I am certainly liking the work of Lizzy Stewart.

She likes bears, as do I... but R likes them even more.
We have a lovely local bear that comes down the mountain sometimes. He likes to get in the garbage cans at night, and then we don't like him as much. If he helped us clean up the mess in the mornings, and had a quick sit down, perhaps a cup of coffee, all would be forgiven.

Nevertheless, I think this bear of Lizzy's is perfect.

Just when I was getting really good at not wanting everything, I came across Baden Baden.

So it's now back to square one with the 'not wanting.'

Great.

{via piou, another blog to love}

Note to self... not necessarily a sentence... or even to taken literally, but little hints, or nudges if you will:

eat = cook more: make food, don't buy it. don't eat at your desk.

swim = don't pass up an opportunity to get in the water

see = pay attention to the world around you... look at things, take your time.

cactus = get your hands dirty, make planted environments

I am working from home today. The little cabin we live in is small. If I turn around this is what I see. Living in a small space is hard, but it's also refreshing. You tend to shed what you don't need.

R is good at keeping the place not very cluttered; if I had my way with this spice shelf it might not make a pretty picture.

I am lucky enough have a fairly large wall by my desk (about 7 feet) on which to pin up ideas that inspire me. Right now this 1 foot section of wall does the trick. I almost don't need more.

Sometimes my 'inspiration' wall gets so thick with ideas I can't see the ideas anymore. For me, this is a good place to focus and a reminder to simplify.

I am riding high today, newly refreshed by these 12 inches.

I have to admit that I've been feeling completely uninspired these last few weeks, not quite bored of my work and my asethetic, but something very close to that. Unsatisfied? It's time for a change but I have no clue in which direction to start off.

I've been bombarding myself with as many images and words as I can to try to jump start something in my creative brain, nothing has quite stuck. It's just been a constant stream of colors, and shapes and textures, but everything's been feeling rather flat.

This morning, finally, I think I stumbled onto something...

It began by looking at Home: Where they Create, a visual document of people's creative environments by Paul Barbera (found via hello sandwich). And of course, given how magnetic these work/live spaces are I drifted off through the links and arrived at ijm's string gardens.

A sigh of relief... it reminds me that I've been wanting to get my hands dirty. I'm not sure how yet, but I want the remnants of a day's work under my fingernails. I've been saying I want to ditch the old computer for a while now, maybe it's time?

{wish I was in Amsterdam, ijm had an open house this weekend!}

Having just come home from vacation, I'm of two minds about this statement. I suppose three-quarters of the time this is true. The other quarter of the time, it's really wonderful not to be busy and to just sit on your butt and think about how very un-busy you really are.

That said, I'm back to the three-quarter life and I'm about to get very busy, and not the good kind of busy. Crazy busy. The light at the end of the tunnel is an October camping trip to Death Valley.

{image via Yay!Everyday, by Jamie Tao}

A long overdue post about my growing ceramic cityscape, by Susan Dwyer of up in the air somewhere. I still need to buy the third factory vessel, but thus far have collected two of them and they happily co-exist on my desk with my water silo, also by Susan.

And if you read this blog often you know how much I love her work. So lucky for me, I also received one of her stunning little gold-lipped dishes, which.... let me tell you, makes me melt. I love the handmade quality of everything; I love that the lids fit "just so" and the lines are not quite straight. You can see the wonderful markings of process, but it's so clean and crisp. After I get the remaining building, I have my heart set on these. Cups dipped in rubber.


I actually can't talk about it anymore for fear of impulsively purchasing them all right this second ... patience, Debi.... patience.

I think spending time underwater could make you a really good textile designer. Endless inspiration.

{images by Jeff Bozanic}

I suppose I should admit I am back from holidays... back from my diving trip to Fiji.

On the first day I found the first letters for my coral alphabet. There were millions of bits of coral on the beach and throughout the week the alphabet slowly filled itself in. I didn't want to assemble letter forms out of parts of coral. I wanted single pieces. As you can imagine, finding some of the letters was difficult. The S is the only one that isn't a single piece of coral.

I had help from some really lovely kids who were on our trip. They would come to me with options for letters I already had, or were able to find ones I was unable to find myself. One day, while we were all getting off the boats and arriving back at the resort after a day out diving, J.A. came running down to the beach with two pieces in his hand, shouting that he had found the X and the Z. Ah, those little letter-hunters! I miss them.

And of course I left the task of photographing the alphabet to the very last minute, with a crinkly damp piece of paper as my backdrop right before we left the resort. I also left all the letter forms there on the table outside our room, along with all the little shells, seed pods and other bits we found on the beach and in the water.... I miss them too.

{p.s. click on the image for a larger view.... note to self: must sort out how to post larger images}