Colorful Kaffe

 I was lucky enough to get a ticket to see Kaffe Fassett speak when he visited his exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Quilt and Textiles. I went with friend Jaye, and we got a chance to walk around the SOFA area and have coffee.




















The purple jacaranda (I think?) lining the streets were in bloom and just gorgeous against the blue sky.  I noticed an old Art Deco era movie theater had been converted over to a gym and took some pictures of the floor and ticket booth glass. Aren't those the loveliest, most luscious curves?

Kaffe was a great speaker, very charming and witty as you'd expect, and he was very inspiring of course. I loved seeing so many process pictures from him, the ones you don't normally see in his quilt books. There were a lot of travel photos too, which showed where he gets so much of inspiration for new fabric designs.  He talked a lot about inspiration and making a space to let it come in and dwell for a while, to let serendipity and oddments that attract your notice lead you to new places.  He encouraged us to stop the flow of negativity that's making you not believe in yourself.

He also had one great comment about white design walls and how they're like staring into a blinding snowstorm, and thus he uses a mid-grey one with a grid which is more neutral. Gosh that makes so much sense! When it's time to replace the white felt on mine, I'm definitely going for grey. I used to have a giant piece of grey polar fleece that I used as a background for quilt photography and that always worked so well. 

Several other artists' work from around the world were mentioned or shown in his slide show, one of which was an artist from Ghana, El Anatsui who makes amazing works out of bottles, wire, aluminum cans, and other found objects.

Two quotes that I wrote down during his talk that I'll leave you with: 

"Don't worry about how it looks on the back, you're not wearing it inside out."

"If you're worried about being "too creative" you're too grown-up"