Walking to the compost the other morning, this sight caught my eye.

I’m not sure what creature or disease found this one particular hosta leaf, ignoring all others on this and numerous other plants, but considering how much I’ve been immersed in knotless netting over the past several months, I was immediately smitten.

My camera roll is filled with such images — quick captures of all sorts of things that grab me in the moment and which would soon be forgotten if I didn’t take the shot. The results would mean absolutely nothing to anybody else, but to me they are a reminder that inspiration for my work is everywhere.

The color combination of magenta and burnt orange in humble drips from my chipotle and beet leftover lunch concoction, were recorded and became the root inspiration of a later work.

Similarly, for years I’ve kept a couple of cheap spiral sketchbooks that I continue to fill with images of all sorts. Gleaned from anywhere and everywhere, just looking through them gets my creative juices flowing.

My inspiration notebooks with assorted images waiting to be glued into them

For the most part these images (or parts of them) are merely jumping-off points. Various elements — be it a shape, a color combination, a texture, you name it — are ripe for contributing to the structural underpinnings of some future unknown piece, or for making my way past the inevitable stumbling blocks that crop up in the middle of works in progress.

Those drips on my lunch plate were the impetus behind this piece from 2011

Deceptively simple yet worth their weight in gold, these resources are my rolodex of inspiration. Often lying dormant for years, somewhere down the line one image will seed exactly the idea I need.

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Distraction of the week:

Sweet Corn ©2022 Susan Lichtman, Oil on linen, 35 x 44 inches

Take a swing through Susan Lichtman’s website – her paintings are a wonderful dance between representation and abstraction, with light carrying the rhythm.