meditating upon a well-rounded collection of colours evokes a deep understanding of transition.  colours guide me gently through the changes in my life, from seasons to holidays to emotions to subtle invocations that i might never fully understand.  It is not one colour but all the colours that fill in the contours of my life, giving them depth and meaning and context.

with the seasons i come to expect colour, like a guest whose arrival i cherish and whose departure i do not take personally: of course the yellows and golds and cannot stay, it is time for the whites and the pale blues to come!  with colour we are reminded to stay humbly enamored with changes.

on even smaller levels, i find myself marking time with colours. green asparagus, peas, and baby lettuces give way to the more haughtily coloured roots and finally to the blushing apples that introduce me again to winter.

without trying, i am collecting colours all the time, organizing them in neat rows, cataloguing them so i can put them to use at a later date.  i orchestrate the colours in my toolbox to create a beautiful meal, a perfect outfit, a room that puts me at ease.  In these ways, i silently express ideas, thoughts, and emotions to those who come into contact with me.

what’s more, i find myself mapping my own inner life with colour.  the robin’s egg in the grass is so timidly and gently blue, so apologetically blue, that i might want to cradle that blue and hide it somewhere deep inside me.  i might want my own vulnerability coloured so appropriately.  the robust sunset of pinks, oranges and maroons that make up a pile of beets, piled like tiny muddy suns, convey health, home, earth, and humility.

“Heavens,” i might think, inspecting the ruddy orbs, “I had forgotten it was possible to be so strong, while still remaining so sweet.”

As a colour-obsessed soul, playing with colour like this is a real joy.  Because each iota palette contains 9 colours, I have had 63 of iota’s very own yummy hues with which to cavort, all in one place, all at one time.  it feels just like a big, messy, colourful family reunion.

First, I joined together long stripes from all the warm-hot reds, oranges and yellows into one graphic story. Then, I did the same with all the ultra-calming, cool blues, and I followed that with the fresh, juicy greens.  Seven generations of iota colour-fashion, spanning a total of 9 years, vibrating together.  Lovely!

My final colour collage is pictured below.  Long live colour!

P.S. happy ninth birthday, iota.

Will you join us? We hope so!

Do you:

a) live in Rochester, New York, or the surrounding area?

b) love Parkleigh, a specialty retail boutique and award-winning shopping destination?

c) get excited by color and pattern?

d) welcome free, personally signed journals by artists and chances to win cool stuff?

If you answered YES to all of the above, please stop by Parkleigh for a very colorful iota event between 12:00 noon – 4:00 pm this Saturday, September 29th.

Kelly Alford, iota’s founder and designer, will be signing journals (while supplies last!) and hosting free giveaways. Kelly couldn’t be more thrilled to be back visiting our friends at Parkleigh for this very special event.

See you there!

it seemed like summer was everlasting this year… until just the other day.
it’s still toasty warm in the daytime sunshine, but cooling down at night.
the aspen trees are starting to turn golden.
winter will be here in about 5 minutes!
until then, here’s what i’m enjoying – my current fall faves, left to right ::

apple picking! check out this organic beauties.
i went to Delicious Orchards in the North Fork Valley
with friends + family last weekend, and gathered a big boxful of apples.
i’m making lots of cobbler and juice. yum.

iotaSAKS. big news in iota’s hometown of Basalt, Colorado : Whole Foods opened!
iotaSAKS are my must-have for grocery duty.
super lightweight, they travel teeny, + magically unfold to hold
all the exotic cheeses, fancy produce + decadent desserts my heart desires.

reading: like i give a frock  “fashion forecasts and meaningless misguidance” by michi.
this book is full of charming and creative illustrations and a fluffy fashion read.

bright shoelaces!  all my shoes, from my old-school sneakers, trail runners, and my
fall boots, all got new bright laces. makes me smile, and smiling is good.

photo credits: top photo from wikipedia, all other photos, my own
what are you enjoying so far this fall?  please share!

my summer trip to a special place in my heart.
northwest of the cherry capitol of the world,
north of the sausage (and polka) capitol,
east of a morning show’s choice
of the most beautiful place in america,
tip of the little finger on the mitten.

since the 1930s,
my family has had a summer home there
on a small lake, with relatives as neighbors
and the great lake just a walk through the woods

we ride old bikes
walk the lake
swim, boat, fish, kayak, sail
allow minnows to kiss your toes
read books on the pier and porch
eat just-picked fruit and veggies
grill everything
drink local wine
always wear a (bathing) suit
never wear shoes
see sunsets, see stars

simple + beautiful
and comforting because
this is how my father spent his summers
and my grandfather did
and my great grandfather too.

the olympic rings are a powerful and provocative brand image — for me, just looking at them triggers all of the emotion i describe above. and of course, being the color obsessed soul that i am, i am drawn to the primacy of the palette.

looking into the graphical history of the rings, i discovered that the five colors — blue, black, red, yellow and green — came from those colors that appeared on all the national flags of the world at the time the symbol was created — every flag of a country participating in the olympics includes one of the colors in the 5 rings. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Movement, conceived the symbol. the five rings represent the union of the five main regions of the world — Africa, the Americas (North and South America are combined), Asia, Europe and Oceania — and they interlock to symbolize the meeting of athletes from around the world at the games.

knowing that both the olympics and the word iota rose from the culture of ancient greece, and being artistically drawn to the symbol for as long as i could remember, i simply could not help myself!  as you can see below, it was time for me to imagine the olympic rings wearing iota colours.

enjoy!

and allow the elevating spirit of the games to stay with you long after the closing ceremonies are over.

Hi there! I’m Jennifer, marketing and PR specialist here at iota. I will be blogging on a regular basis, starting today, and I am really happy to share with you a little something about my secret love affair…

To some, this may come as a shock: I am in love with the color orange. While it is not something I wear on my sleeve (I’m not sure I actually look that great in orange—ha!), it certainly manifests in places around my home and in my life. Don’t worry, you won’t see a photo of my toothbrush in this post, but yes, it is orange.

In everyday reality, you would probably take me for a black, white and grey kind of gal, which is true. You would have to look deeper to see the color tendencies, the orange. Textures and patterns would begin to emerge as favorites, too, all finding balance as they play together visually, mixing and matching materials. In that intersection is where I like to play.

So, why orange? As I found out through some hard-hitting research, orange is a wonderful combination of things that I hold dear: energy and balance. Orange stimulates movement and boosts enthusiasm. It also balances the earthly passion of red and the mental force of yellow. (Yes and yes!) It is also said to stimulate the appetite, which I can personally vouch for. The magnetic energy of orange is offset by beautiful indigo, blues and greys. No surprise, then, that these colors grace our loft space to provide tranquility and balance as the light bounces through.

I snapped a few shots of these fantastically orange moments… I would love to hear from others out there who share in this *enthusiasm*. At least I’ll know I’m not alone!

kelly's painted sea shells from the jersey shore

last week, while vacationing with dear friends at the jersey shore, we wrapped up a fabulous sunny-salty-sandy day at the beach by gathering the kids around the dining room table to paint sea shells we had found along the sea shore at low tide.  for my daughter, ruby, and i, being first time visitors to the shore, this was a new pastime — and one that we thoroughly enjoyed.  while the grown-ups showered, mixed a cocktail and prepared dinner, kids of all ages (5 through 55) wound down (and became ever so quiet) mixing paint and creating designs.  time stood still for the kids and the grown-ups alike while the creativity flowed.  it was the perfect ending to a perfect day.

(p.s. thank you janie, tess and lexi for introducing us to a wonderful, new summertime tradition)

ruby's creation (a bit of iota influence, don't you think?)

hi, I’m Brooke, the senior designer/production liaison here at iota.
I too, will be blogging on a regular basis. Welcome to the colourful world of iota!

this post is about my lovely brindle-rescue-elderly dog, spooky.
(my husband names the dogs)
she is at least eleven+++ years old, that’s how long we’ve had her.
when we took her in, she was abandoned and ate mail for food.

spooky was suspicious, stealthy, and ornery as heck. one tough dog.
it wasn’t love at first sight.
because of her stripey fur, she was once mistaken for a tiger,
and i was asked if i had a license for said tiger.

as the days and years went by, she felt more secure in her place in the world,
and mellowed out some.
she won me over.
i have always loved her unique gray/black/white patterned stripes and the big black smudge around her nose.
i think she is one of the most beautiful dogs in the world. one of a kind.

now she’s creaky and unsteady on her feet. legs are wonky. half deaf.
she’s retired from guarding the castle.
deep, deep snoozing is her pastime.
she breathes so slowly, when i come home, and see her lying on her bed,
i think she has left us.

not yet. she is a fighter, after all.

stripes . dots . flowers :: from the original iota 2003 collection

My reverence for the power of pattern may well have stemmed from the demure stripe hanging idly on a dishcloth, while I brewed my morning tea.  What is it about a stripe, or a collection of stripes, that is so appealing?  My love affair with stripes is multi-faceted and complex: I like them organized, in neat symmetrical lines; I like to pour them helter-skelter onto a surface see the places they intersect.  Every stripe is like a new stripe, and teaches me something different.  This stripe, for example, means summer, while another means the smell of grade school desks and essay paper.  Stripes were my gateway to pattern design.  From there I tried dots, many of them, rubbing shoulders and whispering to each other, dots gone wild, big and small, bouncing around the page.  Then, a nip here, a tuck there, and viola! This dot becomes a flower, a thousand flowers, spreading forever in a repeating meadow of imagination.  Patterns are addictive, which is why we spread them on tabletops, hang them from clotheslines and wrap them in unending combinations around ourselves.  I believe that patterns have the power to unleash a certain type of creativity when you look at them, one that squeezes out from the spaces between lines, dots, zigs, and zags.  They teach us the order of spontaneity.  It is within patterns that we can begin to understand the world around us, because they show us succinctly how beautiful a simple, organized structure can be.  They show us the glory in the seemingly mundane.  They teach us to find magic in the never-ending sameness of a thing repeated, again and again. Patterns are the graphic synchronized swimmers of the soul.  They dive gracefully into us, flowered caps and all, and we are, will forever be, mesmerized.