I am constantly asked: How do you think of these things?! I can’t answer exactly where my ideas come from. I can tell you though that they occur to me during some very odd activities. Yesterday, I went with my family to the human body exhibit (I forget the exact name) at the ScienceCenter in Los Angeles, CA. The exhibit is quite controversial and has traveled all over the world. Essentially, it is an exhibit chock full of bodies and their parts.
Since I am extremely squeamish by nature, I was not sure how I was going to handle large areas full of organs, skeletons and all kinds of other interesting things. But, once I got over the initial realization that all of these people were once walking around like you and I are, I was fine. Where I am going with this is that in the exhibit, there are many examples of our arteries and how they work. All that I could think of was the beautiful color of the arteries and how it reminded me of coral. From that point, I started envisioning manzanita branches painted red to look like ocean coral. That led me to visualizations of cool coral centerpieces atop turquoise colored rocks and shells as an alternative to the usual “tropical” displays. See what I mean, the inspiration comes from weird places.
So, are there any other, shall we say, more conventional ways to get some creative inspiration? Sure, just pick up a few of my favorite magazines. They are guaranteed to help!
Some surefire inspirational magazine titles are:
Wallpaper
Martha Stewart Living
Sunset
Living, etc (UK Edition)
InStyle
Weddings
Grace Ormond’s Weddings
Dwell
Budget Living (yes, it really is inspirational!)
Metropolitan Home
…and a ton more that I will continue to add to…happy reading!
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