Feb 26, 2010

Blog-It-Forward: Inspiration

Victoria over at sfgirlbybay has organized a little blog mash-up wherein we all share a little bit of what inspires us. Anna of the baker's daughter took a turn before me (you really should go see out her beautiful photographs) and Stephanella of The Creative Identity will share her inspirations tomorrow.

These days, most sources of inspiration fall into one of two of categories for me. The first category is something that strikes me as inspiring for our home, our yard or construction. Neither of us are professional builders or have experience in construction and so our ideas are spurred by something we've seen or frantic scheming. These ideas can come a mishmash of places: walks around the neighborhood, campgrounds with surprisingly attractive bathroom buildings, old magazines, drives through the hills on rainy days, steps in a state park....
photo of Ken Meffan's fantastic home in Dwell


The second category of inspiration is more what gives me a kick in my daily life outside of days spent with a hammer or garden shovel. These days the two categories are finding funny ways to overlap. What inspires me in a cookbook is suddenly influencing what I plan for our vegetable garden. Images and color ideas that I collect for a painting have me thinking about the space where that painting will be created. And not to throw the cheeseball alarm into overload here but I'd have to say that, happily, one of the strongest influences/inspirations in my life these days is my favorite German. While I'm not a risk-taker, he's the first to scramble up a rock to jump off the edge.When I pick up a paintbrush he starts collecting windows for my future art studio. Last June we sat in the dirt on the hill and talked about how lovely it would be to have a real place to sit up there. Last weekend we watched the sunset from the platform he built in that very spot. During the summer when we had a (glorious) heat wave, he began researching how to build a pool.I'm happy to dream about big ideas but this guy likes to make it a bolder dream and then get busy making it happen and really, that's all the inspiration I need.

**all images are by me unless otherwise noted

11 comments:

sfgirlbybay said...

wow, this is so beautiful, shayna! i want to live in a cabin, too! :) xo

Anonymous said...

Love this post!

tanvi said...

So lovely- I love wooden structures <3 And that pic of the beach is just gorgeous!

M and E said...

Beautiful pictures. I especially love the one of the orange thingies. Mushrooms??

Marisa Seguin said...

Such gorgeous spaces and places! Thanks for sharing!

Shayna said...

Thanks everyone for the comments!

Victoria, you're welcome to come on over for a visit anytime.

M and E: yes, those are mushrooms! The colors were even more amazing in person.

Unknown said...

Beautiful! The platform must be wonderful. Sounds like you both found the perfect match!

Meghan said...

I am ridiculously inspired by all of the work you two have done. I have stalked the entire archives! WOW.

Joslyn said...

shayna
this post is perfection.
you inspired me.

p.s. i love your favorite German...what a guy! ;-)

xoxo

Anna said...

i love your garden picture. stuff like that really inspire me, as well.

Anonymous said...

Awesome Dream and Construction, too!