Download the Instagram app to your smart phone, and on a sunny day, go out and about and photograph shadows. You’ll be amazed at the images you find when you’re focused in on a specific theme.

I love Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments of work so much that I’ve printed out a copy to carry in my laptop case. Even though his rules refer to writing, I think they can be applied to most any calling or vocation. I especially like #5 because if I’m not inspired or called by the Muse, I just give up instead of plugging away at something, like editing or research, that doesn’t require creativity.

I get goosebumps when I come across things like this that are so obvious and yet so mysterious and wonderful. A dress made out of a map. To hang on your wall. To dream about. Each dress is handmade and unique. Approx 90cm long and 60 cm wide from annex.net.nz. Art-full. I want.

I can’t wait to get my copy of The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life’s Work at 72. The story of Mary Delany (1700-1788), whose flower “mosaiks” were the precursor to collage, reminds me not to count myself out at any age. Given that I’m in something of a creative slump and a period of change, I need a message like that right now.

Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability | Video on TED.com.

I love Jen Renninger’s work. We’re featuring one every month in Skirt! magazine, and my favorite is the one in March called “We Have Everything We Need.” But I can’t resist this little reminder of my trip to Paris either. You can see all her prints in her Etsy shop.

I’m mystified that this movie didn’t attract any Academy Awards attention and that it slid in and out of our local theater in a week. It made me realize all over again the power of Ginsberg’s poem — it’s just as raw and stunning now as it must have been in 1955. James Franco is amazing, and the form and production of the movie are wake-you-up creative.

I came home from work to find that a friend had left a care package on my porch with recommendations of places to visit if/when I get to Paris this winter along with a cd to put me in the mood. When I listen to Best of Costes, a compilation of selections from the cds put out by the very hip Hotel Costes in Paris, I float into a frothy Carrie Bradshaw/Mikhail Baryshnikov or a wicked, melancholy Marlon Brando/Last Tango in Paris frame of mind. Music is the fastest way to take my mind/imagination to another place in time — my solace, the secret soundtrack of my life.

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I just ordered this book from Amazon because I really, really need a creative nudge. Even though I’m a writer, not an artist, sketching helps the words flow for me when I feel like I’m stuck or in a rut. And I like Katherine Dunn’s work and loved the description of some of the exercises she offers.

Since we’re all students in life, these are rules that apply to any kind of calling you may have. Evidently they were posted in the art department of the college where Sister Corita Kent taught. (I found them on Keri Smith’s excellent blog.)  I also highly recommend Corita Kent’s book called Learning by Heart.

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