A New Design And An Interesting Turn About

First of all I want to tell you that I have been working hard the last few days on new graphics for my website.  They are really cute...cuter than I usually do, but I love it so much!  Maybe I am mellowing with age?  At any rate if you would like to go see all the cute you can do that by clicking here: Blondheart

I had an interesting revelation today.  It's no secret that artist's can be very isolated sometimes in what we do.  While the people in our sphere of existence can encourage us and indulge us, they don't always understand what we do, and exactly how we do it.  We tend to accept that fact.

But what we sometimes forget is that we are not always isolated in our thinking or our actions because other artists think the same way.  It's something that doesn't come up in conversation that often.

We are often inspired by other artists.  Sometimes what they create spurs our own imagination or we discover some little detail we want to incorporate into our own work.  Now don't confuse this with copying another artist.  It's certainly not the same thing.

A little earlier I was looking at an artist's work that has inspired me a few times over the years.  Our bears don't look anything alike other than that they are vintage inspired.  I commented on a certain aspect of the new pieces and how much I liked it.  She replied a bit sheepishly that she picked that thing up from me. 

Now I am rarely speechless.  But I couldn't think of a single thing to say for about a full minute.  I just sat there gaping.  For some reason that thought simply never occurred to me.  Wow.  What an interesting turn about.  An artist who has inspired me is also inspired by me!

It's funny, when we look at our peers we don't always think about how they look at us.  When we make something we tend to focus on what we might have done better on a piece.  Or maybe we are completely satisfied with how it turned out.  Whichever it is, we only look at it from our perspective.  But do we stop to think about how another artist out there might be thinking they like what we did so much they are inspired to incorporate that little detail here and there into their own work?

I guess sometimes we think people make something so wonderful that they arrive at it completely 100% all on their own.  Which of course is rarely the case.  It's nice to know we aren't as isolated as we sometimes think and that we can inspire as well as be inspired!