I love color and fabrics and textures and rhythm and rhyme in patterns. In India, I am in fabric heaven. Everywhere you turn, your eyes feast on the beauty of those gorgeous Indian women in the most amazing array of colorful sarees---big playful flowers, organic tribal patterns, exquisite embroidery, many hand made on looms, silks, cotton, rayon, even polyester can be stunning, the full rainbow of colors.

My husband and I manage a small meditation retreat facility in Ganeshpuri, a small town in rural India, that caters to the western tourist and pilgrim. Over the years we have come to know that most western women don't feel comfortable wearing a saree, neither in India nor at home. But westerners are entranced with the colors and want the joy of wearing such beauty.

Thus, my husband and I began designing objects of beauty made of saree fabric. I started off with making kurtas,or tunics out of hand woven cotton sarees that I picked up from Bengal or lighter than air cotton sarees printed with inspired designs. I visited the wholesale market in downtown Mumbai buying dress materials to make fun clothes that the tourist enjoys wearing when on tour in India. But I find myself coming back again and again to the saree.

Personally, I wear a saree quite often, but it has taken me five years to find a saree that I feel comfortable wearing and that I can put on myself. But even my own sarees eventually go into the fabric patch where we can grab to make something new.

My husband, an impressionist painter, is inspired by the HIndu culture and art. He found ways to use sarees to frame local art in the same manner as a Tibetan thangka. He works with two artists on their content, design, choice of color, and finishing to create art works for his special thangka pieces. These wall hangings, each a work of art, are valued by our visiting guests at the retreat facility.

One of our retreat guests asked us to create some yoga bags for her. We jumped right in by picking out one of the most brilliant red and gold embroidered saree to make a sensational yoga bag. I thought of the western woman who is timid to wrap a saree and wear on her city streets, but could be happy to swing this luxurious looking bag over her casual western clothes.

A fellow expat offered to show us how to make patchwork quilts from old sarees. And this has bloomed into a full time business. We have twenty five Indian women working for us, each about 5 to 6 hours a day. This allows them to still have time to tend to the family's needs of gathering water at the well and cooking over a wood stove. These are women who would not have an opportunity to work outside the house except to do house keeping, farm work, or simple stitching for her family and neighbors. Instead, they are appreciative of the opportunity to work in a design house creating new items for the world market. We work together having great fun creating art!

I discovered that I can take my favorite photos of India, Nepal, Thailand and China and transform them into a wondrous expressionist painting by clicking a few buttons on Adobe Photoshop Elements. I finally can create the kind of paintings I wish I could make free hand. My drawing ability has not been one of my strong suits. So I am thrilled to paint with software instead. One of my friends introduced me to digital printing and now my favorite "paintings" of Asia find new homes in my patchwork quilts, wall hangings, and clothes.