This year, I thought it might be fun to share each month what is inspiring my creativity behind the scenes! I call it my Idea Junkyard – it’s always hard to pinpoint where exactly ideas come from, but I suspect it’s the confluence of all my favorite things.
Music
This may be surprising based off the happy go lucky things I create…but I really like heavy metal. Specifically, I’ve been listening to Nightwish, a symphonic metal band from Finland, since I was in undergrad. Scrolling through youtube videos, I came across a live version of one of their (VERY LONG) songs, Ghost Love score, with their current singer Floor Jansen, and I love it!
Books
My parents got me Piranesi by Susanna Clarke for Christmas…and I ripped through it in one sitting. It’s been a long time since a book gripped me so much! I usually like to offer some kind of hook when telling people to read something, but I think this is one of those books that’s the most fun if you just dive in without knowing anything. I highly recommend it!
Art
I stumbled across Imagine a Forest by Dinara Mirtalipova at the library and absolutely fell in love with her work! The folky feeling of it is wonderful, and I love the powerful simplicity of her color palettes. You can check out her work on her Instagram page. And if that wasn’t cool enough, she’s a fellow Ohioan!
Crafts
With the short days and dark evenings, I have found myself spending a lot of evenings watching Call the Midwife with my sister, and started to get fidgety. So, to occupy my hands, I took to knitting a bit in the evenings! It turned out that the hat I was working on ended up far too small, but luckily I have a very cute nephew that it was perfect for.
