Grab a cuppa and a comfy seat, and let’s chat a while. It’s time for Coffee and Conversation.
When I was six, my family was driving on a highway late at night. Streaks of headlights and taillights painted the dark. For the first time, I realized that each car held people living lives as important to them as mine was to me.
I wanted to know what those lives were, and to share my own…
So, what spaces inspire you? Where do you feel most creative? Have you ever thought about it?
I’ve been invited to join Cate-Russell-Cole’s Inspiring Spaces Blog Hop, and I’ve had a lot of fun today getting ready to share this with you! I hope it shows!
Click the badge to find other inspiring posts in this hop!
About three years ago, I realized that I needed my own creative study. Right now, it’s in a transitional phase, and it’s a very small space. It’s very much a work in progress, this space, and I’m sometimes overwhelmed by all that I want to do here. I choose to focus on the elements of magic in this space…
My study is a partitioned space at the end of our long, narrow living room. It’s made by three tall bookcases set beside one another and bolted together, with the two end cases turned into the room, and the center turned out to the living room. Just inside the “room”, is a bookcase, and the first place where my tiny treasures can be found. The dragonfly candleholder was bought at the Sterling Renaissance Festival this summer. The calendar came from Target; I loved the colors. The jar and the rocks beside it are from scattered places, chosen for color, shape, texture, or memory. The ones with Taiwanese characters were created by my friend Litsong Lu; I’ve collected them over several unschooling conferences, allowing them to speak to me as they would. Once, I knew what the characters meant; now, they’re delicious mysteries. The candle is another Target find -I love to light it when I’m writing there, and let the scent of Japanese water lilies waft through my words…
Next to the bookcase is the Hoosier cabinet I inherited from my Grandma Foster, who died when I was nine. I remember there being a line of cereal boxes up top, and her canning ‘jels’ and baking pies on it. The left side is the flour bin and sifter. The formica top can be pulled out to create a wide workspace. It still wears the decals she put on it before I was born. I s use it as a desk, a catchall, and a printer station. It makes me happy to have it here in my special place. These days, the top of the hutch holds a Buddha head with four faces, four photos I took when we lived in Oregon – two at the coast, and two in the woods, and a handmade Iggy Jingles art doll made by my unschooling friend Robyn Coburn. The doll looks a lot like me; she’s my dollanganger!
There are no windows in my study, so I try to add pops of bright color, so that all isn’t sedate, but also lively and upbeat. I chose two wrapping papers – turquoise and a sizzling, summery stripe – and used these to dress my bulletin board. This is where I keep track of the current WIPs for the Trueborn duology.
My chair is from Target; I fell in love with the print. The table was passed down from my parents when our oldest was a toddler, and which I’ve covered with a scarf I bought at a thrift store, again because I like the pattern. It’s a comfortable little cubby, and I often sit there with my laptop to write or dream.
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Along the back wall of the room, I have two long shelves on the wall., made by my Accomplice in Mischief, who made them from the doors from the tall cabinet behind my chair. I use the top as a visual tapestry. It’s centered by an Ansel Adams print of Wyoming’s Snake River, which I’ve whitewater rafted in a thunderstorm. There’s also a birchbark basket; two stacks of books of American natural landscapes, some of which we’ve visited; and a blue-painted pitcher and teapot, both gifts. At the moment, there is also a piece of framed art made by Litsong, and a package of pretty lights I will eventually put into use.
Color, texture, memory, and scent are all important aspects of my creative space. That’s probably not surprising, since those are also important aspects of my life.
So, what fires you up? What do you want near you, when you write? What bits of magic fill the inspiring spaces in YOUR life? As part of the blog hop, I’m tagging Elizabeth Anne Mitchell, Helen Espinoza, Eden Mabee, August McLaughlin, Deborah at Container Chronicles, Gwen Montoya, Shah Wharton, Kassandra Lamb, and Alberta Ross, but I’d love to see your spaces, too, so please feel free to jump in! If I have linked you, and you’d rather not play along, that’s OK, too. Either way, I’ve got hot beverages and some sweet treats to welcome fall!
