away. Then we come back the next day and we see something that wasn't there before. When we look at it with a fresh eye, the lightbulb goes off. This is why painters will often work on several paintings at once, and why quilters have so many UFOs! We get tired of looking at one piece, and we have to go away and look at something else for awhile, before we can return with a fresh eye.

I have posted more images on my photo page –

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luanarubin/

– and tonight I am sharing pictures of the interior of the Hungarian Parliament building.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Parliament_Building

I saw lots of beautiful design inspiration inside this historic, HUGE structure, and perhaps you'll find your next big idea in these images…

Setting Goals for the New Year
*
I am not really into New Years resolutions. I mean, they were meant to be broken, right? I really admire people that can make a New Year resolution and stick to it… but most of the people who crowd the gyms this week will be gone by February.

What I AM good at is setting yearly goals. I also like to set 5-year goals, and give serious thought to 10-year goals. Last New Years I was coming out of a very difficult year dealing with my stepdad's Alzheimer's, moving him into a nursing home, helping Mom sell her house, and a year ago in January she moved into a condo 10 minutes away. Stepdad passed away this last May and Mom just now got the last few pieces furniture to make her new condo a real home…just perfect for her.

One year ago, I was determined to set a realistic goal, which I worked on all year in 2010. I felt like all my creative time had been sucked away, so I needed to set a goal that was truly possible. That goal was to write every week, and focus on my photography. Well, if you get our Midweek Creative Nudge, you know that I did manage to accomplish that goal. With 1200 photos online and over 100,000 visitors on my photo page, I think I will tick that goal off the list! (And wow, have I had fun going after that goal!)

A few days ago, as I was rather grumpily complaining about how I still don't have enough time to make art, Sophie chimed in and said "Yeah, me too! I need to spend more time making art!" So we decided to make a New Years goal of making art every day. Or perhaps in the broader sense, to do something creative every day.

One thing I have found over the years is – to successfully reach your goals you have to make a list – include several things that you know can actually be accomplished – and then add in some zingers that are a little over your head. I have a good friend with whom I share my annual goal-setting, and we exchange our emailed lists for the year.

I share this with you because I am sure you have the same kinds of challenges – Life, Family and Work often get in the way of our Creative Time. No matter how much time I spend in the studio, I always feel like it is never enough, so all I can do is set those goals, sign up for some projects with deadlines, and find a couple creative partners with whom I can pursue those goals.

When you are a "Creative" (which is now a noun to describe a creative person – not just an adjective) – that fiery spark has to be expressed and released regularly just to keep one's sanity. Sometimes it has to be temporarily rerouted but the true Creative is compelled to make art, craft, music, dance, prose, or whatever their medium….because it is as necessary as the beating of their own heart.

Wishing you a Creative Year, and the Time to enjoy your stash and studio/workspace.

The New Year is a special time for many of us, because we pause to mark our progress in the year that is gone, and set our goals for the year ahead.

It doesn't have to be as tangible as –
"I will make 10 quilts in 2011!"

Perhaps it might be something like….
I will spend 5 hours sewing on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I will celebrate my progress as an artist, and not denigrate my own work.
I will share my creative inspiration and knowledge with someone who wants to learn my craft.
I will study with a teacher or author whose work I admire.
I will learn a brand new technique this year, and then use it in a project.
I will donate the supplies I no longer use, to a school or class, or young person.
I will keep a journal of my creative process this year.

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you've seen the links I've posted for articles and videos about Creativity. I truly believe that everyone should have a creative outlet, and that being creative is a healing process, that makes us whole beings.

One thing we forget and leave behind as adults is the magical wonder of our childhood. The ability to dream, and to believe that anything is possible, is a great gift. That's why many of us are drawn to spend time with children – so we can have a few moments to experience the wonder and playful imagination of the child.

Tonight I took Sophie to ZooLights – our local winter light show put on by the folks at the Denver Zoo. Families wander through the grounds of the zoo, wearing layers of colorful hats and mittens, sipping hot cocoa and enjoying the sheer pleasure of moving through the colorful lighted landscape. Everyone is so happy, and the mood is so dreamy, that it is like we all agreed to come together and have this beautiful dream together.
(Today's photo is from our night at ZooLights)

The best part of course was seeing the sparkle in Sophie's eyes, and sharing the pleasure of her discovery. Experiencing her joy of riding the carousel, and the little train that makes a little loop around the duck pond, was the kind of simple pleasure that comes from sharing holiday traditions.

My New Years Eve is a simple one – I like to stay home, watch the ball drop in Times Square (although this year Snooki will be in the ball?), sing Auld Lang Syne (and get a little teary-eyed at another year gone by) and then share a toast of sparkling cider with whichever kid is the right age to (a) still be awake at midnight, and (b) still be young enough to be home on New Years. That would be Sam (13).

I hope you spend New Years Eve in the way that makes you happy, and I hope you have time to make some plans for your Creative Play in 2011.

See you next year!