Pictures + words = inspiration boards

Pinboard June '08

Ever since I first learnt to hold a pair of scissors, which was before I started school, I have been cutting out and collecting pictures and words. And making collages. I don't know how or why it started but it was a compulsion. And one I have never outgrown.

Magazines and brochures, wrapping paper, old cards, my own photographs and in recent years - when I finally managed to get past the "books are sacred and shall not, ever, ever, ever, be desecrated" rule drummed into me by my mother - some old books, have all fed the obsession. And now there's the Internet... electronic cutting and collecting has opened a whole new frontier of inspiration...

As teenagers both my sister and I decorated our bedroom walls and cupboards - inside and out - with these cut-outs, as many teenage girls do. It's not that unusual at that stage in one's life, is it? I then started to use some of these collected images and text in crafts like decoupage and those layered 3d paper-cut pictures made with blobs of silicone glue to give them dimension... do you remember those? And always, collage.

I should add that I am one of four children and growing up I was never really the Creative One in our family. Others have talents that far outshine mine. But I've always had these creative urges and, all through my life, I have continued to collect pictures and words. And make collages. Compulsively.

I used to feel slightly embarrassed by this. Surely it's a legitimate pursuit only for real, serious, full-time working artists, to make books and have boards of images that just appeal and inspire for no other reason than that they appeal and inspire? Surely? Otherwise it's just a bit weird, isn't it? My sister understood this compulsion but we just shared the weird gene I thought. And I felt like this for years. I kept cutting and collecting and I kept my inspiration boards hidden - normally on the inside of a cupboard door. But I didn't stop making them.

One of the most wonderful things that the Internet has bought me is external validation. Creative validation. Inspiration board validation. I found that there are many, thousands, hundreds of thousands even, people out there who do the same thing! It was a revelation. I'm not that weird. Or at least not alone in my weirdness. It's a wonderful feeling to belong. So liberating.

So now I am open about my inspiration board love. And I find that I really enjoy looking at the inspiration boards of others too. They inspire me. And I am obviously not alone in this either. This, this and this attest to the fact that others share the love... to name but a few.

I change my board regularly and I have it hanging out where I can see it in passing now. I start it off with things that draw me to them from my collections, or that have current significance to me, and then add to it bits and pieces that I receive and find until it's overflowing. And then I start again...

I still have way more pictures and words collected than I can ever display (boxes and boxes full!) but they wait for just the right project - perhaps a place in one of my visual journals or as part of my next mixed-media collage project.... Or on my latest inspiration board display...

Pinboard August '08


1. print from the Klimt exhibition I attended recently - one of my favourites from that show,
2. butterfly beauty that came to me in the post,
3. feathers picked up on my walk to work,
4. reminder of the dream,
5. veiled woman with birds in a cage - to me this image is hauntingly beautiful but one of captivity and hidden expression - a reminder of how I do not want to live my life,
6. postcard from a friend,
7. paintbrushes & pen and ink - reminder to be an everyday creative,
8. cutout magnet from the fabulous Heather Moore - I don't have a metallic surface to stick it on at the moment but I love seeing it.