Design Creativity

To be creative is to be human.  Creativity has helped our species survive through the eons.  Having a big brain is great, but it's using it is what has pushed us up the food chain and helped us win the evolutionary crap shoot.   Perhaps that accounts for our great admiration of creative people.  We still need creativity to feed our souls.  I think that's why we especially admire creative artistic talent. Everyone has a favorite book or song or in my case, painting or sculpture.  I'm so fortunate to actually know someone who is a working artist.  Like any other artistic endeavor, being creative takes not just inspiration, but actual work.

Kit has gotten interested in electronic design over the past few years.  She's representative of a new generation of artists who can finally reach an audience through the internet.    The best thing about an electronic design is it can be transferred to almost anything.  For instance, last Christmas she wrapped all our presents in paper printed with one of her designs.  She works with a company that offers printing of her designs on a variety of products including fabric.  If you haven't figured it out yet, Kit is Sarah Lynn's mother-in-law, and my friend.

She's entered an on-line contest being sponsored by a design website called Bags of Love.  One of her designs appears on a sheath dress, and the company is offering a prize of over 600 pounds (that's about a $1000) to the designer whose dress garners the most votes.  I'd like for you to check it out and, of course, vote for Katherine Wilson's dress.  Here's how you find Kit's dress - and hopefully cast your electronic vote for it.  It's going to be easy; she has the best design.  I couldn't click directly into the contest, but I found the voting page by clicking on the Bags of Love home page.  Scroll down and look for "Gift Services" on the left side of this page and click on "Contest.  Here's the home page:

http://www.bagsoflove.co.uk/

Scroll down and find the Katherine Wilson's dress and vote for it.  It's easy, and we'd love to see her win.

 

Gratitude Challenge - Day Five

I'm sitting on our elevated redwood deck looking out over a pine/spruce forest with a view of the mountains surrounding the Lake Tahoe Basin.  The sky is azure and the clouds are the color of white the manufacturers of Tide lust after.  There's a slight breeze, and the temp is in the 70's.  I'm so grateful we stepped out, left the security of Hurst, and have had the pleasure and privilege of being able to enjoy a smidgen of the width and  breath of this country.

I'm very grateful there were enough people in the previous generations to understand these things are irreplaceable, and I'm equally grateful for the people in the upcoming generation who are committing themselves to not only keeping our national treasures maintained, unpolluted and unspoiled, but trying to spread the idea of wherever someone lives the resources and beauty are finite. 

Fall, New England, Profile Lake

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Finally, I'm grateful for the filmmakers of in depth documentaries who use pictures and words to bring the sense of who we were and we are to everyone.  I'm going to finish the 'gratitude' challenge with just a few pictures which illustrate my gratitude for our lives over the past five years.

Lake Tahoe, California

Redwood Trees, Muir Wood, California

Pffeifer Falls, Big Sur, California

Big Sur, California

Virginia, James River

Shenendoah Valley, Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia

Maymont Japanese Garden, Richmond, Virginia

Yale from the Grove Cemetery

Logan Pass, Glacier National Park

Mystic Seaport, Connecticut River

Mammoth Springs, Yellowstone

Black Sand Beach, Hawaii

The "Needles" at Seal Rock, Oregon

Craters of the Moon National Monument

Shoshone Falls, Idaho

New York City from the top of the
 Empire State Building

Picture Lake in the Cascade Mountains, Washington State

Fog rolling in over San Francisco Bay

Luray Caverns, Virginia

The Franconia Notch, New Hampshire

Arizona Desert (enhanced with a Chilhuly glass sculpture)