April's Musings

Sunday, September 25, 2005
"Where Women Create"


I'm in Ogden, Utah, where I have just spoken to a roomful of creative women as part of the Women Create convention. I'd like to share my musings with all of you creative women who were not able to join us in that beautiful part of the country for a wonderful and inspiring few days. Enjoy!

Hello everyone. It is an extreme and intoxicating pleasure to be in the midst of such a creative force, to be with you, so many women whose lives are linked closely, influentially, to beauty and craft. So many women who see beauty in the common place, common action, common grace. So many women who are keenly connected to the line, the shape, the curving grace that makes no moment commonplace!

Shall we call that the bottom line? I know that all my lines have to have curves in them!

You yourself form a tableau of beauty, interest, and talent that will inspire others. Today I want to talk to you about the difference that we make in our world, the impact that we make individually and collectively on people around us, our environment, and our communities. The impact that is derived from using your gifts, encouraging your talents, and maximizing your own vision.

I own, with my husband, a business that is in itself beauty based. We own a chain of shops called April Cornell and in Canada, La Cache. Together, thirty years ago we a started a business that appealed to both of our aesthetic senses.

We both loved color and pattern and design. We loved to travel. We began our business by traveling to the East, to Afghanistan to India, to Indonesia to China—a business that was based on thinking there were others who felt like us, who loved beauty, who felt a rush of joy at color beautifully combined, and were stimulated by the mere act of touching hand-made product.

We started by selling beautiful items that we found on our travels, and grew to selling product that we designed and ultimately manufactured. We went from appreciating the work of artisans to creating a business of artistic living.

I think back 30 years to the turbaned Afghan carpet salesman, who showed us our first beautiful Afghan carpet and how he unwittingly opened a door of beauty and love of textiles. As we bought our hand-knotted carpet from him at dusk on a summer night in Mazar i Sharif, in a small shop, lit by a kerosene lamp and framed by stark mountains in the background—not unlike the mountains in Utah—we launched on a journey that would be all about color and beauty in unexpected places.

The shape of The Afghan's turban, the color of his skin, the thick lushness of his moustache—these were all extravagant and colorful and in stark contrast to the landscape of brown and tans. The ambiance and atmosphere of that day are etched in my mind and are a spur for using contrast and color in environments. Do I think beauty makes a difference? Yes, I do. I know it impacts me and lingers in my mind and thoughts. And sometimes it lingers most when it is in contrast to a barrenness either within or without.

Unlike most of you, I do get direct feedback from people on the impact of beauty on their lives. Here are a few stories about customers of mine that found not only that beauty made a difference, but that beauty was the essential difference that helped get them through hard times.

This is a customer story about a little girl. Last year when I was on a book tour in Philadelphia, I did a signing at our Philadelphia store. An older woman (well, my age) Mary, and her grown daughter, Julia, were both there and waiting to talk to me. The young mother pulled out a picture of her daughter, Teresa, in one of our colorful dresses. "How lovely," I said, "and where is she?"

"She has passed away," said the young mother, "6 months ago."

I was stunned into silence. What could I say?

But that was not the reason that they wanted to speak to me. They wanted to tell me that when Teresa was sick and receiving treatment in the nearby hospital, they used to come in and buy our cloth dolls and soft colorful hats for Teresa and other young cancer patients. They wanted to tell me that the color, the soft texture, and the cheerful attitude of the caps and dolls made the sick children smile and feel happy.

After all Teresa's treatments had failed, and they knew her days were limited, they chose our store for a weekly visit, to try on and buy a beautiful dress for Teresa. She loved the colors, the brightness and she loved to choose. At her young age, she had both an artist's eye and a shopper's instinct! After shopping they would have tea and cookies nearby.

They wanted to tell me how the little Teresa, so sick, lived for the beauty of her dress, the happiness of the moment, and the time with her mother and grandmother, and how that precious time together helped both mom and grandma to hold happy memories of their child in their mind forever.

Do I think beauty makes a difference? I do.

I also believe color makes a difference.

This is a story about how the power of color helped in the pursuit of happiness. This is a letter that shook me and made me think about how people's environment impacts them so.

Nicole is a young woman—30 something—and she sent me this letter last year.

Dear April, I have always used bright colors on my walls and in my mind to temper my tendency toward depression. Sunflower yellow, Grecian terra-cotta, whimsical green accompanied by an assortment of ceramics from Mexico and the Caribbean all carry me to happy places. And then I met you—April Cornell—at my local mall of all places. I didn't meet you personally, but felt I knew your spirit through your adapted fabrics (watercolors the salesperson told me) I was inspired. I know your story and have read your lovely books and am always grateful for the change in my disposition once I've been exposed to your beautiful perspective. Those things you cherish—a daffodil bulb, summer's heat, breakfast with your family—remind me that sadness can be a choice. The superficial will not uplift us during hard human times. A bird at our windowsills will. A cardinal in flight; yet, on our painted pillows. And it does for me. Thank you for reminding me of that so sincerely and with such appreciation for the living.
Fondly,
Nicole, Baltimore, MD

She continued to speak of a life affected by depression, and melancholy and changed by color and images. She talked about days where waking up and putting one foot in front of the next was very difficult. And she described how living with color helped her through negative times to be more positive. How color and beauty uplifted her and helped her break the chains of depression. How coming home to a beautiful environment changed her life.

Yes, I do believe in beauty. Yes, I do believe in color.

I had a letter from Evelyn in Illinois. She told me how she bought pretty cushions and blankets patterned with bees and butterflies to welcome her adopted daughter into her new home. The butterflies and dragonflies from the pattern on the blanket soon covered the room as Evelyn used them as inspiration for painting the walls for her new daughter, to make her bedroom as beautiful and as artistic as it could be. To express the love of two grateful parents with beauty, with whimsy, and with color.

Let us flash to China, Hanzhow, around 1990. I was going to China to source knitted sweaters. I met a couple, with a country look about them, they spoke only Chinese and they made beautiful crochet knits—beautiful hand-made patterns in wonderful cotton. I was keen to develop their crochet work into sweaters, but I needed the right color. I showed them the color periwinkle, for me a defining color—I could say, a signature color. It's a complex combination of blue and red, somewhere between delphinium and lavender. It is difficult to achieve, hard to duplicate, and it is wonderfully flattering to many. It is what it is all about. The magic of color.

"Oh, beautiful!" they said, "How many do you want to order?"

"Oh, I need to see a sample and then I can order."

"Oh, that is not possible, we do not have this color," they replied.

"Can you dye the color?"

"Yes, but the minimum will be very high and very tricky—at least five kilos!"

Well, I am a true believer in color! I thought I better try and explain the basic principle involved. "This is the color periwinkle; this is color at its most magical. We are not asking you to build a factory," I said. "We are not asking you to hire more workers; we are not asking you to install a computer system or add a human resources team. We are asking you to take the risk of five kilos of periwinkle yarn."

Thirty minutes ensued of intense discussion, loud excited voices, gesticulation, and persuasive arguments, all in Chinese. I followed the conversation like a ping pong match, point to point, wondering what they could be saying. When the conversation finished I turned to James, our Chinese manager, and said, "Okay, what happened?"

He beamed a grin ear to ear, "They have decided to invest," he said. "They will dye the five kilos of yarn in periwinkle!" Strike one for capitalism, two for opportunity, and it is a home run for periwinkle! That periwinkle cotton yarn has been knitted into many sweaters and has formed the foundation of many a woman's wardrobe.

Not all the stories I have to tell are so dramatic. Some are simple stories of how after years of having worn black every day, a woman went to the office in a coral jacket and a soft yellow printed dress and received five compliments that day. "I feel my life has just opened up for me," she wrote.

A prosecuting attorney in my home town of Burlington, Vermont, told me how in order to relieve the stress of her work, she would come into the store on her lunch hours as a kind of visual therapy, to take her mind off the concerns of her work and to renew herself through color and form, textiles and pattern.

Textiles have been the canvas of my profession. They provide a rich and changing background for color and design. With the addition of texture and draping, with the contrast of flowing chiffons or crisp poplins, fabrics take shape and form on a woman’s body, like a living and exuberant sculpture.

It is funny, recently I found a photo of my grandmother, circa 1940. It is a group photo of a woman's club meeting in her kitchen. On either side of my grandmother are five ladies dressed in black suits, in the middle, my grandmother, in a beautiful printed dress.

For me, sometimes you have to dare to be the woman in the floral dress; the woman who respects nature, sees beauty, and honors joy; the woman we all wish was in our life. As a mentor, a friend, or as someone glimpsed in a crowd, that shows you that someone else feels as you do. We have to take the leadership in things artistic and sublime. We should understand the importance that beauty as a refuge, as a therapy, and as a need, has for the human spirit. Real beauty repairs us; real craft soothes us. Not for me the hard-edged line or ruler-edged squares. Give me the soft lead of a pencil and the curve supplied by a conversation between eye and hand. I celebrate the organic, natural, and intrinsic beauty that surrounds us. My eye lights on contrast, the red leaf amongst the green, the inner pink of a shell, the arching grace of Moghul ruin, the pattern of fieldstone contrasting with a bright cushion seat, the braiding of wicker, the definition of weathering wood. I enjoy seeing the variety of people, their hair, from thick curls to fragile wisps, from snow white to chestnut to inky black. I like the contrast of hands that pose in thoughtful silhouette, or clasp in friendship. I look at eyes with shapes that are as round as berries or as tapered as an almond.

I look around and think—wow—there is a lot to see!

In a world of corporate accountability, of government scrutiny, of nation soul searching, we too need to be accountable for our gifts and for our talents. Share who you are and you too will impact others.

I believe strongly in making an impact. My medium is art and product. Through the nature-inspired beauty of a tablecloth, I can lighten someone's day and influence their happiness. Use your gifts.

Enjoy the conference. Enjoy your seminars; enjoy the thrill of being together with so many like minded spirits.

Have a great day, Creative Women!