Join me at Craft NAPA!
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Join me at Craft NAPA!

Are you ready for the new year? I’m thrilled and honored to be teaching at Craft NAPA in gorgeous Napa Valley, California at an incredible new retreat created by Pokey Bolton. She is bringing together many fabulous teachers for this event to get your creative juices flowing and help guide you into your creative passion. The teachers are textile designers, fiber artists, sewinistas, painters, mixed media artists and art quilters. During this three-day retreat, you will have the opportunity to master your skills in collage, quilting, sketching, printmaking, painting, art journaling, and mixed media, all the while enjoying outstanding cuisine and wine, too. read more

December 8, 2015
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The lessons of prayer flags for the Dalai Lama in Alabama
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The lessons of prayer flags for the Dalai Lama in Alabama

Remember our Happy Flag Project?

A year ago we were heading to Birmingham, Alabama to see the Dalai Lama. My mom and I had spent the previous five months collecting handmade, artful prayer flags in honor of the visit. We led workshops in Alabama and Arizona. The whole city of Birmingham got involved–it was part of the University (UAB) curriculum in many departments. The Sculpture department created an installation with 1,000 flags. read more

October 14, 2015
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why you should make things with your hands and tell your story
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why you should make things with your hands and tell your story

You know what most people’s problem is? Too much money. (You know that I’m only a little bit serious, I hope?) But I’ve been thinking about this lately. That whole necessity is the mother of invention thing, ya know? I believe that. We are ALL more creative when we have to be. But buying has become the new making. And not just this decade but since the early 1900’s and after the industrial revolution. The subsequent plummeting price of goods began to be felt by the masses through places like Sears, Robuck & Co. and continues today with the fast-fashion of H&M. read more

September 30, 2015
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Calling all righties and lefties!
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Calling all righties and lefties!

Day 7 of my Creativity Challenge! All day, whether you are writing or drawing, USE YOUR LEFT HAND (or your non-dominant hand). This exercise challenges you to bypass your hard-wired default mode…which in turn opens up space for new possibilities, hence CREATIVITY! Creative thinking and doing can be born from breaking our own scripts and patterns so we can see the world in a slightly new or different way. read more

February 16, 2014
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The idea of colors
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The idea of colors

A painting of mine from this year called The Ecstatic Beauty of It All (Carrie Bloomston)

I wrote in the last post here about the “idea” of colors. I also wrote about how we are instructed early by painting teachers to never use paint right out of the tube. This is such an important point and I want to explain it further here as it applies to every area of art, design, sewing, crafting, etc. read more

November 4, 2013
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Painting again (more)
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Painting again (more)

You know that this sewing stuff I make and show to you here is all relatively new for me. It comes from a deep and abiding joy. It is a new project–a new brand. But it isn’t the whole me. I will sometimes share a tiny bit of my other work. It might not appeal to you and that is OK. We are each our own morass of impulses, urges, and complexities. They don’t all overlap. But they define us. read more

February 15, 2013
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