It's a new year... Let's get excited & make things.

Poster created by Matt Jones of London.

Yes, that's right. 2010. Let's make things. Let's do things.

In fact, my '10 resolution is related to this inspiring poster. As I sit here sipping my chai latte, I'm getting excited for a brand new year. I want to share my art with the Portland community, be it in a coffee shop, a boutique, or a gallery. I have decided on another way that I will be giving back to Portland as well. For the year 2010 I will be donating 5% of my Etsy sales to the Portland Rescue Mission. Almost everyday I see homelessness around Portland. I really want to help give hope to those men, women, and children.

Year two in Portland has been life changing. I met lots of peachy creatives, either crafty, design, or technical. I submerged myself into the Portland creative community.  With these new friends of mine, we planned a few graphic design meet-ups. We did happy hours. We had crafting afternoons & evenings. We went to coffee shops and doodled in our sketchbooks. We geeked out over art supplies at art stores. We also did street fairs. We did craft shows. I did my very first Crafty Wonderland craft show... and a second one, the very last monthly Crafty Wonderland in November. And even the monstrous Crafty Wonderland Colossal Holiday Sale. 2009 was the year I started this blog, February 14th. In 2009 I also started making necklaces, earrings, Herb drawings, and lest we not forget the monthly documentary video shorts.

I hope everyone has found the Holiday Season enchanting. I hope you were able to create memorable moments with close friends and family even if you were snowed in and unable to be with them in person. I am personally thankful for Skype & webcams. I do hope this blog post finds you well.

I will leave you with this mosaic. The first mosaic I have ever made. It's filled with photos from 2009 of the things that inspired me.

Passing along some 2009 inspiration bliss, enjoy!

Click on mosaic to view more details.

A creative motivated mind

What motivates you?

I was asked this simple yet broad question this morning. With believing that motivation and inspiration work hand and hand, I decided to write about this topic today for my weekly inspiration post. Hopefully Yoshimi (my cat) isn't anymore of a distraction. She has been very rambunctious & kind of a nuisance: racing around the apartment, batting at paper, and finding new ways to chew on electrical cords.

This question made me think more about what motivates me to do art. Two distinct reasons have been rolling around in my head like marbles... community and experimentation. There were many many reasons why I moved to Portland from the Midwest. One being, I knew there was a strong creative/diy/artsy/designy community here. Being around these folks' creative energy and the fact that they enjoy the same thing that I have since I was 4 is, well... pretty friggin' awesome, I must say. I wasn't getting this artsy energy nearly as much back home and I felt my motivation to create art was dwindling. Oh sure, I went to art gallery openings and had art discussions & critiques with friends, but it just wasn't enough. So being involved with Portland's creative community is part of the pie. Sharing my final works with people and (hopefully) making their day brighter definitely motivates me to go full steam ahead.

Next, experimentation. Playing Sequence (the board game) with my friends on Christmas, three of us subconsciously made patterns with our unused game pieces. Eventually we noticed this, pointing each others out while we chuckled. I think it's so important for me to have different media to work with and to see the different directions to take it in. Playing around with those game pieces led me to think about drawing the patterns and ellipsis that I include in my artwork. Maybe that's why I love collaging so much. The experimenting is so very limitless. Sometime in the future I can see myself doing installation art and this encourages me to experiment more and more.

Well I'm going to stop there. I've got a proposal to write. I may be working on designing a consultant's business identity package. Weeeeeeee!

So I'm very curious... Artists, Crafters, and Designers out there... What motivates you? What reasons are rolling around in your head?