Athena Dreams Design

A Good Pillow (Cover)

Who would have thought that a pillow cover or 2 created with my artwork, could make me feel as happy as a little kid... not me, but they do.

Last week, my shop opened up at a european website called Envelop, debuting 2 pillow covers. One made from the painting Night Garden, and the other from the painting Matilija Poppy (pictured above, showing the front and the back).

The work to put these pillow designs together was a perfect yummy blend of three things I most love:

• painting (which was already done, but still plays a part)
• creating patterns
• colour 

You know all those wiser-than-many-of-us-people who are saying things like find something you love to do, work hard and go for it? They are SO not wrong, in fact they are SO very right.

So if you have been thinking about getting your work onto some textiles that are printed on demand and shipped all over the world (and I know some of you have), go here, and DO IT.

Pillows people. More pillows to come... Pillows!

8 Weeks In

• Ever since I read that Vincent Van Gogh considered orange to be the colour of insanity, I have felt a little uneasy around it. How to use a colour that might be insane? But when paired with pink and purple and lavendar, it's kind of lovely I think. Orange has started to grow on me, and I figure it's made me uneasy long enough, why not be friends.

• My design studio is in the midst of being reorganised and it's an utter and total and collosal mess! I am not berating myself about how long it is taking ( a new thing), I am merely plowing through the mess and divesting myself of things that I no longer need or want.

• Things are calm and peaceful inside my head when the worry monster is away, and he's been away for a while now. I am hoping that Stan found another place to live and won't be back. Don't get me wrong, I do not wish him on some nice unsuspecting person, hopefully he found a lovely hollow tree, on the side of a hill, and he watches the sun go down into the ocean every evening. That's what I hope for him.

• When I am super busy, making lists is very calming.

• When I am super busy, staring out a window and watching the trees or the birds is very calming.

• When the worry monster is away, there is so much room to think and plan!

• I think I have discovered my maximum book reading capacity: 3 non-fiction, 1 business, 1 novel and a book of poetry. That's all I can read simultaneously. Hmmm perhaps that isn't the right word, I don't mean to imply that I am reading them all at the same moment, but in the same sphere of time. 3. 1. 1. 1. Six, yeah, that might be it.

• I was thinking about the threads of my life the other day. Some are tangled, some are dangling, some have not yet been used and many many more are woven and lovely and integrated and holding the warp in place, and it got me to thinking about the tapestry of a life. What would your life look like if it was woven into a tapestry, to hang on the wall of your home?

• Did I mention that things are so much easier when the worry monster is gone. Yeah. I know I did. It is just such a revelation that apparently I needed to mention it 3 times here.

• OK last thought for week 8: snow is being predicted for the Bay Area, get this, AT sea level on Thursday or maybe Friday this week. Think it's really going to happen? I'm going to keep my camera ready.

On the Road to Damascus .:. A Story

Samarah, the center of her family, yearns for a bigger world, a bigger life, she dreams in patterns and colour. She paints images of leaves and flowers on the walls of her family home, and she learns about fiber and the weaving shuttle from her grandmother. Weaving the fabric for her family's clothing has given her the beginnings of a skill she wants more of: she wants to weave tapastries and the fabrics for the clothing she has seen the travellers wearing and trading when they come through her village.

You never know where the seeds of a painting will come from. While researching damask patterns for another project, I started wondering where the word came from, did it have something to do with the weave or was it about where the idea for the weave or fabrics came from? And it was a place name, Damascus.

I tried to imagine what the Middle East might have been like in the Middle Ages. And then I began to imagine a girl who was a pattern designer and had a love of fabrics and fiber, and Samarah was born. 

In the painting, she and her travelling companions have stopped to rest by an oasis. Some water, some food and a rest from the dusty roads. She is day-dreaming about her life to be. The background of the painting is a damask pattern painted into a dreamy bed of purples and periwinkles and lavenders. I believe that Samarah's life was magical and happy: She lived and worked as a weaver in one of the oldest and most culturally rich cities in the Levant. She designed fabrics and patterns in rich and sumptuous brocades, and found satisfaction and joy in the life that she dreamed and then created for herself

You can find On the Road to Damascus here.

A Gypsy Girl Special

I'm over on Gypsy Girl's Guide today with a special for all my Gypsy Girls. Go on over and have a visit and be sure to read some of the other latest posts - the gypsy girls have been word-smithing and idea-making and being all-around inspiring.

February 2011 .:. Biz Goals

Pink Tulip necklace, available here.

January's goals were short, and really really sweet. I mean really sweet. I can't remember a month that was more fun, because my goals were fun. I think we all sometimes have a tendency to make work, well, work, when it may be work, but it's also what we love to be doing everyday (or most days), and so, it really is fun. Did someone, sometime, somewhere, really say that work should be any of these things:

• dreary
• negatively competitive 
• heart-breaking
• soul-sucking
• the thing you do until you get to go home to your real life

Yeah, I don't think so either. Most of us who come here at the beginning of each month are working for ourselves, (or are working to get there) we are growing businesses around ideas/talents/things we love to do, and sometimes we lose touch with loving what we are doing, so I am here to remind myself and all of you, let's get back in touch with that feeling: no matter the stressful days, the overworked evenings, the crazy deadlines, and the such like, we are here because we love what we are doing, and how lucky are we!

SO, here were my JANUARY goals:

1. Figure out what working smarter is, and how I can make it a regular and central part of my life and my work.
2. Create for fun and joy.

I can say I successfully did all of them. I am not done with #1 or #2, and I worked them all month long. I am going to keep my February goals pretty simple again, and see how that goes.

February:

1. Identify 3-5 new product categories to create with my art/design. Research. Prototype.
2. Find a mentor. I have NO idea how to do this, but the first step is always putting it out there. I want to find a mentor who is also an artist and a designer, and has worked their art and design into brilliantly placed, licensed product that are seen and bought and loved all over the world. 
3. I think #2 above might go under the category of working smarter.
4. Repeat #2 from last month.

OK, here we are, the shortest month of the year, so it's gonna go even faster than the one that just passed us by. Let's take February by storm, in a crazy, fabulous cloud of creativity, ideas, colour, movement and inspiration! Happy February everyone!

________________________

IF you are new to The Meetup or would like to play along, here's the scoop:

• Post a list of your business related goals for the current month on the 1st of each month on your blog. {If the 1st falls on a weekend, post on the following Monday.}
• Come back over here and leave a link to your goals blog post in the comments of my current month's goals.
• And then {and this is the most important part, since we are a community} visit all the links in the comments, stop in and say hello, have a conversation, meet and greet and etc.
• You can also "meet" the Meet Up peeps, go here and visit the links.