Chicken Butts

I haven’t spent much time in studio recently, focusing on writing and other parts of my life. This week Jim and I are happily immersed in family, enjoying time with both daughters and all seven grandchildren. This moment I am stealing a little time to show you a favorite inspiration piece.

Last evening as we talked with Daughter in MD and her oldest, they described Pinterest as a way of creating a wall of inspiration. “Name anything,” Daughter said to Jim, suggesting he name something and she would show him how she can pin pictures representing that idea.

“Chickens,” he said. She typed that into the search and up came a pageful of pictures about chickens. Some were roasted, some were dressed (in sweaters,) and others were roaming freely. One picture featured a method of roasting called “beer butt chicken.”

“We already have a great picture of chicken butts,” I reminded him.

Photo by Jim Ruebush. Aran Islands, Ireland, 2011.

This is one of my all-time favorite vacation pictures. I love the brilliant yellow contrasting with vivid red; the textures, smooth glass, feathers, peeling paint, bumpy stucco; long shadows cast from chicken butts by the high mid-day sun. The signs in the window, one commanding us to “GET INTO IT.” I even love the proportions of the photo, with how Jim cropped it to frame the chickens in the center.

Pinterest may be a fun and useful tool for many. But inspiration is all around when we are present to notice.

Where do you find your inspiration? Is it in the contrasting colors and textures of your garden? In the way small children mix stripes and prints freely? In the evening sky with trees silhouetted against the rising moon?