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…