I've been meaning to reach out to all of you, putting it off, thinking about what in the world to write about that isn't a waste of your time to read. It's hard to know what to share, how to engage with you, how to navigate this very loud and ever-changing social media morass! I think it's safe to assume, though, that if you've subscribed to my website that you'd actually enjoy hearing from me on occasion. Forgive me for being lazy about my journaling with you! Most of you su

Along with the rest of you, I've been contemplating new ideas, inventing, innovating, pivoting. I think I'm seeing a whole new wave of how people are reacting to this life together on this planet, so I thought I'd run it past you to get your feedback and share ideas. I have to give a disclaimer right up front: I am very aware that this is written from a somewhat myopic viewpoint as I don't know what it's like to have either grown up or lived for several adult years in any oth

I've seen several social media posts from fellow independent artists lately all having a similar theme: how do we justify continuing to promote our work given the present circumstances? I've wrestled with this to a great extent myself having spent the last several months developing an entire collection for a marketplace event that had to be canceled. It promised to be a pivotal break-through for my tiny business, a chance to make a local splash and get the exposure a business

It's my new favorite thing to paint! So much color, so many possibilities, so much joy! If you're following me on Instagram, you've surely noticed a change in my recent work. (If you don't have/want an Instagram account, no worries: my feed appears near the bottom of my website homepage.) I recently introduced the use of soy wax into my creative arsenal thanks to a strong nudge and a few tips from a fellow silk painter in Maine who I met through Insta, Carol Sullivan of Fox R

Obviously, one of the most important aspects of my silk painting is color. Putting different colors together in an overall palette for any piece is a tremendous joy to me, so you might imagine what a disappointment it is to steam something up and rinse it only to discover nothing turned out as I thought it would. If a piece is still pleasing to the eye, I will sell it, but I do always go back to attempt mixing to the palette I actually wanted so that I can learn. The reason I

In preparation for the 10th annual Indiana Artisan Marketplace coming up the first weekend of April, I've been making a collection of scarves that celebrate color. They're quick to make, so allow a much lower price point, an important piece of inventory that was missing for me last year. I don't actually fully enjoy making them, though. I'm willing to do it because it gives a buyer an opportunity to purchase something hand-painted that is surprisingly inexpensive, but the pro

In the first photo above is the original scarf I designed and hand-painted for a dear friend as a birthday gift in March 2018. When I decided to recreate the design for sales, of course I gave it her name, Jennifer. The original Jennifer was accomplished by first drawing the black outlines of the floral elements using gutta on the white silk. After brushing on the background color I wanted, the scarf was steamed to permanently set the dye and black outline. This entire proces

It’s been an eventful past four months, and since you started this journey with me, I thought you might appreciate some updates. To begin, the 9th Annual Indiana Artisan Marketplace was a great success and quite the learning experience for me. I know what I’ll do differently next year, like having a larger booth regardless of the amount of inventory I have, and I met quite a few inquisitive and supportive new customers. I also learned that while most independent makers earn a

What a flurry of decisions, painting, problem-solving and little sleep these last several weeks have been. Before I go any further, I feel a need to pause to update all of you so that we can all go along together on this journey. Lately, my daily life has been a constant stream of the same routine: new challenge, pray, research, pray, make a decision, pray, pet Penny, paint. Everyday, all day long: decisions. I feel like I've not made as many decisions in my adult life cumula

Happy New Year everyone! Before departing on our grand adventure, I promised several people a blog post upon my return. I’ve been back since December 23 and would you believe this is my first opportunity to finalize it? What a whirlwind the holidays always are! On December 12 at 7:30am, Dan and I drove to Chicago in a one-way rental car, hopped on a plane and flew one-way to Gatwick Airport in London. I find the hubbub of preparing to travel- the packing, rush and anticipatio

Heeling is a sailing term for when a sailboat leans over in the water, pushed by the wind. There’s nothing else like the thrill of heeling over as your sails fill and your speed picks up! My friend taught me that this summer. Seems like a whole lifetime ago already. Thought I’d take a moment to update you on the latest happenings in my 10 foot square studio. My days are flying by now, and there never seems to be as much time to paint as I would like. The truth is, I could pai

Yesterday marked the official six month anniversary of Carrie Wright Silk, and tomorrow will mark the anniversary of its first sale. I’ve been reflecting on what it was like when I started out and how remarkably different I think about things now. Six months ago I was choosing a name for my Etsy shop, well aware that this was a name that I would need to stick to for all social media platforms, thereby creating a cohesive presence across apps I’d never used before nor cared to

In last week’s post, The Importance of Being You, I asked a few hard questions related to how we are inspired early in our growing up years to be filled with life-long curiosity and a natural sense of wonder. In brilliant response to that post, my new smart friend Jessica Gestwicki pointed out the importance of hands-on experiences versus interacting virtually with YouTube videos or photographs. She said, “We’ll always become our best by doing and experiencing, and I think yo

I had a startling revelation a couple of weeks ago while designing and painting the Gingko scarf, which begins with the story of these Japanese gifts I received when I was around thirteen. My older brother had a summer job mowing the lawn and doing odd jobs for an elderly woman named Rhea. I'd never been inside a smoker's house else I might have turned down the offer to make some money cleaning for her. When my brother went over to mow the yard or fix the shed, I tagged along

This is the third and final post of the three part series about my process, which began with Nuts and Bolts. I've been hesitant to share these details with you because it includes all of the behind-the-scenes not at all sexy details of how my silk paintings are finished in a completely DIY way. I pray it does not make you feel that my work is less desirable. Rather, my hope is that you will appreciate the organic and accessible way my silks are created. In highly marketable t

There are some basic facts to know about silk painting. Some of them, because I am 100% self-taught, I learned the hard way. Let's start where I did: by learning about the lingo while learning about the tools and products of the trade. Dye vs. Paint When I began my research years ago, it took me quite a long while to figure out that several terms were being used interchangeably. For example, we call this silk painting, but we aren't always using paint. There is such a thing a

I've had many friends comment through the years, "I'd really like to see how you do this!" Today, Part One of how I do what I do. When I first started out, purchasing a professional silk painting frame was simply out of the financial question, but a frame of some sort is essential to the process. Silk has to be suspended in some way. The wet dye must be allowed to move freely on the fabric which cannot happen if the fabric is resting on a surface. I did a great deal of resear

Confession time: since starting Carrie Wright Silk in January, I have sometimes struggled to maintain as a primary focus my love of silk painting and have allowed unproductive business-building thoughts to reign supreme. I get sidetracked into discouragement while checking my analytics- Instagram followers, website data, Facebook comments, Etsy traffic- and this week that distraction led to Google searching "how to increase your Instagram followers." I've known for quite a lo

I live in a small midwestern town called Muncie, Indiana where back in the 1920s-1930s a husband-wife sociologist team, Robert and Helen Lynd, conducted the Middletown Studies. The word "middletown" was meant to suggest the average or typical American small city. Muncie: the once upon a time typical American small city. And sadly, maybe we still are that. So many of our small cities look just like Muncie now. Shuttered, abandoned factories thanks to jobs sent overseas, concre

I believe time is the most precious resource we have, and none of us knows how much of it we are granted. We can only spend time. We accept the phrase “invest time,” which I understand to mean that spending time a particular way will hopefully yield some sort of positive result that will make the loss of the time it took to do the thing worth it. That is a truism, but investing time is not like most investments. Invest money, and you’ll hopefully get more money. Invest your t