Picasso on inspiration

"The artist is a receptacle for the emotions
that come from all over the place:

from the sky, from the earth,

from a scrap of paper,

from a passing shape,

from a spider's web."

                        

                      - Pablo Picasso 

Web on our back deck.

The quote from Picasso was sent to me by one of my blog followers -- Ladybug -- in response to my Oct. 26 post on Haiku and Color Inspirations. Ladybug has her own blog with some beautiful photos she has taken of spider webs. Here's her link: http://flyhometoladybugslair.blogspot.com/

A spider web by your front door is supposed to bring good luck,
so I left this one alone for awhile.

Everytime I see a spider web, embroidery designs fill my head. Unless the web gets in the way of leaving or entering the house, I usually leave it alone and admire the artistry. And seeing a spider web dotted with dew darn near becomes a glittering, crystal mystical experience.

Getting back to Picasso's quote, I find it hard to go anywhere without thinking of everything I see in terms of  art. When people look at my art quilts and ask how I get my inspiration, I'm flabbergasted. The problem is not coming up with inspiration; it's deciding which of my thousands of ideas to act upon!

For example, seeing these graceful plants swirling in the estuary under reflections of the sky gets me thinking about watering down blue fabric paint, washing it across white silk and watching the pigments migrate around into interesting patterns.

I took the photo of these ropes on the deck of a ferry because the graceful horizontal lines reminded me of a landscape. The lines could easily translate into lush green valleys or lavender hills shadowed by sunset. 

And then there is

Bunners!

Compare Bunners' sensuous curves to the ropes above.

Imagine the ears waving around like the estuary grasses!

See the world in his eye!

So my current project is

The Cosmic Rabbit!

I painted white cotton with Setacolor transparent fabric paints and then stenciled swirls with Shiva oil paint sticks. (The eye is cut from a commercial print, but I did everything else myself. I might stick a big button over it instead.) I'm combining machine and hand quilting and still have lots more embellishment to do: beading, embroidery ...

I did the chain stitch embroidery around his eye with Laura Wasilowski's hand-dyed perle cotton in the Salt Water Taffy colorway. She uses the most luscious colors in her thread, and it's available at www.artfabrik.com

My little muse!

Let's have a shout-out

for inspiration and Bunners!

Have a colorful day