Seattle and Inspiration

I'm back from my trip to Seattle, and haven't had a spare moment to sew. The tote bag deadline is looming, the Cathedral Stars quilt has dragged on for far too long, I have three finished tops that need basting and quilting, I haven't even started on the Craftsy Block of the Month and it's already May, and true to form, all I really want to do is just start a new project and ignore everything else. I have a bad case of quilters ADD.

Thank goodness, the Chihuly Gardens and Glass museum never fails to delight and inspire me. I always take picture after picture, trying to capture the size of the installations, the wild richness of the color, the sheer crazy beauty.

Being in a space like this challenges me to go deeper creatively, and explore new ideas with more freedom. I mean, there's obvious lessons to take away from Chihuly around color - why don't I pair orange and purple together more often? Or purple and red?

But I'm also intrigued by the collaborative team-based approach that Chihuly uses - part if this is by necessity, as an eye injury prevents him from blowing glass himself anymore. Part of it is just the way he likes to work, and I'm considering ways to translate that into my rather solitary quilting practice. 

I'd also like to explore the idea of inspiration more and how to incorporate those ideas into my quilts. I mostly follow patterns when I sew - I take other people's ideas and re-create them. I've always said I'm happy to be the maker, not the dreamer. That might not be completely true anymore.

Here's a story about Dale Chihuly: He was working on an exhibit in Finland, hanging big glass chandeliers on bridges over a river. He decided to toss one in the river to see what it looked like. He liked it a lot, so he tossed more glass in the river. He thought it looked pretty cool, the brightly colored glass floating in the river, so he had the people in his studio make a bunch of glass, just for the sheer fun of throwing it all in the river. Everyone was like, why are you throwing your glass in the river? And he had to explain that it was about seeing the glass in the water, the sun throwing different reflections off of it, the way inspiration comes in different ways. In his words "It was really nice". I love that story, and I'm not sure what the quilting equivalent is of throwing your glass sculpture in a river, but I'd like to do that.