Rebecca Sower

art & craft & beauty & friendships

Coming home feels like everything that is familiar and good.  I sink back into where I am most loved and comfortable.

But boy-oh-boy was my experience at French General rewarding and full of art and precious people. 

The store itself was the visual masterpiece I always knew would come from Kaari's hands.  Texture and layers and colors and beauty abound.

The students?  Not students at all, but artists and friends.  The kind you want to gather around your table and talk and craft with.  And that's pretty much what we did.  Love you girls, each one.  I was the lucky one who got to walk around and peek over shoulders, where I saw work like this...

Lovely right?

Not surprisingly, I came home inspired and creatively full.  Just the way I like it.

Love to each of you.  Take a moment to notice beauty where you missed it before.

2013: the year of Time

At the beginning of each year, I think long about a word (a concept?) to focus and give attention to.  For 2013, my word is ‘Time’.

I think what I’d like to make happen is a shift in my attitude toward this gift we call Time…

• Time is an investment, not something to be conquered or even caught up with.
• My time is not more valuable than any other person’s, so my focus on others’ time is important.
• Although becoming more efficient isn’t a bad goal, it’s not my main one.  Checking off more tasks on my to-do list isn’t my goal.  Likely I’ll spend a little time deciding which items can be erased from that list.  Be more effective and less productive might be a good way to say it?
• The rushed-ness of life stresses me out.  I end up a frazzled and ineffective mess when I’m doing nothing more than putting out the fire that’s right in front of me.  In that way I do need to practice more ‘time management’ skills.  Note to self…most things can wait!
• So on the days that I am less stressed, my creativity kicks in and I am more artistically effective (isn’t it fun how that works?)
• Which leads me to another focus for this year…create.  I’m getting too old to keep telling myself that I’ll do everything else first and do my art with the leftover scraps of the day.
• If I allow myself to be the creative soul God meant me to be, I can give a better version of myself to my family and to others.
• I could keep going, but enough already...

And so Time is the key…being aware of it, wrapping it warm around me and savoring it, giving it away (almost always a good idea), and protecting it when I need to.

(and hopefully spending a little more time updating my blog friends, right? :)

May each moment of your 2013 be everything it is meant to be for you and yours.

the art of craft

I'm really excited to let you know that I'll be traveling out to the west coast in January to teach one of the workshops being offered by French General's 'The Art of Craft' event in Los Angeles.

I don't know if this means I'm going to go on the teaching circuit again, but how could I resist when I get to spend time with my dear friends Kaari, Charlotte and Pam.

Here's a peek at my projects, an art quilt cuff or brooches...

And here's where you find out more about the entire event.  Sounds like fun!  Hope you can join us.

{inside} {outside} {07} new journals

Some new journals listed in my Etsy shop.  Here's a peek...

{ peek at inside of journals }

{ peek at outside of journals }

{inside} {outside} {06}

{ inside: very small stitching project }

{ outside: time to put away the old watering can for the winter }

"Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."

--henry miller--

 

{inside} {outside} {05}

{ inside: old freezer basket on wall for fabric storage }

{ outside:  every single day, i miss haiti...going back soon!! }

"Bravery is the capacity to perform properly

even when scared half to death."

--omar bradley--

{inside} {outside} {04}

{ inside: some stitching }

{ outside: me and henny penny }

 

"Don't ask what the world needs.

Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

--howard thurman--

{inside} {outside} {03}

{ inside:  Michelangelo sketches on my studio wall }

{ outside:  Autumn wreath finally went up out front }

"A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to see and hear it."

{ michelangelo }

 

{inside} {outside} {02}

{ inside:  something on my studio table }

{ outside:  sign from small-town cafe up the road }

"We are all strong enough to endure the misfortunes of others."

--la rochefoucauld

 

{inside} {outside} {01}

Thank you Charlotte for nudging me (and letting me copycat you) to do at least this...a photo from inside, one from outside, a blog post each day or so.  Just so the one or two blog readers I may actually still have won't think I was kidnapped in Haiti.  Sorry it's been so long!

{ inside: old French book plate }

{ outside: roses and pumpkins...I love September }

"To change and to change for the better are two different things"

German proverb