it just has to be you

you can draw whatever you want. you can draw however you want. it doesn't have to make sense. it doesn't even have to be good. it just has to be you.  -- Jean-Michel Basquiat

This isn't a post about drawing. It's about inspiration and being authentic.

Entrance to Chelsea Highline

 Travel has a way of coaxing out your true self and helping you see the way ahead more clearly.

Up on the highline 

  A trip to New York is one of the best gifts of inspiration. 

Iconic lion at the New York Public Library

Plenty of cool marble for a bookish retreat on a sweltering day.

Makes me want to join the 15,000 and create an artist's book of my own.

I love imagining the beautiful, modern home where I would put this sculpture by Matt Wedel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having missed the Keats House when I was in Rome last fall, I was pleased to visit Shelley's Ghost at the New York Public Library. It was amazing to see the original manuscript of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein along with several of Shelley's manuscripts (complete with accomplished drawings),  and to be able to picture the extraordinary lives led by this circle of young friends. They must have been considered wildly scandalous in their day! And unbelievably tragic. Throughout it all, they continued to create. You can't get much more inspiring than that.