Back to the Black Box

I tell my coworkers that I do my best thinking when I'm not thinking.  The left-brained bean counters look at me cross-eyed, but the design engineers totally get it. There's lots of evidence that the subconscious really gets going when the conscious mind shuts down for one reason or another (fatigue, almost asleep, or during a monotonous task). The conscious mind is a kind of built-in critic. When it's otherwise engaged, the subconscious ideas get a chance to take over, so to speak.

So it was after my class on Saturday. I was totally exhausted, totally wiped out, but I don't often get the opportunity to shop at QT (since it's a 40 minute drive from my house), so I wanted to check out the luscious fabrics. I was looking around, not for anything in particular, when this lovely dark presented itself. 

I had originally conceived the Black box as being lit by a spotlight, with the top part of the quilt in the dark.  But I set that idea aside because I wasn't sure how I could get a transition from dark to light to "work." I didn't like what I had come up with, so when my subconscious said, MAKE IT DARK, I was in no position to argue.

Regular readers will know of my long-standing disdain for the color brown. But I've made quilts with white backgrounds, and quilts with black backgrounds. Been there done that.  Besides, this brown batik has some lovely colored bits I thought would set off the lighter, "Before you can think" words.  So I bought some.

Last night, although I should have been doing the dishes and a bit of grocery shopping, or folding the laundry or (gasp!) balancing the checkbook... I went into the studio and did a bit of sewing.

When my students asked me, on Saturday, "How do you do it? How do you have a full time job, make quilts, write a blog and teach?" My answer was, "The housework goes straight to hell."

I guess it's gonna be there for a while.