Artist Inspirations: The Oregon Coast

As artists, we all need inspiration to fuel our creative fire. Inspiration can be found anywhere;  in a painter's brush strokes, in a poet's melodious words, in the peaceful sound of a flowing creek or in the orchestra of sparrow songs high in the trees. To find inspiration, the key is to open our hearts and souls to all life offers us. When we do, the lily in mid-bloom becomes luminous and the kiss from our beloved becomes transcendent.

I want to record and share the people, places and things that inspire me, to keep my own creative fire burning. Here is one of my all time favorite places:

The Oregon Coast

Last summer, my boyfriend and I went on a vacation to the Oregon Coast. This was not the first time I had ever cruised down Highway 101 along this lush landscape of rocky coastlines and lush forests. But on this trip, this place penetrated my soul on a deeper level and planted thousands of seeds of inspiration. Here are a few photos I took on our travels:

I loved this wood footbridge. So picturesque and peaceful. I could sit here with a book of poems and my journal all afternoon.

This shipwreck from long ago on the beach spurred my imagination. While history tells us exactly what happened, I found it inspiring to create my own stories about the people who crashed on the beach and what the ship once looked like.

Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach never ceases to amaze me. We trekked the beach in our bare feet, in search of sea shells and glimpses of starfish and driftwood. This is an image of Haystack Rock in a late morning overcast haze.

We visited the aquarium in Newport and I was struck my the surreal beauty of jellyfishes. I loved the way their opalescent bodies illuminate in the deep blue sea.

What inspires you? Please feel free to comment on what tiny glimmers of life spurs you to create!

Decadent Rose Lina Cavalieri Beauty Box

There is something intrinsically satisfying about pouring in hours of work to create something beautiful. My newest collage jewelry box required hours of work, but I am so pleased with the results! 

This large, octagon-shaped jewelry box was originally salvaged from a second-hand shop, then sanded down and recreated into a one of a kind piece of functional collage art. This intricate, one-of-a-kind beauty box was inspired by a photo of Lina Cavalieri, who was frequently referred to during her time as the "world's most beautiful woman".

Here are some of the steps I took to create this upcycled collage jewelry box:

• The exterior of the jewelry box was hand-painted with two coats of rose acrylic paint and a light coat of ivory paint. I sanded down and distressed the surface between and after the coats of paint. Two coats of varnish was used to seal the paint and collage work.
• The bottom of the jewelry box was created by assembling various rectangles of decorative paper and vintage dictionary pages. 
• I glued vintage scrabble pieces that spell out the word "BEAUTY" with super-strong, craft contact adhesive. 
• The sides were decoupaged with vintage dictionary pages that were hand-stamped with black flowers. The trim has tiny, hand-cut paper hearts

Sometimes I enjoy creating things that require an almost pain-staking attention to detail. I also enjoy transforming ordinary objects into unique pieces of art. The goal to make something beautiful is always my strongest motivation. For me, beauty is food for my soul, the force that soothes suffering and brings me bliss. One of my most favorite quotes by D.H. Lawrence is, "The human soul needs actual beauty more than bread."

The Creative Life: Forging My Own Path

For years I have tinkered with words, paper and glue, filling journals and crafting decorations for my home. I have pleasured over the details of a poem, stringing lovely sounds of syllables like beads in a necklace. I have scoured thrift stores for wooden jewelry boxes and re-imagined them with vintage ephemera and paint. Although I have submitted and published poems and gave my art away as gifts to friends and families, my creativity has largely remained in the private sphere.

I remember myself as a highly sensitive adolescent full of romanticism and hope for a future dedicated to art. Literature was my first true love. I would take the bus from the suburbs to Capitol Hill in Seattle to go to Twice Sold Tales in search of used paperback books by Anais Nin, Tennessee Williams, Herman Hesse and John Steinbeck. After- school afternoons were spent beneath maple trees reading and writing poetry.

During my college years, I studied art and literature, never thinking too far off in the future. I enjoyed my life at The Evergreen State College, a small liberal arts school full of creative bohemians like myself. I did not realize this would be the last place where the ideas of Camus and Thoreau would be relevant in everyday discussions. I did not realize that long afternoons spent writing poems on the beach would later become a rare and hard-earned luxury.

Growing up, I never wanted anything else but to be an artist and writer. But when I reached the age of financial responsibility and had to struggle to make a living, my truest passions were reprioritized. Unfortunately, the classifieds are not stockpiled for requests for artists and writers. So, I waited tables, tended to small children at daycares, organized clothing at retail shops, brewed lattes and handled screaming customers at call centers to make ends meet.

I have just turned 28 years old and am ready to return to those original dreams that elated my young soul. I realized a while ago that traditional employment is not for me, that I must forge new skills in entrepreneurship. I am planning to sell handmade journals and altered décor boxes at Etsy, infused with my own poetry and mixed media art.

Now that I have lived in the real world, I do realize that the creative life is hard work to obtain. Balancing the necessary need for money and the equally necessary need for the spiritual fulfillment of making art is a challenge. In order to succeed as a writer and artist, I will need to keep trucking away at the day job, and spend my free-time dedicated to my passions. Little by little, I plan to sustain myself with the fruits of my creative talents and choose to live simply.

I am excited by the idea of self-made opportunities, of not waiting for the world to fabricate a vocation for me—because it won’t. Here is a quote by Irene C. Kassorla that fuels my soul as I carve this new, wondrous path:

“You must have control and authorship of your own destiny. The pen that writes your life story must be held in your own hand.”