Code blue: crafting inspiration--stat!

I was downtown today at a coffee shop, and while the barista was mixing up my peanut and chocolate blended, I saw my horoscope posted on the counter. Hmmm...
So I decided to tell you about my emotional state. To vent, to exorcise the demons, as it were.


Today I took myself to see an Andy Warhol exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park. I really wanted to see the exhibit before it closes this weekend. (when did visiting a museum get so expensive? Ten bucks! Holy crap).
Anyway, I also went because I needed a boost--a spark to ignite my frozen creativity.

The deadline is quickly approaching for the magazine article, and I've done very little toward reaching that deadline. I have been crippled by the limitations of having to use copyright-free materials. Normally I use illustrations from 60s-era cookbooks, but those are off limits if the work is to be published. It's one thing if you make stuff for yourself or friends, but there's a completely different spin involved if publication is involved. I can't use newspaper or magazine images unless they're dramatically altered. Clipart is too boring. I don't like to draw my own images. I doubt I can use food labels. I'm not even sure if there are restrictions with fabric. So I'm faltering...

I cannot let this opportunity escape.
Is it fear of failure? Well, partially, yes.
There's some evil voice in my head that keeps saying I can't possibly produce anything worthy enough.
Then out of the blue one of you will write, extolling my talents (thank you. No, I am not soliciting for compliments).

I was going to say that I can't motivate myself without a class assignment or something, but in essence I did exactly that by attending the event. I took notes at the exhibit, and I got new ideas. Now to turn those ideas into something concrete. I wish I had a studio, or at least an inviting space in which to move. Make do, Barb, make do. Think outside the box. Figure this out.

And on a completely different subject, I need to post a photo for Photobooth Friday, but I need to take the time to sort thru pics and find some more booth photos. But I don't want to ignore the idea altogether, so here's a photo of my grandfather.


Ah, my beloved Gramps. That second drawer down behind him was the "candy drawer". Every time I visited, he would open that drawer and give me black licorice and red licorice. It was a cute little house in Coronado. He had been a dentist in the Navy, so everyone called him "Doc". He was at Pearl Harbor, and came away a little bit off after that, understandably. I miss him. I miss that house. After my grandparents died, it took me ten years before I could go back to Coronado. I finally drove by the house, and it had been turned into a parking lot. I guess I had always believed that elements of my childhood would last forever. I sat in my car and cried. Now I just hold dear my memories, and am a far better person for having had the fortune of knowing them.