What do you do, when you’re visiting Austin, Texas, and you’ve already had breakfast and it’s hours too early to shop or go to the library?
You visit the Texas Capitol, of course! It’s open early and late (hours here).
When your money is limited, the Capitol is a great place to go with friends or a date. If you go at night, you don’t even have to pay for parking, but I have to say that parking the Capitol Visitors’ parking garage is a bargain.
We walked all around the building, inside and out, enjoying the cooler morning temperatures and the light of the eastern sun on the pink granite walls.
We climbed as far as we could into the dome (only three floors) and looked down upon the terrazzo floor. We marveled at the fancy architecture of this beautiful and beautifully-restored building.
In our wanderings, we came across a hallway where rows of chairs were stored against the walls. Five of them had needlepoint seats featuring Texas wildflowers. I have to share, because they’re so pretty, and it’s something you don’t normally see in the course of a visit to the Capitol.
When I was working on Crochet Bouquet, the wildflowers of Texas were a great inspiration to me. The “Fire Wheel” (pp. 83-84) is a Texas roadside flower that I knew as “Indian Blanket.”
Have a look at the last picture of this post, and see how the needlepoint designer interpreted the Fire Wheel. Three Fire Wheels are close to the lower edge, barely to the right of center, one on top of the other–round, red flowers with yellow tips on the petals.
Decorative arts inspired me as well: embroidery, flowery chinaware, tin boxes with flowers on them, carvings, even wrapping paper. I love to see how other designers translate the essence of the flower to wood or stone, or to the flat surfaces of fabric, metal, or porcelain.
So there you have it. Inspiration may be anywhere–even, apparently, under the bottoms-of-state!
