About Me

New Blog Location

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:24:01 -0700

Its official, what is design? has moved to its location. If you receive this via rss feed please update your feed to the following location:

www.sarahgstevenson.com/blog

Look forward to seeing you there. Thanks Sarah

A New Blog is Underway

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 17:29:56 -0700

Please bare with me as I move my blog to a new and exciting blogging platform. I am 3/4 of the way there and will let you know as soon as everything is up an running. I will still continue to post until it is fully functional but you may not be able to leave comments directly on the blog. If you would like to contact me please do so at:

sarahstevenson3@mac.com

Thanks so much for being patient with me and I look forward to unveiling a new blog over the next week or so.

Have a great weekend.

Tea Time Thursday - A Little stressed

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:25:44 -0700

Today, I am a little stressed. I have a very long to do list both personal and business and I just can’t seem to pull it all together. A friend sent me a text and said “Take a break and crank Michael Jackson-Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” and dance around my house.....I love it and thought you would too.....

What do you do when stress takes over and you need a little break? I’d love to know.....

100 Wednesdays-20x200

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 12:37:04 -0700

Every Wednesday, I receive a little New York email from a gallery called . 20x200 sells prints ranging from $20.00, yes $20.00, to anywhere from $500-$3,000. Today,artist Jenny Odell from San Francisco is featured. I love this piece because of how it is arranged and how all the different types of ships give you a perspective of coming and going. It is called:195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers, and Other Ships.

If you are trying to find some great art but don’t have a huge art budget, this is your place. I have purchased several pieces from the gallery that I just love. I know I am receiving a quality piece of art from an up and coming artist and I know it is nothing that anyone else will find locally.

Where do you go for your creative art endeavours? I’d love to know.

Have a great Wednesday...

A is for flying A

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 09:58:19 -0700

You may have seen this photo as part of my Creative Thursday course this summer, but I wanted to share it again as this month I am going to try and give you Design A-Z in a photo series. The inspiration came from my friend Angie at Jumping Jack Designs. Last month she chronicled A-Z with her camera. I will do it with design and my camera.

This image was taken in Truckee, CA. and is of an old gas station that has been refurbished as part of a store renovation. I love to think of the people that must of come to Tahoe in those days, stop for a little lunch and gas before continuing on their journeys.....

Food for thought on this Monday...Do you have places near you that are historic or share a story of the past. I’d love to hear about them...

Have a great Monday.....

today is my birthday

Wed, 6 Oct 2010 09:51:33 -0700

In my Welcome October post, I mentioned that October is my favorite months of the year. One of the reasons is because of all the color that surrounds it. Especially the color of pumpkins, apples, leaves on trees and all the wonders that nature provides us with. I have spent a good part of the last week, trying to create a color story about October. I have pulled photos from magazines, vintage halloween cards, paint colors and a couple of my photos including the one above and have created a special board for my studio that I can look at each day this month to help spark my creative.

I have a file where I keep all sorts of magazine cutouts and “inspiration” but I have to give special thanks to Holly of Decor 8 and Leslie of A Creative Mint for reminding me how to use them in my business and how to use them for blogging. Holly’s husband Thorsten also helped give me a little more computer education, which I truly need. So thank you to all three, I feel much more confident in what I am sharing here.

I have just finished 4 weeks of an 8 week course called Blogging Your Way and found it most inspiring and educational. You may not realize but as I have been exploring my voice for this blog, I have been exploring through their course. It has helped me grow and realize where my passions lie, how to take a different look through my camera lens when I photograph and how to take all this great “stuff” I seem to hoard and use it in a creative way. I thank them for re-opening my eyes to the world of design and creativity that I love so much and hope if you have an opportunity to take a course like this that you seize it and take everything you can learn from it and share what you learn with your world. It is truly a gift to give.

A couple of other things that I will be working on this month are moving my website and blog to a different platform. I was working on the blog side the last few days so that is why I have not been posting. I am getting closer to launching at least the new blog and will let you know the location once it is up and running. Hopefully, it will be a seamless transition.

It is also my birthday today, so a great day to celebrate and be with friends and family. Have a great day everyone and will see you soon.....

Welcome October

Fri, 1 Oct 2010 09:55:42 -0700

October is here and I have to say it is my favorite month of year. I love that we are beginning to get cooler nights and incredibly warm and sunny days. Our days are shorter but in Nevada the sun shines, the wind stops blowing and the sunsets are spectacular. September was such a busy month with getting kids back to school and beginning three courses at once. I felt like I too was going back to school (I guess I was). October will be more settled as redlinedesign celebrates a year in business and hopefully will become a registered trademark as well. It is also my birthday month and my daughters birthday month so there is a lot to celebrate here. This is what September actually looked like:
September Business Goals
Design
• Develop list of vendors for design library-ongoing; able to set up with carpet installer to use his library so I don’t have to store product here
• update linkedin profile-need to finish two parts of profile
• renew business licenses-complete thanks to my attorney
• client billing-complete
• sign up for spring design exam-need to register

Photography
• Update Etsy Shop-in process; exploring ideas through marketing course
• Finalize and Roll Out New Branding for Etsy Shop-in process; exploring ideas through marketing course
• Update Photography on Website-in process; exploring ideas through marketing course
• Call for Fall Shows-decided one show for the fall and a possible gallery exhibit (in the works with several other friend artists) more to come

Education
• Begin Blogging Your Way E-Course-completing week 4 of the course today;
• Complete Creative Thursday E-course-complete work is here on blog
• Begin Marketing E-course-working on lesson 2 although class is on lesson 4
• Begin On-Line Community-Creative Coconuts-wow, this is awesome; see blog for list of participants; this will be ongoing
• Begin Guest Lecture Series at University of Georgia via Skype-this is awesome as well; 25 students creating and sharing their work for the semester; will be participating with them until December

and here is what October looks like:

October Business Goals
Design
• continue list of vendors for design library
• update linkedin profile
• finalizing registered trademark for redlinedesign should be complete by end of month
• client billing
• sign up for spring design exam
• celebrating one year in business-October 23

Photography
• Update Etsy Shop
• Finalize and Roll Out New Branding for Etsy Shop
• Update Photography on Website
• Participate in Fall Show
• finalize 2011 calendar with the wonderful angie of jumping jack designs

Education
• Complete Blogging Your Way E-Course
• Continue Marketing E-course
• Continue UGA Course with students
• Begin preparing for mini session course in January

Misc.
• website and blog redesign
• special gallery project

Business Goals are a part of a monthly business group called the Meet Up. You can find the meet up at Athena Dreams with the wonderful Liz as your host....

Have a wonderful Friday everyone and I will see you back here on Monday...

Tea Time Thursday - Beauty in Nevada

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 10:05:00 -0700

Over the summer, I participated in a local art fair and had this original piece of photography sitting on my table.

A gentleman I did not know stopped to talk to me about it. The photo was taken by me in 2006 while on a visit with my family to a local harvest festival. The structure struck me as what Nevada must have been like long ago. Incredibly blue skies, a rustic dusty place for explorers of the new frontier.

What I did not know about the structure was the story of how it got to the place it now sits. This gentleman was able to tell me as he was the one to move it to its present location. There are several buildings next to this one, that I see everyday and they are longing me to come back and photograph them. I have always thought they existed on their current site. I was wrong. A number of years ago the buildings sat out in Boomtown which is on I-80 at the border Nevada/California Border-a big casino (with the same name and a Cabela’s) sit there now. When all the construction was occurring, they were not sure what to do with the original buildings. Story goes that this gentleman and a few friends lobbied to move them rather than tear them down, which often happens here. They were given permission to move them as long as they did it themselves. They got a couple of flat bed trucks and hauled them some 10 miles to their new location.

He asked me if I knew what the top of the structure was? I did not, I just loved the detail of the roof and the little triangular openings. Turns out that it was a pigeon coop. Back in the day of the railroad building carrier pigeons were used to send messages and this was a place where they lived. I was so struck by this story and I don’t know why it has taken so long for me to tell you.

Stop by the shop to find out more......and have a great Thursday........

How Inspiration Can Find You

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 10:03:34 -0700

Today, I received an email from paper and stitch an online community showcase for art. In it was a link to their fall show that opened today. I love the pieces they gather and thought I would take a brief look before getting my youngest off to school.

Inspiration hit me immediately when I entered the shop and took me back to May, when I picked up Cloth Paper Scissors May/June 2010 Issue. In it was an artist named Lisa Kesler who does printmaking in 3-D. I instantly was attracted to her work and especially the two pieces at the beginning of the article.

Well anyway, the fourth photo in on the paper and stitch site showed a shop called Cornflower Press and had a piece that looked similar to the pieces I had seen months before in the magazine. I clicked and low and behold, there were the pieces that I had been so interested and absorbed by in the May/June Issue.

Not only were they available but I noticed on the side of her shop that she was from Champaign. For those of you that have known me for a long time you would know that I grew up in Urbana, which if you are from the midwest you know it as Champaign-Urbana the town of University of Illinois.

It struck me that I must have had a feel for these pieces because the images she was capturing were of places I knew or places I felt I had seen before. They were pieces of my past.

Central Illinois is a place of incredibly serene beauty. If you are driving down the middle of the state all you see are farms, corn in the summer and plowed frozen fields in the winter. Most people think it is barren and flat and not that interesting but you need to dig a little deeper and you will find incredible beauty.

I purchased the piece with the telephone poles and wire as a reminder of the middle of the country where as a ten year old I lived and grew up.....
Have a great day everyone.....

C is for Coconuts

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:21:15 -0700

Today, I would like to take a moment and introduce you to a group of individuals called the Creative Coconuts. Creative Coconuts was born out of an idea by Marisa of Creative Thursday and Sean who is a teacher at the Groundlings Theater in L.A.. You have heard me speak of these guys on more than one occasion as I have taken several classes with them since starting my business last year.

What is a Creative Coconut? It is a term used to describe a group of creative individuals coming together to form a unique on-line community that provides support, resources, creative discussion and friendly connection to other artists and creators around the world.

What amazes me about this group is the diversity of artists represented. There are writers, painters, jewelry artists, quilters, actors, the list goes on and on but we all have the same goal of creating a community that supports one another.

The first individual to share this group with her readership is Kimberly of Art Making Progress. We just completed the creative thursday e-course that I have also shared with you on the blog. Please stop by and say hello. She has a great story to tell.

All the Coconuts are listed at the bottom of the post and also in the resources and links page of the website. There are so many great people that I wanted to list them all and I apologize for giving you so many to look at all at once. Enjoy a few and come back and see more as your time allows.

Have a great Monday everyone......