Where I Get Inspiration

People often ask me where I look for inspiration. Usually I abstractly say my garden, architecture, books, or the newest reed color. A few days ago I wanted to weave a basket because of a friend's painting. Her choice of color combinations, the amount of each color used, and the composition - together motivated me to start a new basket. What I found interesting and sort of amazing (because I hadn't put it together until the basket was finished) was that a few days before, I had bought one of my favorite varieties of orchids. Many of the colors in the orchid, were also in the painting and I had used them in the new basket! Sometimes I'm more aware of the color choices I make, other times I just feel drawn to a particular palette and it isn't until afterwards that I understand where the influence had come from.

Basket Tribute to Leslie Baker

This basket (2 sides of the same piece are shown here) was inspired by Leslie Baker's painting "Blue Shed." She has an opening at the Shaw Cramer Gallery in Martha's Vineyard on July 24th. This basket and a few others will be on display out there as well.

Fuller Craft Museum Update

In April, I wrote about receiving a purchase award from the Fuller Craft Museum, in Brockton, MA. I've started working on designs for them, and have posted a "note" about it. Click here to read about an idea I'm very excited about.

4th of July Flowers For a Party

Blue Lacecap and Annabelle Hydranga, Gooseneck Lysimachia,

and red geranium.

July Double-Wall

In this basket I've used encaustic medium (a combination of wax and resin) melted into the surface of the basket which adds a richer look to the color, actual strength and a more tactile feel to the basket. The basket doesn't have a flat bottom (on purpose) so it will sit slightly off center. The outer basket has a gentle bowl form. Just before joining the inside and outside baskets together at the outer edge, I inserted glass marbles, which will roll around inside adding sound and weight to the basket, as it is handled.

Fractured, a new basket for the wall

This basket began as a desire to work with a new, dark neutral reed I'd just dyed. For the last few months, I've been working with bright colors, but now I'm drawn to working in muted tones. (The recent rain has literally dampened everything.) While I weave, I think about the construction, graphics and the use of color, as if they all had personalities. I've always liked the privacy and security of courtyard gardens, so in this piece I wove a raised wall around the center grid. From the top of the wall, I added the spiral design to draw the eye out to the edge, but contained the graphic with a solid band. The red I used as emotion - as the contrasting element in a field of neutrals. It's the 'red' that gives this piece - life, and meaning.

The basket measures 15.5' wide x 1.5" deep.

Emma and I visited Helen Dimos's garden

Emma and I were invited to a Helen's garden over the weekend. After I took photographs, and she "tended" to details, we sat and watched shafts of light penetrate the deepening shadows. (Emma had been off leash the whole time and no plants were destroyed! I was proud of her.) The day before we went to visit, it had rained. Helen gave us these peonies to take home.

A new pink tree peony and garden neighbors

Memorial Day flowers

As a hostess gift, I brought flowers from the garden. There were alliums, wild phlox, Miss Kim lilacs and Japanese Snowball Vibernum clusters, but they were a bit too floppy and don't show in this photo.

A peak at my front porch and garden

This is what I see when I stand on my front porch and look out over my front "yard." Right now the white and purple alliums are just peaking, as are the mountain bells (blue). Emma is my constant companion. She doesn't look like her normal 84 pounds, though the summer haircut did slim her down a lot.