Are you inspired?

My house is by far older than me, and the basement is a bit of a dungeon. A few years back, I painted one room in the basement, all white and loosely and jokingly, named it White Dungeon Studio. I then moved my headquarters up to the attic, where there was far more light, and space, and may be fewer bugs. But as I’ve started working on my Timber, and as the weather got cold and the garage, got even buggier, I’m back in the basement. I’ve got a good set up with my tables and I’ve added twinkle lights. It’s cozy in the winter because the furnace is right in the middle of the room. 😊😳

Tonight I took my daughter down to show her, my new charcuterie boards and my new set up and she asked me if I was inspired to work down there. I flipped on the twinkle lights and said “sure“…

The truth is, it’s not inspiring to be down there. The inspiration all happens in my head. It happens when I look at colors like the leaves changing in the fall and the color of the mountains in winter. It happens when I head down to the lumber mill and pick out a new piece of wood. It happens when I see a set of colors in my head and I’m usually not even sure where they come from.

Like happiness, inspiration and creativity come from somewhere deep down inside. Traveling inspires me. I love it when that inspiration is halfway around the world but it’s also there right in my own backyard. And once I’m inspired, it doesn’t matter where I am while I’m actually working.

“If I had $1 million…”, I’m sure I would have a bigger basement and a bigger attic or just a Studio that wasn’t a basement or an attic. But I would still be me - I would still have the same ideas, the same flashes of color, the same moments driving down the road in a car, where I have to pull over and jot down notes.

John Lennon once said that he never needed to leave his building to find inspiration, and I understood exactly what he meant. It’s literally, quite literally, all in your head ~