Creative Every Day

Digging for Inspiration: A Guest Post by Connie Hozvicka, Dirty Footprints Studio

September 8th, 2009

The best way to have a constant stream of inspiration is to look at your life like an Archaeologist. If you fall short on ideas to attack the next canvas with, or the paper in your art journal looks daunting...start digging through your own life for inspiration.

What gets you jazzed?

It could be something as simple as a combination of colors you saw when you were window shopping at the mall--to something as deep as your ancestry, your culture, your home, your own personal history. But, if for some reason, all the Creative Juiciness of your own life fails your imagination...I say really become an Archaeologist and start digging through other people’s junk!!!

At least once a month I treat myself with an Artist date to the thrift store. I bring my camera, $20 bucks, and a complete openess that anything could happen!

What I find is always a surprise. Like seriously, as fabulous as those panties are--would you wear used panties?!?! Especially hot pink ruffled ones!! Who knows where those frills have been?!?! But this photo alone is enough juiciness for creativity!! Think of the stories you could write...the fun you could have in the Art Journal...the risky business you could create with a painting inspired by that photo above!!

Do you get what I’m digging at? Inspiration is everywhere...especially hidden in other people’s junk! Even the unmentionables!

I get lost in the patterns I find at Thrift Stores. Look at this photo!!! I couldn’t take my eyes off the mesmerizing repetition those television screens created. If you go deeper..think of the metaphors of that many rejected televisions sitting there...still working...but not as pretty and slender as those new flat screens that are all the rave! Next thing you know you’re making a statement about society..about women’s issues...about your own life possibly--all found in a pile of lonely tvs! That’s Art babey!! Forget waiting for inspiration to hit you...instead it’s waiting for you to come visit!!

I love the bold, the tacky, the kitsch, that lives at thrift stores. I was obsessed with these boots...that could only fit a 12 year old pageant tween, but still, I love how they sat there all snuggled between coffee cups!! What a weird and wonderful world a thrift store can be! A perfect breeding ground for inspiration.

Last, you never know who you could run into at a thrift store!! Recently I met a gorgeous couple at my local Goodwill that looked like they walked straight out of Venice Beach from the 1960’s!! Plus, chilling in a basket inside their shopping cart was their furry bunny child Ruby!! How Creative Juicy is that?!!?

So the next time you’re whining about a lack of inspiration...hit a garage sale or cruise a local thrift store!!! But don’t go looking for bargains...instead, think of yourself as an Archaeologist...one that digs through the unloved, unwanted, discarded parts of this world..and excavates beauty, inspiration, and pure Creative Juicy fun!! Plus, you might get lucky and find a pair of hot pink cowboy boots in your size!

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Connie Hozvicka is passionate about creativity and has spent the last fifteen years inspiring others to dive deeper into their own creative juices. She has a BA in both Painting and Art History, and is a licensed Art Educator, with a vast experience of nurturing Artists of all skill levels, abilities, and backgrounds. Her own Art work has been exhibited in galleries nationally, published in various publications, and collected internationally. Connie shares her Creative Juicy Life on her blog DirtyFootprints-Studio.com, hosts an internet radio show on everything Creative and Juicy called Creative Juicy Life, teaches Art full-time in a public K-8 school, paints like a mad-chica every second she can, and joyfully soaks in the sun in Phoenix, Arizona. You can join her for some inspirational digging as well, at the upcoming Creative Dig Workshop in Cleveland, Ohio on Saturday, September 26th.