Ok so here’s a confession: I’m no good at blogging. Trust me, I’m not. I’m working on but to be honest sharing all this info is kinda scary. Being vulnerable to what other think of you can be a daunting task. But in the famous words of John Wayne: “Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway.” So get ready cowboy cause away we go!
I figured the best way to start was to try and challenge myself to be more creative. To think even farther outside the box and explore what my brain is really capable of. So to do that I’ve given myself a creativity challenge (I will explain it a little later). But first I wanted to show the definition of inspiration. It’s a word that designers and right brain thinkers use a lot but the real meaning get lost sometimes. Here’s Wikipedia’s definition:
In the 18th century John Locke proposed a model of the human mind in which ideas associate or resonate with one another in the mind. In the 19th century, Romantic poets such as Coleridge and Shelley believed that inspiration came to a poet because the poet was attuned to the (divine or mystical) "winds" and because the soul of the poet was able to receive such visions. In the early 20th century, Sigmund Freud located inspiration in the inner psyche of the artist. Carl Gustav Jung's theory of inspiration suggests that an artist is one who was attuned to racial memory, which encoded the archetypes of the human mind.
Sorry for the long definition, but you get the picture now. I would love to write the rest of the history of concepts about inspiration, because as a bit of a history nerd I think it’s cool but whatever that’s not really my point anyway. At this point of reading this if your wondering where I’m going with this whole thing bear with me I will get there I promise. But if your interested here’s the link:
So remember I said something about a creative challenge earlier right? Well here goes, PSYCH! Haha I had to, were not quite ready for that part yet but we are close. Take a look at this picture:
It was taken while I was still at Baylor on an infamous trip to try to find George Bush’s ranch out in Crawford. It was one of those spontaneous and awesome adventures that you can have in Waco Texas, cause what else is there to do on a Sunday afternoon? With no directions and lots of wrong turns we eventually found it! We also found road blocks, secret service, and protestors. Yeah as the four girls in the convertible mustang, we drew absolutely NO attention to ourselves, yeah right! Here are some pics from that epic trip.
This is Cari and Amy soo excited that we found Crawford
Of course we had the top down
Adventure!
But that is a side track to the real story of the picture.We were lost on our way to find something and ended up finding this scene. Out in the middle of nowhere between Waco and Crawford is this undisturbed peaceful place where this picture was taken. Shouldn’t that say something about life? While we are lost and we don’t know where we are, we find something beautiful that can make us remember who we are and what life is all about. As someone who is somewhat searching for a direction this shot says, I may think you only have one road to follow, but if I keep going I will find that many roads will open up to me and that I can dream as big as the sky. That may sound a bit sappy but I said I was all in like John Wayne earlier so there it is, one girls interpretation of something so ordinary but so wonderful.
Here is the picture again but this time it’s in sepia tone.
This picture is the same picture but it makes me think something completely different. Replace all the warm fuzzies of the last picture with “Look out Toto run for the storm cellar cause’ there’s a twister a comin’”. From someone who’s seen the Wizard of Oz multiple times a year for her entire life how could the iconic images from the movie not remind you of this picture?
Because the Wizard of Oz story comes to mind the Crawford image becomes a totally different image. I can see the calm before the storm. The almost eerie peace that comes right before chaos reigns and the world is thrown head first into upheaval. It throws that “life is short” phrase into my head and that I should throw on some red sparkly heels and follow the yellow brick road…well maybe not that last part but the red high heels are a must! It’s amazing how just a color change can alter the interpretation of this picture.
THE CHALLENGE:
HERE IT IS! I’m not joking this time. I am challenging myself to a creative task. If anyone else wants to take up this challenge to I would be more than excited, and I think you should! Here it is: Take this picture, in either form and create something from nothing. I mean to use this picture to inspire. From sketching to reality this has to be something that comes straight from the creative mind. How else can we utilize and harness the creativity that each of us has if we always buy something instead of make it or use someone else’s ideas all the time instead of our own. Ok stepping off my soapbox now, but that is the challenge and I hope that some of you try it so that we can share and collaborate ideas! I will be posting more later this week of sketches and designs and let you know what I come up with.
I’m finished with this ride but John Wayne was in a lot of movies and on a lot of horses so I guess that means I will be posting again soon!
Love,
CAT
