Featured Blog: Inspiration Flirtation

Today is the first of our Fea­tured Blogs, to read more about the What,Why and Hows check out the descrip­tion page. Today’s first came to me by suprise as many things often do. The Blog was started by Christina (Tina) Wes­sels and her blog is about Inspi­ra­tion and how many of us flirt with our cre­ativ­ity but never really hookup with it. But it is more than just about “almost” it is about nam­ing and hon­or­ing the cre­ative seed that resides in all of us, the lit­tle urg­ings and long­ings  we have learned to hide because we don’t want to offend, it is to sum­ma­rize Gar­ri­son Keil­lor our faith­ful­ness to “suffering”.

On her lit­tle part of the web Tina is doing her part to pull aside the cur­tain of suf­fer­ing, and offer­ing instead, encouragement,support and recog­ni­tion each crit­i­cal in coax­ing us out of our repressed state. I found in Tina’s effort a recog­ni­tion of the seed of the change we are all expe­ri­enc­ing it is the seed of giv­ing, of grow­ing and lead­ing and more than any­thing else the courage to take the step into a place of uncer­tainty and unfamiliarity.

The more peo­ple we can awaken, the more eyes we can open the more peo­ple there will be who learn the value of art in their lives and the more they will open to their own gifts.

This is what I read on Tina’s blog…

Work­ing in a cubi­cle by day… a crafter/artist/mommy by night I have always felt the need to cre­ate and share my cre­ations with oth­ers. Artists are every­where I look. Artists are my neigh­bors. Artists live under the same roof with me and give me good­night kisses. My mother is a great artist. Artists are my “busi­ness part­ners”. Some peo­ple are artists and I don’t even know it, some are artists and THEY don’t even know it. Some artists even make me cup­cakes! BUT… I don’t always get to see the art behind the daily artist. Enter Inspi­ra­tion Flirtation…

About Inspi­ra­tion Flir­ta­tion… A How to:

• Why Inspi­ra­tion Flir­ta­tion? Artists are every­where I look. Artists are my neigh­bors. Artists live under the same roof with me and give me good­night kisses. My mother is a great artist. Artists are my “busi­ness part­ners”. Some peo­ple are artists and I don’t even know it, some are artists and THEY don’t even know it. Some artists even make me cup­cakes! BUT… I don’t always get to see the art behind the daily artist. Enter Inspi­ra­tion Flirtation…
• How do I par­tic­i­pate? Each week a “seed” of inspi­ra­tion will be planted here. Flirt with it as you will, let it inspire you, then cre­ate some­thing. Paint, sketch, write a haiku, dance, fin­ger paint, take a pho­to­graph, write a short story, free form cro­chet. Do what it is that you are inspired to do. Post it on your blog or a sta­tic page on the inter­net (that you can direct us to in one sim­ple link). Leave your link in the form of a com­ment on that week’s post (please link to your actual post­ing (a sta­tic page) as opposed to your blog’s main page). If there is a story behind your piece we would love to hear about it. That’s it. Now flirt! (Feel free to link to a past work that you have done as long as it relates to that week’s seed.)
• If you are link­ing to a photo shar­ing site (such as Picasa or Flickr): make sure that the photo that you link to is in a pub­lic album which con­tains only pho­tos that you want oth­ers to see. Mak­ing an album just for Inspi­ra­tion Flir­ta­tion view­ers might be one way to do this! If you are unsure of what oth­ers can see we rec­om­mend log­ging out of your site and enter­ing as if you are a guest. Look around and see what oth­ers might see!
• Start­ing your own blog is easy to do… go to www.blogger.com to start flirting!
• Will your humor me and accept my ideas for future inspi­ra­tions? Of course, feel free to email your ideas for future inspi­ra­tions to mamawess@gmail.com . In fact, we may even invite future “guest artists” to sub­mit ideas and con­tent to host their own weekly Inspiration!
• Can I be noti­fied of new posts? Of course! To be noti­fied of new posts or comments/creations you can sub­scribe at the bot­tom of this page. Or send an email to be placed on a mail­ing list.
• How else can I get involved? Do you have an art related prod­uct that you would like to have reviewed, pro­moted and blogged about?! Con­tact me. Spread the word: Tell your friends about the blog and encour­age them to par­tic­i­pate. Do you have a spe­cial skill that you are will­ing share with the class? Tell us about it! A fea­ture post may be in your future! Do you have a piece that is not related to our weekly seeds that you would like to share with the group? Con­tact me to have your piece added to the “Art for Art’s Sake” sec­tion. We will host contests/giveaways between weekly posts… stay tuned for more!

At some point I will be doing audio inter­views with Fea­tured Blog­gers but until I get there what fol­lows are Tina’s answers to some sim­ple questions:

About Your Art

How long have you been mak­ing art? I have been mak­ing art since I was in ele­men­tary school. My art was always cho­sen for the pub­lic school system’s art show!!! But then again when you are in ele­men­tary school I think they pick every kid! LOL

Why do you make art? I think I make art mostly to share with oth­ers. I make a lot of “prac­ti­cal” art… knit­ting, cro­chet, beaded jew­elry wear­able stuff. I love to make pieces that I can show peo­ple “inad­ver­tantly”…

What is your vision. what dri­ves you? I am “dri­ven” by try­ing new things. I think I have a new craft/medium/hobby every week! It must be “dri­ving” my hus­band nuts by now but he is so, so sup­port­ive. I envi­sion myself some­day no longer sit­ting behind a desk for 40 hours a week but rather sit­ting on the floor sur­rounded by yarn, paper, crayons, pen­cils, paint­brushes, wool rov­ing. I’m envi­sion­ing much of these scraps in my hair and giant cup of cof­fee in my hand as well.

About Your Blog

What moti­vated you start a blog? I’m really not sure. I love art and so stum­bled upon a few art inspi­ra­tion blogs. At the same time I also real­ized (by speak­ing with friends at a newish job) that I am sur­rounded by peo­ple who are artists in some sense of the word. I wanted to try to help inspire them and help bring some more cre­ativ­ity out of them. So I thought to myself “Self, you can do this too! You can get you friends and fam­ily to par­tic­i­pate and then make some con­nec­tions, and this thing could take over the world (wide web)!”

Who is your audi­ence? I try to speak to every­day peo­ple who may or may not be artists. Some of them are artists and they just don’t know it yet! They just need a lit­tle coax­ing. Right now I think I have a whop­ping 11 fol­low­ers! Some from over­seas! That is very excit­ing to me!
What is the pur­pose of your blog? I want to try to get every­one to see the pos­si­bil­i­ties by tak­ing every­day thoughts, ideas, and objects and try­ing to get peo­ple to see some kind of inspi­ra­tion within that idea and within them­selves.
How fre­quently do you write? When I started (just a few weeks ago) I intended to write once a week when I put up the weekly “flirt”. I thought maybe I would add a post here and there with some of my rant­i­ngs when the mood struck. But now I find myself want­ing to blog every day!!! My fear in that is that the inspi­ra­tions will get lost in the shuf­fle so I try to make sure there is always a link to the cur­rent inspiration!