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As I sat to write this blog post I suddenly have a song in my head singing …Where do I begin, to tell the story of how great a love can be… Which may or may not be exactly the right words to the song in question but the sentiment of the song is about LOVE, And Love is what is happening here. I LOVE creating– insatiably. Last year I created a line of scarves and it was a long time coming. I’ve been making/sewing scarves for years. In fact, my entire life I’ve had a quiet obsession with textiles and fabric of all kinds. In high school I wanted to be a textile designer but did nothing about it. It was a sweet dream never acted upon. Life took me many other directions, many of them wonderful so I’ve no regrets about that. I believe things happen in their own time and this is part of Charr’s Luxury Scarves story.

Drawing patterns and fine lines in black and white or bold, even outrageous color combinations has always been a passion. I was reminded of that today when I saw a decades old college photo of myself and was suddenly reminded of the colors I was wearing– a turquoise top and magenta pants. Not a common combo no matter what fashion era unless you’re talking about the hippies way back when. I was too young for that but in my heart I am one and definitely lean towards that pop art and kaleidoscopic style even today.

But back to the point. For many years now I have made and sold long silky scarves at holiday time. I purchased fabric and spent hours turning it into beautiful things. Many times it crossed my mind that I could design and produce my own fabric but then I didn’t. I told myself it wasn’t possible, I couldn’t afford it, I said NO to myself– for many years.

Until last year that is. I did the math and finally said YES! It was just a matter of weeks to design and produce the scarves, with my own gorgeous designs in a delicious satin. The colors unbelievably vibrant and a part of me still can’t believe I did it as quickly as I did– the designing, producing, sewing, finishing, packaging and all it takes to produce a unique product. In fact it’s practically a blur. The results were amazing, the scarves sold like hotcakes and I’m so proud of what I created and set free into the world.

A few weeks ago I felt the new line of designs gurgling and bubbling up again and I’m delighted to say I just put a brand new fabric order through and the yardage should be arriving this very week.

I’ll be selling scarves in an Etsy shop I am setting up, which has always been the plan, so you’ll be able to go and get ’em! I’ll sell them in person later this year as usual. Or if you live in Sacramento and want to buy on the spot get in touch and I may even arrange a personal viewing just for you! Charr@me.com

Also, if you are not on my mailing list yet please get on it so you can be amongst the first to know what is up with creative endeavors here at Penguin Palace (what my husband and I call our home).

Today marks the beginning of a website re-design and truth be told a finer tuning representation of myself as an artist making some very unique new art. I’ve always been one but have made a broader, deeper and wonderful career as a photographer/photojournalist. These days, armed with my iPad, Apple Pencil and photos I take on professional gigs or with my iPhone I’m also making art that comes from who knows where. It arrives in my minds eye and something new is born when I put pen to digital device. Figured I’d keep you posted on the changes you’ll be seeing along the way right here on the website. Pages will change, offerings too and there may be a few obvious things that aren’t quite right– YET. It’s a work in progress a little each day so thank you in advance for your patience. This accompanying image is an example of the unique kind of hybrid art I’m very involved in creating. The original inspiration for this art piece was from a photograph I shot during a theatrical production of Seussical at a local Sacramento elementary school. Pretty much no matter where I go I find some delicious visual morsel or two worth capturing with my iPhone that I know I can use later in some interesting way. On jobs, may of which are from theatre productions, I have living art performance photos to draw from like this one.  During the performance there were a few seconds open for me to consider some of the background characters and snapped a few faces in the crowd.  This photo was almost an outtake but had some fine qualities that made it stand out to me– faces, lighting, body language for example.  Using my iPad and a favorite art app I rearranged the characters in the art piece as I developed it so it’s very little like the original photo at this point. I’ve been actively exploring creating my own gorgeous patterns too and in each of the characters is a variety of patterns I’ve made that turned into fashion/clothing seen here.  I’m using that technique A LOT these days and am even planning to have yardage made so I can sew some clothes from it for myself to wear my art! My husband and I take what we like to call “mini-moons”, which are very short vacations- 2-3 days on average- to places that inspire us. Our last mini-moon was earlier this month to San Simeon to take a tour at Hearst Castle, which is fantastically beautiful.  I wanted to get some great location photos to use as backgrounds for future art pieces too and this is the first one I’m showing.  The background is from the indoor pool there.  A truly magical place. The colors?  Just used the minds eye suggested and it felt right when I began making choices for skin tones.  Seussical is whimsical, colorful and quirky so an odd mix of colors, textures and attitudes made perfect sense. I am planning to be blogging more again soon and keep you posted on the art I’m making along with some back story on them too. I’ll also be setting up a way for you to buy these brand new art prints, something I’ve been wanting to create for a very long time online.  You can do it now via the link in the Buy Prints tab above from some of my earlier works– digital art, music and more. Visit there and stay tuned here! If you have questions and want to get in touch with me please do! You can email me direct: charr@me.com.

…kinda awesome!  Podcasting– an ever-growing audio world that is exciting, fun, educational, insightful… and well, all of the above and so much more!  I’ve been interviewed for several podcasts about my approach to creativity and life as a professional photographer and figured I’d share the audio recordings here.  I can talk, and anyone who knows me will chuckle with a very knowing nod.  Just ask me a question and woah!  These wonderful people, Karen, Wayne and Chamira, are so very good at what they do they made being interviewed easy and the conversations are really good.  I hope you take the time to listen and enjoy!  Comments much appreciated!  🙂

This one is with Karen Poirier-Brode on The Creative Approach.  CLICK HERE TO LISTEN.

This one is with Wayne Cook on HotMix.  CLICK HERE TO LISTEN on SoundCloud.

This is with Chamira Young on Zenjoyable with more of a focus on the business end of being a professional photographer.   CLICK HERE TO LISTEN.

From a flicker of an idea to a realized reality— such is creativity!  I am so proud to announce my brand new YouTube channel featuring a project near and dear to my heart— Focus on Creativity.  Many thanks to the people who have already agreed to be part of this amazing conversation and the many yet to come and meet with me to share even more great conversation.

Creativity has been my life, both personally and professionally.  We are alive in this extraordinary time where with a few simple clicks it’s possible to connect with anyone in the world and get face to face, smile to smile, voice to sound anytime we want.  And this month I’ve been connecting just that way during online conversations with some remarkable people—  it’s been wonderful so far!  I pose the question “What is creativity to you and what is your creative process?”  The answers given during the conversations in Focus on Creativity are invariably unpredictable and fascinating.

I talk to international speakers, radio hosts, tantra experts, actors, authors, musicians, life coaches, health and beauty experts, landscape designers, photojournalists– and this is only the beginning because creativity is in everything and everyone!

When we think of the word “creativity,” art, music or culture often springs to mind.  But as one of my guests reminded me— we breathe, we create— and that is one of my most core beliefs.

Why does creativity matter and why is this conversation so important?

We all want to be more creative.  We are all searching for ways to bring things to life or to continue enhancing what we have or do.  That’s creating.  For me this began when a professional photographer told me they weren’t creative.  That shocked me and stuck with me, forever changing my view of what I had thought was a given.  So many of us wonder how to be creative— as if we aren’t already.

Creativity can appear mysterious and even seem to be a magical process.  Each one of us creates in our own unique way and has our own unique process.  Still, we wonder about how others do it.  We can learn from each other so we can go even deeper with our own creativity.

That’s what this conversation in Focus on Creativity is about.  Each one of us is a universe unto ourselves but we are not alone.  This Focus on Creativity conversation seeks to see and explore our unique ways of creating and the ideas and the process for each of us so we can share the mysterious, the magic and our connection with each other.

I am so delighted to share this ongoing project with you.  Please enjoy the videos, subscribe to the channel, and share.  What does Focus on Creativity look like in your own life?  Please feel free to comment and if interested in having the conversation with me be sure to get in touch!  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Join the conversation– CLICK HERE to view and enjoy!

Charr

Charr is the Host of Focus on Creativity, a photographer, an artist and a muse!

Charr@me.com

Creativity.  To some of us it comes easily.  To some of us it’s a constant question mark. We have all kinds of notions about what creativity is.  To me it’s everyday in everything.  To you it may be something very different but in the end, I promise you, it’s in all of us.

I actually remember the very moment I saw creativity in myself.  I was about six years old and in the process of coloring a bunch of grapes I had drawn.  My mom came by and exclaimed with surprise at how I had used unexpected colors in my grapes.  They were NOT all purple.  I had colored them with varying shades of blue and purple.  It was a sophisticated view for a child and her delighted reaction showed me something about my self— originality.

We all have originality.  You are original.  Your DNA says so and I bet many people in your life would say so too. We can’t help ourselves.  It is just what is so.

So what exactly is creativity and how does it show up?

According to dictionary.com it’s “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination.”

Creativity is how we like our tea, what we choose to wear on any given day, how we sigh, how we laugh, our handwriting, our personality as well as a million other far more obvious or subtle signs of self expression.

Why did this conversation even come up for me? I was the featured guest speaking about my photography and showing examples to a large group of professional photographers at their monthly meeting.  One of them raised his hand and pointed at one of my images on the screen and said.  “I can’t do that.  I’m not creative.”  That single moment has forever changed my ideas about creativity by revealing a shocking truth— even people in a creative field don’t see their own unique creativity.  It has become my mission to help people see it, to embrace it and to express it freely.

So, just a few weeks ago I was inspired to create a series of recorded conversations with people about creativity in their own lives and their thought process behind it.  So began my new endeavor Focus on Creativity, an ongoing series of video conversations with people that I will be publishing on a regular basis.  From hair stylists to actors, professional speakers to musicians and life coaches–  I believe everyone is fascinating on this topic and today is the day I’m telling the world about this brand new project— Focus on Creativity. 

The conversations keep happening and I’ll be publishing them when they do so please stay tuned! 

The first video in the series is with Georgiana Kovell, The Entrepreneurs’ Partner in Mind Blowing Success.  Enjoy!  And if so inclined to leave a comment, please do!

Want to get in touch with Georgiana Kovell??  Click Here.

A look at a Before and After– from line drawing to the reimagination of an art piece.  A discussion of what was done and why, the artists mind and how we think visually.

Amazing day at my latest workshop– Creative Marketing Using Your Camera Phone!  

Seriously, how can you talk about marketing without mentioning Facebook Live and then doing it right then and there–  Fun!  Yep, we went Live on Facebook at the very end of a fabulous workshop– Creative Marketing Using Your Camera Phone.  A wonderful class for anyone in business who wants to get creative with pictures and videos so they can shoot their own, edit them, turn them into videos and market their product or services all right in the palm of their hand using the iPhone!  Had a blast learning and practicing some wonderful tricks and tools built right into your iPhone that you can use to create pictures and videos you can post online– social media, websites and more.

Perhaps the best part of this class for me was the unbridled enthusiasm these students had and the really great photos they captured.  It was a ling full day of learning, getting hands-on and even making videos from the pictures we captured.  Everyone had a blast!

Learn about this class and many more at my website:  www.charrcrail.com

Seriously, Wherever you go, there you are.  I’ve been thinking so much about my business and other entrepreneurs who want pictures and videos to go on their social media sites, their websites and marketing stuff.  I know a stock photo when I see it.  I don’t mind them but I’d rather see the real thing– the hand of the artist if you will.  It just looks real so I’m getting kinda more passionate about it these days because it’s become that thing that is always in the back of my mind.  Business, photos, posting, working–  Wherever I go, there I am, with my cell phone.

When someone is crazy for something, can’t stop thinking about it or doing it and is all about that particular thing… ?  Yeah, they joke about that saying “like a dog with a bone”.  I get it, and I am a dog with a bone now too.  My iPhone.  My camera phone.  I use it for EVERYTHING practically.  Well, I may not use it as a spatula to turn over a hamburger patty but I do use it more and more everyday for more and more. Here is a list for a few of the things I use it for.

Making art

Time and Date

Calendar

Games

TV

Alarm Clock, Timer

Texting

Email

Internet and Social Media

Photographing

Shooting Video

Listening to music

Maps and GPS

Learning with education apps

Shopping

Health, Exercise

The News

Invoicing

Banking

Taking payments (credit cards)

Making payments

Investing

Calculator

Weather

Audio Recording

Making notes

Reading books

Flashlight/Nightlight

Archiving and Sending/Sharing files

Attending live webinars … and so many more things…

What about you? What do you use your cell phone for?

Of course my main thing these days is photos and videos.  Shooting photos and videos, making videos from my photos, making memes with my photos– and now TEACHING how I do it all.  It’s rad fun.  Check out my workshop page– CLICK HERE!

The Story behind Wuv Woo.  Being inspired by something is perhaps the purest key to creating anything truly unique and original.

“Good artists copy.  Great artists steal.”  Pablo Picasso.

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”  Mark Twain  

New Yorker Magazine is iconic.  As a little girl I could, and would,  sit for hours at the local public library where they had an entire wall of beautifully bound New Yorker volumes, some of which were only the iconic comics.  I’d pull the heavy volumes off the wall one by one and read for hours at the table in that special section of the library.  I loved comics— what kid doesn’t?  But the comics in the New Yorker are sophisticated and wry and funny in a very different kind of way than the typical comics in the Sunday comics section of a newspaper.  They introduced me to ideas and things about life in the world that as a kid I might not have had access to for many more years.  I actually consider it part of my education.

And the covers!  The New Yorker covers are iconic.  They are relevant to the news and happenings of the day, they tell a story, they are serious art by top artists from an editorial point of view and I love that about them.  A friend of mind with a fabulous house in Pebble Beach had one of their bathrooms entirely wallpapered in New Yorker covers, coolest thing ever!  I still think about that from time to time with the notion of doing it too.

Wuv Woo.  This is one of my favorite pieces of art I created while falling in love with the man who is now my husband.  The creativity point to this story behind the image is that I get my inspiration from everywhere though you might never have a clue where from.  Why?  Because I am inspired creatively but never a plagiarist.  Even if you saw the New Yorker cover that inspired this image you would not recognize it.

That particular cover caught my imagination.  There was something about the face. It was sweet and oval with a geisha like whiteness to the skin.  Almost like a porcelain china or some smoothly chiseled marble.  It was a simple close up view of a beautiful face with almond shaped eyes and such lovely subtlety that just looking at it gave me a kind of pleasure.

I saved the illustrated cover of the exquisite face for many many years before I ever managed to create this Wuv Woo image.  Then one day a moment arrived and I was there and ready to do something with it.  Just hours later something new was born– because  I acted when the inspiration struck.  And it’s worth noting that one must act when inspiration strikes whenever possible!  Capture the idea, save it however you can!  Luckily I was ready to go, in place and could go the distance right then.  So some details behind Wuv Woo…

1— It was inspired by a New Yorker cover but took years to germinate and be born.

2— Wuv Woo is something sweet and affectionate I say to my husband meaning I Love You.  We have both adopted it as one of those mushy things couples say to each other.

3— Though I would more often be described as colorful this one rests in only three colors— red, black, white.  It needed no more than that to manage a striking image of contrast and sweet design.  The red represents love.  The face represents a loving and steady gaze at the object of affection.  The flowers and patterns represent the feminine and creative flair.  The words and the font I chose have a weight to them, an italic expression that relates to forward motion, the white cirlcling lines represent even more action and movement.  I didn’t consciously intend these things in the moments during creation.  It’s only now that I can look at it and see what I did.  I was in the creative trance while it was happening.

The technical– The face is a line drawing I did, which was directly inspired from the cover, the flowers and patterns are Photoshop brushes I created and use in varying sizes, layer styles and opacities.  I did the whole thing in Photoshop, incuding the drawing, using a Wacom tablet.

What more is there to say about it other than this.  The idea of being inspired is perhaps the purest key to creating anything original.  In the end my image looks nothing like the original but that’s because I allowed my inner voice to have it’s own say, it’s own delicious flavor.  I let it have it’s own expression of color, form and composition.

There’s a wonderful scene in the movie Finding Forrester, starring Sean Connery, that mentions this idea— about finding a starting place, aka an inspiration, and allowing your own voice to find the path, to take the creative journey but make it entirely your own.  Isn’t that what an artist does?  And I mean any kind of artist!  No matter the medium.  Musician, painter, cook, writer, photographer or architect or any other creative endeavor.  No matter the medium— it’s invariably the seed of inspiration that takes a white piece of paper and fills it with wonder.  From the Blank White to Wonderful.

“Necessity is the mother of invention.”  Plato

Isn’t the need to create as much a powerful human need as the needs to eat, to sleep, to have comfort, to procreate?  We are conceived, we are born, therefore we create.

Creating from inspiration– scene from Finding Forrester with Sean Connery.