Hello & welcome to this week’s dosage of imaginative rewilding! Check out previous posts in this volume here! It’s another bumper edition today where we’re focusing on rediscovering inspiration.
Question to YOU: what can you re-discover that will bring you joy?
We also have -
This week on the blog.
Writing prompts
The wisdom of Chuck Tingle.
Rediscovering inspiration - Collages. Mushrooms. Alcohol.
Art & rewilding. A serious question with no easy answer: What contribution can the arts make in times of crisis? A quote about birdsong.
A video flipthrough of a zine that’s in an awkward format, plus free bonus rant about printing and assembling it.
Thoughts on freedom & creativity from a sneaky artist.
This week on the blog:
The joy of owning a rare piece of ART that can only be traded and never bought. Spotlight on Artist Trading Cards.
“It was a slow Tuesday so I decided to buy a basic-level sewing machine. Maybe I could even learn to alter my own clothes. Why not? The world was my oyster.” The Linguistics of Sewing Machines on Facebook Marketplace.
Writing prompts
‘Queer’ a fairytale. By this I mean, ask yourself: how can I make this gayer? I’m currently doing that as part of a writing workshop under the watchful eye of Ferdia Mac Anna (Irish writer). The fairytale I’m using is the Princess and the Frog.
Start your story with a character accepting a bribe.
Writers block is an actual block and it’s chasing you.
Write about someone who purposefully causes a power outage.
The highest stakes game of rock-paper-scissors ever played.
Let us pause to consider the wisdom of Chuck Tingle, a man whose book titles are getting ever-longer but who is single-handledly saving the image of self-published writers everywhere:
new day ahead so many upcoming moments to prove love, thousands of choices and opportunities to make this timeline a little better than when we got here LETS HECKIN TROT
Rediscovering Inspiration
I find it hard to find the inspiring tasty braintreats I save either in real life or otherwise, but I’m definitely getting better at it thanks to various apps & notebook indexes. HERE are some wonderful embroidery and collage pieces I found online that I forgot about and re-discovered yesterday and they’re bringing me such joy.
Question to the reader: what can you re-discover that will bring you joy?
Rediscovering amazing creative fodder: Mushrooms are potentially poisonous and always magical
We all know mushrooms are great, whether you watched that thing on Netflix (or not, like me) or you watched Star Trek Discovery (which of course I did, and man what a disappointment).
I’m in the “hunt, gather, store, transfer” school of creativity so naturally I saved these two things about mushrooms, because they’re STELLAR for fiction ideas!
Rewilding, art & the climate crisis
What contribution can the arts make in times of crisis?
War, pandemic, climate crisis… In times of disaster, people are eager to help, also in the arts. hat can, or should its role be in times of disaster? Video — Watch A Fair New World?! Talk #3, a conversation about sustainable engagement and built-in solidarity in the arts sector. Or download the full transcription in English or Dutch.
Quote:
And perhaps the richest thing of all is that once you have tuned in to birdsong, you will never tune out. You will never be off duty. Nature will be with you always. - Simon Barnes, Rewild Yourself
Paris travel zine flipthrough plus free bonus rant
This a flipthrough of the most irritating to assemble zine I’ve ever made. Aka the Paris Travel Zine. There’s no sound - thanks for pointing out last time that I should mention that, Clint.
But it looks so cool because the format is weird. Plus it’s interactive. There’s a map I tape in and you can take it out.
So cool. But so annoying.
There are currently 10 copies that have yet to be assembled available in my online zine shop, so if you buy one and it finally arrives (if the fickle gods of the Belgian postal service are on our side), you will KNOW without a doubt that it was put together just for you with blood, sweat, and tears. And probably a lot of cursing, let’s face it.
Thoughts on Freedom & Creativity
“I have to remind myself that the act of creation is linked to creativity and, while an artist may be prodigious, creativity itself is not a machine. For one thing, creativity needs time away from creation to replenish itself. For another - A machine does not have to love what it consumes.” - ‘How to Be Free’ on the Sneaky Art Post newsletter.
Thanks for reading! Buy me a digital coffee if you feel so inclined, or buy some zines.
ádh agus grá, & tot de volgende,
Jessica
(re) discovering inspiration