There is something that I love about art, and it is not just that it’s beautiful.

   It’s not even that it’s fun (although it really is).

   My favorite thing about art is that it can be incredibly personal to both ts creator and its collector. This sounds self-contradictory. How is something uniquely personal if it applies to more than one person? But it is, because the collection of art that we either create or collect tell a story of who we are and what we care about. About what inspires us. As an artist, I take deep pride in the fact that my work tells my own unique story that is truly one of a kind. However, despite the fact that I like to think there is NO ONE on earth who creates like me, the truth is there is. While there will never be another image that is exactly like the ones I have created, I would be foolish to say that there aren’t common threads, places where a line might cross over from someone’s creations into mine.

   Because we all get our inspiration from somewhere. These ideas and stories hardly come to us completely on their own, like a spontaneous fount of knowledge springing to life within our minds. Rather, it is a slowly evolving concept that morphs and changes according to the creator’s surroundings. The inspiration for what I create all stem from my own unique combination of experiences and sources I look to for inspiration, just as the pieces you have hung in your home where all purchased because the reminded you of something. Of an important event, or of someone significant in your life. When you put it all together, it creates one piece of artwork, one collection of beautiful things, unique in their combination of a million other creative predecessors. As for all of us, I find that each year these experiences and sources of inspiration changes for me, and so I wanted to share what is currently inspiring me at the onset of this wonderfully fresh new year.

 

   1. Angela Clayton

  • I first discovered Angela’s incredible dressmaking over on Instagram about two years ago. At the time, I enjoyed looking at her work with the mindset that hopefully one day I could collaborate with someone like that. However, following her has made me realize my own passion for sewing. What I find is so uniquely interesting about Angela’s work is that she creates all of her gowns without any store-bought patterns. I know she is not the first person to do this, but I still find her own style, which draws heavily from historical costuming, to be deeply inspiring. With her incredible designs in mind, I have begun to experiment more with creating my own original gowns.

 

 

2. The Italian Renaissance

  • Empire waistlines and puffed sleeves have seemed so elegant to me lately. I currently have an idea for a new series I will begin working on this year and I have decided that the costuming for this project will be based off of this historical time period (with a touch of whimsy thrown in, of course).

 

 

3. 100 Dresses

  • My mom bought me this book for Christmas and I have absolutely fallen in love with it! I think if no one stopped me, I could just read through this book again and again until the pages began to fall out. I expect that once my sewing technique improves, I will be making a dress or two inspired by some of the beautiful gowns found within these pages.

 

 

4. Sunday Society

  • I often liken the art of growing your own business to that of a gymnast learning a new tumbling pass. They don’t try it once, fall down, and then give up. They get up and they attack it again and again until they master it. I often feel like April and the entire Sunday Society team are like my coach, telling me to get back up and attack every time I fall flat on my back (or am straight-up too disheartened to even get up off the couch, for that matter!). I am so, SO glad I joined this membership group just shy of six months ago.

 

 

5. Headpieces

  • Remember when you were little, and “playing pretend” that you were a princess was all you wanted to do with your friends? Of course, you would image wearing the most fabulous of crowns to your very regal coronation in the heart of the (pretend) castle’s grand ballroom. Well, there’s a little part of me that may have never stopped playing pretend, that gets excited by the idea of crowns and headdresses and grand coronation costumes.  I guess some things never change. This year I am particularly fascinated by the idea of bringing my childhood fantasies of  beautiful headpieces to life.

 

 

6. Nature

  • I love twigs & branches… moss & other green things, even though, admittedly, I am absolutely terrible at keeping plants alive. It’s why my dining room “chandelier” is a bundle of twigs painted white and draped with fairy lights and why I keep buying plants every few months to replace the dead succulents I once again failed to nurture (why oh why must I have such a black thumb?!). Unintentional plant killing aside, I love to bring nature inside my home and into my work because I feel like nature is the most peaceful of places.

 

 

7. Gold

  • If I could gold-leaf every hard surface in my house without it looking incredibly tacky, I would. So in order to not look like I invited King Midas to stay over, I have to work on incorporating it subtly, but elegantly into my artwork… instead of to the TV, and the microwave, and the dining room table, and the piano, and…. See what I mean?

 

 

8. Kirsty Mitchell

  • I think Kirsty Mitchell may be on my inspiration list EVERY year. But I just can’t help it. This woman is amazing and every single time I see one of her images, I feel this almost uncontrollable urge to throw off my shoes, grab a camera and a dress, and run into the forest to create. I don’t think this will ever change.

 

 

9. James Christensen

  • And just like Kirsty Mitchell, James Christensen will always, ALWAYS take residence on this list. Last week I learned of his passing. I almost verbally shouted “NO!!!!” at the top of my lungs from my desk at work when my sister’s text broke the news. He serves as the inspiration for me to find what you love to do and to allow it to bring you happiness and fulfillment for the rest of your life.

 

 

   2017 is going to be a fun year, I can feel it in the air. There are about a million projects swimming around in my mind, any combination of which I would be thrilled to bring to life over the next eleven and a half months. I have a feeling that this year is also going to be one of creative growth, like the many years of creating I have had before this one. Like gold in the refiner’s fire, each year I find that my creations emerge more pure and beautified than the year before. I can only hope the same for 2017.