Kat Eye Studio

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Settled In

There is nothing like a few days in a row off with no travel plans to create some space for finishing home projects. With the arrival of the quilt from my Mom I finally had the final ingredient, some leftover fabric she sent along, to get me motivated to finish up the decoration of my studio.

I created a few pillows with the fabric for my window seat and reading chair. The long skinny pillows are “cat friendly” reading pillows. I like a pillow on my lap when I read to hold the book but then Stevie the cat won’t sit on my lap, he doesn’t like to be crowded, so I use a skinny pillow to suit both our needs.

I’m quite happy with how the pillows turned out. How nice of Stevie to pop into the scene as I was taking pictures early this morning.

The pillow project was preceded with finishing another project that had been covering my work desk for a couple of months. I was making some tags to hang from the “dream” placard on my wall, so I finished those up to make room for my sewing machine. Ahhh, now it’s all clean.

I like how it’s looking, but now I “see” all of my painting stuff, since it’s not lost in the mess that was my work table. I haven’t painted in MONTHS, the same canvas has been sitting on my easel for a while. Maybe now I’ll get on to painting again. Maybe not. At any rate, it’s waiting there for me when I get to it.

And finally, I thought I would capture where I spend most of my time in this room… at my computer desk. It’s not the pretty part of the room, by any means, but it’s “home” for me. I love my magnet boards for inspiration and having all of my notes accessible. My son’s computer is right next to mine, on the left. He got the old computer when I got a new one this July. I was tired of the constant negotiation with him over computer time.

I’m now finished with my current plans for studio decoration. I guess this means I’m all settled in!

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Seeing the Light

The difficulties are always the most important ingredients in the total picture of a creative experience.
— Shaun McNiff in Trust the Process: An Artist’s Guide to Letting Go


I started a new book for my “morning practice reading” in the last few days, Trust the Process: An Artist’s Guide to Letting Go by Shaun McNiff. This book has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time, probably back to 2009 or early 2010. As in anything, my reading goes in cycles and I found interest in going back to the basics of the creative process. How nice to have this great book waiting for me, with gems like the quote above sprinkled liberally throughout the first chapter alone. It resonated with where I am right now. Here’s another:

Creativity cannot flourish and reach its deepest potential without the participation of its demons as well as its angels.
In other words, there is no such thing as a free lunch. We don’t get the good stuff without some bad stuff thrown in. Some challenge, some struggle is needed for the creative process. That’s what helps us find new ways of doing things.

These statements struck home, after my struggles with the “down” part of the creative cycle this month. As I come out of it and see my creativity picking up, as I see my inspiration begin to flow as it usually does, I see what the down time has been giving me. A respite, a time to go within. A time to revisit the process, with all of its ups and downs.

I’m off from my corporate job this week, a planned holiday shutdown. I have been frustrated about the inflexibility of forced time off at work because I don’t have any vacation time left this year, but I find that I’m enjoying the space to focus on my creative pursuits. Not to mention hanging out with my family, doing things like learning to fly an RC helicopter from my son and getting addicted to Glee on Netflix with my husband.

But under it all, after coming through the down cycle, I find that new stuff is brewing and I have some space to create. It should be interesting around here!

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Scooter Sightings!

With it being winter, there haven’t been as many scooter sightings in my world these days. I see a couple of die-hard scooter riders around town, all bundled up and looking like the Michelin man. I discovered a couple of months ago that riding a scooter in the cold air at 30mph, not to mention rain, is damn cold! I would rather ride my bike, at least I’m working and keeping myself warm. So my scooter is not getting a lot of use lately, but I thought I’d share a few scooter sightings of a different, and warmer sort!

On one of our trips before we left Italy I had purchased a couple of these metal scooters. One large one that decorates the living room, and after much debate, I splurged on this smaller orange one. Had to have the orange! When we got back to Oregon, it never showed up. I thought I remembered buying it, I remembered that internal debate, but no scooter to be found. Until Christmas time rolls around, and we unpack the ornaments. Yes! There was this cute little scooter for my studio, wrapped in bubble wrap and tucked in with all of the ornaments. Yay!

But that’s not the end of the “indoor” scooter sightings…

Last week, I came in to work one day to this scooter mug on my desk. How cute is this! A friend at work and his family had been on vacation and saw this in a Starbucks, and couldn’t resist. It just screamed my name, they said. Yay for scooters as surprises!

Then this week, I got a package in the mail from a fellow blogger in Germany. Huh, what was this? I open it up to find the cutest scooter magnets ever, and a note that she saw these and thought of me. Scooter surprise number two!! Thanks Rosie! I love them.

It’s so funny what I wrote about surprises this week, how I love the completely out-of-the-blue kind, and here are a couple of them coming my way. Lucky me.

I also love it when I get an email from someone with a scooter picture, or a link to something scooter-ish. It never fails to make me smile! I’m wishing I had saved them all. But I think I’m going to do this once in a while, a post on Scooter Sightings. If you have any scooter pics, see any cool scooter products, drop me a note. They always make me smile and I’d love to share them here.

Happy Scooter Hunting!

A couple of unrelated notes…

I couldn’t quite fit today’s post into the Many Muses Musing prompt of PEACE. But you still can! Tomorrow’s prompt is JOY. We only have three days left of giveaways! Come on over and join in.

Today is the LAST day for the Find Your Eye Special Holiday Offer. If you would like to take the class and give a gift to a friend, there are still a few spaces available. Don’t delay, since the offer ends today.

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Colorful and Cozy

Is there anything better than curling up under a quilt and reading a book? A cup of tea, and a cat on my lap add to the mood. The only thing I need to complete the perfection is to have it be one of my Mom’s quilts I’m snuggled up under, made for me with love.

A while ago I wrote on Mortal Muses about how my life story can be tracked by the quilts that have been made for me, by my Mom and other relatives. Just this week a new chapter in the story was added, with this quilt of bright colors that arrived in the mail. My Mom and I chose this fabric to match my studio when she visited in October, and she took it home to create a new work of art for me to snuggle under. A quilt that marks the move home from Italy in my creative journey.

She thinks it’s too bright, but I love it. It makes me happy and cheerful to curl up under this quilt, with all of the colors I love. Perfect for these short grey days and long dark nights – colorful and cozy!

Today’s Many Muses Musing prompt is COZY. Tomorrow’s prompt is PEACE. Come on over and join in!

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Hopeful

It always amazes me the range of emotions you can capture with still photographs of objects. Perhaps that’s why I love the medium of photography so much. To me photography is as much about capturing what I feel as it is capturing what I see. Or, put another way, it’s about capturing what I see with the emotion I feel.

At any rate, while in Ashland a few weeks ago, I spent a good long time capturing these vines against the wall. Yes, the same day I captured crispy fall leaves and a wintery black and white tree, I captured these springy vines. I love the fresh leaves, against the colored wall. Today, as I look at them, the color and new growth fill me with a hopeful outlook. That even in the winter, there are moments of green. Fresh growth and color still exist.

I choose this image because that’s how I feel in general too. Hopeful. After struggling against the down cycle I’ve been in, I finally accepted it at the end of last week. I said to myself, “Here I am. I am sad this holiday season. I miss Italy. I have no creative ideas. I accept it. I’m going to tell my friends, and then I’m going to curl up and read a book.” I’ve been doing that anyway, the book reading part, but I finally gave in and took it all to heart. This is where I need to be. You know what? That’s when I started to feel better.

You see, by accepting where I am, I allowed myself to begin to move through it, and there found a glimmer of hope. I allowed myself to share it with others, and there found encouragement. I’m not alone, neither is the down part of this cycle permanent. It’s hard to remember that sometimes, when you are fighting it so hard.

So this Monday morning, I find myself content with where I sit. The sadness is still here too, and it’s not like I’m bursting with creative ideas yet. But there is a glimmer of hope, and that’s all I can ask for today.

Today’s Many Muses Musing prompt is HOPE. Tomorrow’s prompt is COZY. Come on over and join in!