Inspiration

What inspires you? What do you feed yourself visually, physically, emotionally that puts you in a mindset to create? Oh how I wish I had an instant formula. It can be many things for me and in a myriad of combinations. I feel I need a "clean slate" and that can be literal or not. Sometimes just a good cleaning off of my desk can be the catalyst. Other times it is a fresh perspective in the form of a trip or an intense research session. All old things inspire Polly and I and a good antique show or a junk shop excursion can do it for us. We are trying to get ourselves in that mindset right now. It is time to put ideas to paper for some rug and quilt designs and a future fabric line. Like all jobs that "seem" impossible, it is procrastinated upon. Stalling techniques are frequent. Last week it was housecleaning and taxes and now that they are done - it seems that creating time is here. It also was that clean slate feeling that I needed. Now it is down to work. The picture above hangs in my home. It is a page from a salesman's catalog for fabric. It is dated 1912. It was all the modern, fashionable calicoes that were shown to shop owners at the time. It is a good reference for me. The fabrics are timeless, simple and that classic category called "Americana." It helps me to get to that point from where we take off from. Does that make sense? How do you create?

Laurie