Blog It Forward…what inspires me?

Today’s my day in the Blog It Forward Mash-up. You can read more about the Mash-up on here on the sfgirlbybay blog. Victoria coordinated this whole thing, which came out of a spontaneous twitter conversation amongst a bunch of the participating bloggers. The idea for Mash-up is to share what inspires us in a blog post as well as support our bloggy brothers and sisters by blogging it forward.  So before I get started with what inspires me, I want to mention hound – grainline, who blogged before me yesterday, and ink and wit, who will follow me tomorrow.

Now what inspires me? This is a question I get asked a lot and it’s never an easy one to answer. Inspiration is such an ephemeral and fleeting thing, almost magical, and it’s often difficult for me to pinpoint specifically what inspired me at any given time. That said, there are lots of things that ‘call to me’ though. What do I mean by that? Well, it’s difficult to describe exactly, but when something calls out to me, I have an overwhelming feeling to look at, use, listen to, feel, capture, savor, enjoy, create, spread whatever that thing is. To me, this calling to me or inspiration feels like butterflies in your stomach or that feeling you get when watching a kitten or a sappy commercial, but there’s also an intellectual thoughtfulness as well.

Maybe an example will clarify my meaning. When I see a Dixon Ticonderoga pencil, the pencil calls out to me, “Write, Jen. Use me to write something. Whether a mundane list of things you need to do or your life’s opus. Just use me to create something.” Now more often than not, I do not use the Dixon at that time, but that feeling is stored away and at some point in the future my fingers will get itchy to hold a pencil and I will write. This happens with both the mundane (like the pencil) and the sublime (like the sunset) and it doesn’t always lead me to write, but sometimes to do other things. Things like photography, painting, learning more about a subject, a spur to action, a change of outlook, maybe a bit of self reflection and more.

For my Blog It Forward post, I thought I would share some of those things that call out & inspire me. Then you can share what inspires you in the comments. You know, one of the things I am inspired by is you and I love to read what you have to share!

The best pencils in the world!

Magazines!  I love magazines. Here are some recent purchases & some I recently received in the mail. House Beautiful, Bon Appetit, Vegetarian Times, Living, The Surfer’s Journal & Organic Gardening. What magazines do you get or buy at the bookstore?

I love Central and South American arts, crafts and culture. Here’s one of my molas.

Food inspires me!  I love nothing better than having a whole bunch of vegetables that I have to figure out what to do with, it’s my art!

If this dish looks good, here’s the recipe. Also, you can read about both my garden and cooking if that kind of stuff inspires you.

Paper! I love paper and making things with it. I cut out snowflakes, do origami, make paper garlands and more.  Indie Foxx Garland template can be found here.

‘She Read Until Her Eyes Grew Weary’ photo from slgdesigns.

Every since I 1st started to read, books have been my special friends. They have been such an integral part of my life that I even wound up working as a librarian for a time and where my favorite thing was to help patrons discover fiction titles.

I read a least one book a week & often go through periods when it’s more like 6 or 7 a week. Recent reads have included The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan & Factotum by Charles Bukowski. I read by non-fiction and fiction, but prefer fiction and devour everything from James Joyce to T.C. Boyle (just picked up The Women yesterday, in fact).

Music posters for Andrew Bird, Peter Bjorn & John & The Decemberists from Spike Press.

Music!  How could I live without music? I’m listening to some right now while I type this? Want to know what I listen to, then check out my Pandora stations.

Organizational storage boxes inspire me. I don’t know why, but I just know that I want to fill them up with things! Kassett boxes from Ikea.

Ok, chocolate isn’t so much an inspiration as a handy thing to have when inspiration strikes. Brownies are from Whimsy & Spice.

Image by konaboy

Before I start, I want to clarify something…I don’t surf, never have & I’m better off sticking to body surfing…but I love surfing. Have loved it since I was about 9 and I read Gidget for the first time. The Big Kahuna was so cool! Seeing The Endless Summer cinched it, I was hooked on surfing. It’s my goal to, at some point, see the Big Wave surfers in Hawaii and other spots. It’s a glorious thing to see a human harness the power of the ocean and create art with it.

The image above is of The Point at Cape Henlopen from our vacation last summer.

Nature is a really big inspiration for me as well. I know that’s cliche, but it’s true. Nature is awesome…and I mean that in the awe-inspiring way, not the totally rad kind of way.  Three of my favorite nature spots in the world (haven’t actually been to very many places in the world, I must say) are Cape Henlopen in Delaware, Key West Florida & Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know I love and am inspired by illustration and illustrators. Firefluff (Lisa Evans) is just one in a very long list of faves. If you love illys too, then read more here, download here and see stuff here + here.

Image by hvhe1

The woods and all woodland creatures in them are one of life’s joys for me. Someday, I want my own cabin the woods to run away to and I want to talk to the animals like Snow White.

Image is of me and my peeps (Mr. Indie Fixx and Indie Fixx Jr.).

I could go on forever about my inspirations, but in the interest of ending this post today, the last & most important thing that inspires me is love. All we really need is love.