by Sissy Caldwell
The creative process is a mysterious thing. I'm often asked what my process is and I really don't have a good answer--it's just something that happens. I am fortunate to live in an incredibly inspiring place--I only have to look outside my window or take a walk through the neighborhood to come up with more designs than I could ever get done. The Falling Leaves series is from one of my morning walks. A neighbor has a huge ginko tree and as I was walking under it one fall morning, these beautiful golden leaves started falling all around me. I promptly picked up a handful, took them home, pulled out every bead I had in those colors, and just started stitching.
I recently went to the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina--an absolutely wonderful place to try something new! I took a class in mosaics, which is pretty different from bead weaving, but it taught me a lot about my creative process. I realized that I am inspired by color and textures and I let those drive the design. I learned that my basic process is to just put a bunch of beautiful colors together with some interesting textures and then I just play with the pile of stuff until something fun comes out of it.
I'd be interested to hear about your creative process.