--Hungarian-born ceramicist and designer Eva Zeisel (1906-2011)
Ceramicist and designer Eva Zeisel passed away in late December, at age 105. Over a career that spanned 80 years, Zeisel had a profound impact on modern design. She played with color and form, inventing a sinuous vocabulary that translated equally well into tiles, rugs, and furniture as it did into her iconic tableware. Her playfully curved and sweetly nesting Town and Country salt-and-pepper shaker set was, she noted in a TED talk in 2001, "a portrait of my daughter and myself."
I keep coming back to Zeisel's idea of play as a fuel for lifelong creativity. I rarely allow myself that freedom to play, to give myself over wholly to messing around with paint and paper and glue in an open-ended way.
This morning, I gave myself the gift of some play time. I sat down and worked on a collage, this one focused in part on Zeisel's work. I happened upon some word combinations that would be fun to explore further (e.g. "A bee lost its way."). I let myself try some techniques without worrying about whether they would work or not. And, just as with my earlier collage, I was surprised at the little cropped vignettes I ended up with.
Most importantly, I had FUN!
I hope you have some time to play this weekend. Please feel free to share your creative wanderings in the comments section; I'd love to hear where you ended up.
