Hi there! It isn’t the 10th today… but I’ve got a new instalment of Inspired by for you!

The theme this time is…

There is no theme

My dear friend Riikka and I have been doing Inspired by for years now.

Inspired by was our excuse to play, to explore, to try out things, to work on something personal that didn’t have to follow any rules or fixed formats, products or materials (unless we explicitly chose it ourselves). And we did!

It helped us grow. I learned a lot. I saw, read and heard things I would never have encountered if it hadn’t been for Riikka and Inspired by. I’m super grateful for this!

But we’ve changed. The things we do have changed. Our work has changed.

And it’s time to take the next step. It’s time to not play together anymore for the sake of playing. It’s time for each of us to pay attention, to really pay close attention to what it is that peaks our personal interests.

It’s time to chase our own curiosity!

Let me explain

What I mean by that is: when something really catches my eye (on the internet, on TV, in a museum or on the street) or it keeps coming up (in multiple places), the healthy thing for my inspiration is to follow the thread and see where it takes me.

I do not want to have to say to myself over and over again: ‘There is no time for that now, just snap a photo!’ Or: ‘Put it on your to-do list.’

But that’s precisely what I did. Instead of trying to weave in the things that caught my attention as much as I could, I was storing them away for another day. And another week. And another month…

You can fill in what happened next because you’ve seen and read it right here on my blog: all of my creative drive got sucked out of me.

Creativity and inspiration just do not work that way!

The solution

I started to make changes from (I guess) September of last year forward.

One of the changes is that Riikka and I have decided that we’re no longer picking a theme for the month. And we’re not going to create something with the same thing in mind anymore.

Instead, we’re each going to keep a record of what inspires us personally, and we’re going to share that with you and each other on the 10th of the month.

This means it’s likely we’re still going to talk about films, books, paintings, items, colours, materials and more. I’m also confident we’re still going to share how we infuse these things in our work. But the sources of inspiration will be our personal ones, and the focus isn’t going to be on creating a project anymore.

We’re super excited about this, and we hope you are too!

Be sure to check out what Riikka has to say about it on her blog Paperiliitin.

Take care and have a wonderful week!

Inspired by is a blog series by my friend Riikka and I. We used to decide on a theme (and that theme could be anything from a film, a book, a painting, to an item, colour scheme or material), and then we would create something with that theme or thing in mind.

But from now on we’re going to share sources of inspiration with you and each other on the 10th of each month.