Words and Wildflowers creative prompts

Quote of the week:

“Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.”

– Oprah Winfrey

Inspirational artist of the week… Gere Kavanaugh

Gere Kavanaugh grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and was born in 1929. She graduated from the Memphis Academy of Art with a BFA. She was the third woman to acquire an MFA at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan.

Kavanaugh worked for General Motors as a stylist, primarily designing exhibitions to demonstrate autos and creating displays, model kitchens, and interiors. She was one of the company’s first female designers, called the “Damsels of Design” by design director Harley Earl.

During her career, Kavanaugh has designed ceramics, light fixtures, residences, retail interiors, textiles, town clocks, and furniture. In the 1970s, she designed the “California umbrella” with Terra’s furniture business. Without a patent, she established an alumni product archive at Cranbrook, where alumni could give work that corporations could replicate and directly pay royalties to the school.