About Us

by Carolyn Robbins August 28, 2020 0 Comments

finding your calling

imagining the future

When mapping out new changes, as we are encountering during this pandemic, I imagine how we can learn from the future. How can we imagine many futures and be prepared for anything to happen? Could it be an adventure in imagining and accepting?

One future may be: our lives never resume the way they have been, yet, by focusing on our good fortune in health and interests, we progressively find  a sort of enlightenment in connecting to our families, teaching and learning new skills. Or we could begin to read again or listen to old records. We invent a better way. Perhaps our patience is maxed to the limit, and we want to crawl out of our anxious skin and into the old ways. So we go way back. We bring Grandma’s old Singer sewing machine down from the attic and introduce our children to sewing. We reminisce about how Granny's hands looked threading a needle. Or we slip on a pair of gloves, and using fine steel wool on our old tools, we remember our father’s care of his. We pick up a quill pen, dip it into an ink bottle and write some letters, and then maybe dripping hot wax on the back of an envelope for the first time in thirty years. We indulge in sweet futures, that may never look the same, but bring us home again.


remembering nature

Whenever I find myself weary of change I’m not comfortable with, I take a walk to the top of a hill. The steeper the hill, the harder to hold any negative thoughts I held on to before. The uncomfortable fades away and I’m left in a kind of abyss of “Maybe I can do this.” I’m not always sure of the way, but I know movement is eminent. I credit this change to being in nature and letting the sounds and smells and sunlight through the trees, speak to me. I believe this helps me design, create new products but most of the time, I’m freed up to take on a new adventure. If I have to go back to a grind I’ve been stuck in, I bring a branch of leaves and berries into my house and hang them on the wall. I mix up my environment by moving furniture or straightening up. I bring a bonsai tree in the house to remind me what my walk gave me in spirit. Then slowly but surely, instead of escaping the undesirable, I get through it and on the other side I find a contentment with even the grind itself.

 

So how can I use this today, when I’m tired of staying at home? When I miss my galleries and museums, and... I’m sorry but the virtual thing has it’s limits. I need to see the oil build-up on the art canvas. Monitor images just don't provide this! I want to watch the chefs preparing meals in a restaurant or see the bustle of people in the streets. How can I use my quiet hill top hikes, when my heart aches for connection?

 

I notice that each time I look for inspiration in nature surroundings, I'm not distracted with voices from the outside world. I can only hear the subtle tapping in my psyche for yet another expression or another idea or perspective I've yet to see. I look towards how to press leaves, or how to write a poem. If writing is what I do today, and sewing tomorrow and hiking the day after….then let that be my connection. Let nature show me the way.


be a magician

Welcome to my life inside of crepe paper flowers, up-cycled fibers, restoration of just about anything I find where new life can be born to an object. I insist on having fun with whatever I find. To explain how ideas come to me....try this: take a multi faceted approach. If you have one idea, try another centered around the same set of conditions or materials. After three or four ideas, stretch your imagination even more. Along the way, possibly two or three ways or maybe only one, will give you an ah-ha moment. You can feel: "This has potential." For me, this method jells my creative ideas into a series of possibilities. Then I simplify, simplify, simplify the one idea that holds my interest. Eventually after honing what I've found, and I'm sure you'll discover this too: voila...,we're  on our way towards being true re-awakened magicians!

 Carolyn Robbins



Carolyn Robbins
Carolyn Robbins

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