Elements

Design comes not only from inner inspiration but form external stimulus. A passing glance at a shape or object can set off a cascade of ideas. A series of colors or the way the light falls in a certain way can start my brian leaping from one thing to another building an image as it goes. Part of this process is learning when to let go of my mind and let it wander, to be the observer in my own process and leave the role of censor or critic out of things until something more concrete is arrived at. This doesn't happen all the time. But when the mood strikes me its like having a small child running around exclaiming over every shiny bit of nonsense that presents itself. Sometimes they are good concepts that I set aside for another time, so I take notes, gather a few images and put them in a holding pattern. Sometimes these ideas really take hold and I have to set them all down all at once. And I really know why these things are called "brain storms" - they begin with a brilliant flash and then blow everything else out of their path until they are done. The real work of it is to get the "dazzle" out of my inner eye and get the elements sorted and arranged - to take a design from a jumble of good ideas and marshal it into a harmonious reality of color and content.

The particular inspiration for this week is boxes. Since I've decided to do a series of box lids with matching accessories, getting the boxes first is pretty important. A painter has to have a canvas that's suitable for the painting - and sometimes its that blank canvas that demands what will be made of it. An artist can start with one idea, but if you let the idea unfold itself, it has the potential to become far more than the original. And I really can't just look at pictures and imagine how things might go. Its really important to have them and hold them in my hands. To turn them over and over, feeling how their shapes lend themselves to various concepts, and letting them tell me what they want to become. Yesterday, a sample arrived in the mail that fulfilled my best artistic fantasies. At the urging of a friend I had ordered a set of nested hexagonal boxes. Even before they arrived the ideas started. I woke up one morning a couple of days ago and knew what it would be. It was a real pain having to wait for the boxes to arrive to make sure they would be suitable, but I got started anyway just knowing that this was a really good one. And when I finally got the actual item, it was the perfect size and shape. This is really better than good.

So now to spend the hours at the computer drawing, designing, taking notes, getting the concepts lined up. This is what happened with the square box I bought at the craft store a few weeks ago. The trouble is the time it takes to make the prototypes. Its hard to remain fresh and spontaneous with a project when it takes 2-3 weeks just to do a sample. But this one - oh, I definitely know its going to be worth it. And the little elephant that was the brain storm of 2 weeks ago to adorn the square box is not forgotten. The sample for that series is almost done, the color palette decided on, the forms set up so that the rest will be variations on a theme. The trick is getting all the brilliant flashes to line up and take a number so they can each shine in their own time. Well, one step at a time.

Colors

Although it was my grandmother who first taught me to embroider, it wasn't until many years later that I discovered a passion for cross stitch. I was working at a crafts demonstration booth at the Kansas City Renaissance Faire. The October day had turned off chill and rainy, driving the usual crowds under cover far from where we sat. And we were really bored. The woman I was working the booth with suddenly turned to me and said "Would you like to learn to cross stitch?" At that moment, any cure for idleness would have sounded good, but it wasn't until she opened her work basket that I was hooked. There, nestled in a bag, was what could only be a captive rainbow. I felt like a kid seeing their first box of crayons. The colors were delicious - and such variety - and all shades and families of shades. This was such a far cry from the few dull shades of floss avilable at the dime store when my grandmother was embroidering tea towels. And I'm sure they were made all the more bright by the somber gray of the day surrounding us. She handed me a small square of cloth and told me I could pick any color I liked. So Laura showed me how to make an X with thread, and that day I cross stitched a single initial letter, then, in a fit of inspiration, I took a slightly darker shade and put in a line of stitches beside the first. It was like a miracle. That evening I took my treasure home and finished the letter. The next morning, I was at the door of the crafts store when it opened showing the sales lady my small sampler and asking her where I could get more of whatever it was. But the real miracle of the day was the display of DMC colors. Rank upon rank of delicious colors from bold clear primaries to subtle antiques were arranged in matched groups from delicate pales to rich darks. It was a revelation. This was certainly not the plain stuff of my childhood or the simple thread I embroidered my jeans with later in life. This was smooth fine thread fit for artistry - color fast and washable.

The next weekend, I showed up at the crafts booth with a small basket of my own and proudly displayed the small square I had spent the week finishing. Laura was amazed and pleased that her lesson had fallen on such fertile ground, but noticed that she had neglected to mention that the point of the exercise wasn't actually to fill up every single square. Having no template for this kind of work, I imagined it to be a sort of small needlepoint and worked accordingly, painting every block with color to make a whole picture. What else are all those colors for? I am told that this kind of style is referred to as "cross point" being as akin to needlepoint as it is to traditional cross stitch. But isn't that the joy of crayons or paints or colors? They seem to tell you what they want to be if you know how to listen, just like the crayons did when you were a kid.

I have come long way since that day almost 30 years ago. But every time I go to the crafts store the delight strikes me all over again. I see that rack of colors and I find that inner child again. I have long since stopped kidding myself that I'm only going to pick up a skein of the color I need, because there's always that color right next to it that has Such Potential. And, of course, you can't get just one without trying its associated shades. I have since worked with other styles of counted work - blackwork, Egyptian style counted work, Ukrainian red and black embroidery. I've worked with silk and linen flosses, and each has much to recommend it in its own way. But when I want to refresh my creativity and give my mind a treat, I always seem to wander back to the delight of those colors - simple cotton, durable, and with dye lots so consistent that I could go anywhere in the world they sell them and find a match. I think its no surprise that when I started looking for something new to create I found those colors yet again. I am looking forward to that journey.

Organization

Starting a business is a lot like writing a book. All the ideas are there. The skills are there. Even many of the materials are there. But the trick of it is to put it all into some sort of order that someone can follow besides myself. This isn't just about the art that I do with my needle; its about my ability to share it with others. And that requires not only putting my thoughts in order but putting the rest of it in order as well. That's a little more challenging.

Designing a piece used to be about an afternoon with a pad of graph paper, a pencil and an eraser and a few colored pencils. It only took a while to get together enough notes to myself to know where the project was going and the rest was just in the doing. I have a stash of floss and fabric that has grown since I did my first project many years ago that has been augmented by gifts of floss bundles from other people cleaning out their work boxes. Eventually, I sorted it out by color into sandwich bags and from that by color group just to have things sort of where I could have them in my line of sight. Once I had a project in mind, I'd pick a little from here and a little from there, or I'd go to the craft store and browse the colors picking out what pleased me at the moment. And the new acquisitions added to the ever growing melieu.

Artistically speaking, design is about spontaneity with a structure. The structure is what you intend to make - your original concept, while the spontaneity develops it as the work progresses and brings it into reality. But now that I intend to put my designs into patterns and kits, I am faced with not only getting my thoughts in order but also keeping track of what I do so that I can communicate it to others. Using needlework design software helps enormously, (and I hope to talk at some future time about various design programs on the market) I just need to remember to take a few notes and recall what colors or lines I change as I do the actual work. But it was the colors themselves that finally demanded attention this week.

First, I should mention that no matter how good your software is at the initial design, there is just no substitute for choosing your colors for real. To sit in the sunlight with a tray full of bright flosses to put one beside the other, to see how they correspond and contrast, how they interact with each other. There's only so far sandwich bags will get you - from a rainbow nest of snakes with no order at all, eventually you have smaller nests with lots of bags in between - its just another kind of nest of snakes. Earlier this week I finally snapped. Trying to pick colors for a baby elephant with flowers shouldn't be that big of a challenge but there I was sitting on the bed with colors spread all around me moving them from one heap to another. Putting bags back in the box, taking them out again. Forgetting where I'd put that whatever it was, putting it somewhere, forgetting where I'd put it, finding it when I'd found something else. I finally gave it all up in disgust and stormed off to the craft store. For a while now I've been using those little rectangular plastic bobbins that DMC makes to keep track of my floss splits and they've proven wonderfully handy. Well this was the day to bring out the big guns. I bought a couple of package of cardboard ones. They come 56 in a package and I figured I had at least that many single colors here and there.

It took the rest of the afternoon to get at least one of every color wrapped and ordered. Finding what I had multiples of, what I have bought over and over because I really really like that color. Then I found a small stack of tackle boxes we'd bought for some other project ages ago and ended up not using. Now the bobbins are again sorted by color. But instead of a jumble of bags, I have ordered ranks of color arranged by hue and color group. Its like taking a pile of piano keys, yes, each one makes a sound, but which one is right for the melody, etc etc, and now putting all those keys in a row arranged by note. I know where they are and, although I may not use every single one in a composition, they are at least available for the choosing. I even reserved one box for the colors I actually choose for the project. And although I'm not a big fan of plastic boxes as I work, its absolutely wonderful to have this contained and ordered rainbow at my fingertips, shaded like an artist's palette with nothing tangled or snarled. Its a righteous feeling. I have even made a resolution to keep things organized, to put colors on bobbins when I bring them home, to file them where they ought to go before they sink to the bottom of the work basket. We will see where that goes - where organization sits down with spontaneity. After all, they don't call me the Container Queen for nothing.

One Thing Leads to Another

I don't know exactly when this idea started to emerge. I suppose it was a culmination of a lot of small things that added up one by one. I was looking for a new creative outlet - something to grow and share based on what I loved to do. I think it began innocently enough when I looked around on line for ideas for a birth sampler to make to celebrate the birth of my first grandchild. I always designed my own things so I didn't bother looking around the wider world of needlework too often. I found a lot of things going on I hadn't seen before and it got me thinking. Then my partner suggested I showcase my needlework on DeviantArt.com - an international gallery of artists and craftspeople - as he had been doing. The enthusiastic feedback I got from people all over the world was really amazing. And then one day it came to me - why not make design kits myself? why not showcase what I do to a wider audience? It was an energizing idea and one who's time had come in my life. Besides, it would give me the impetus to explore a lot of design ideas I'd been leaving on the back burner for quite a while. So with the encouragement of my partner, my family and my friends I'm beginning this journey. I think it will be great fun, and I hope it will also be fun for those who join me here.