Artist Appreciation Month ~ Who inspires me

August is Artist Appreciation Month

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My post today was inspired by Patience Brewster's call for blog posts for Artist Appreciation Month. You can see her unique, whimsical and adorable artwork by visiting her webpage. Oh - and be sure to check out her adorable ornaments too!

At any given time over the course of my life, I have had the good fortune to be surrounded by really creative and artistic people. If you had asked me 20, 10 or 2 years ago who inspired me I would have had a different answer for each one of those eras.

It won't surprise my regular readers that today, during this particular creative period of my life, my inspiration leans in the direction of mandalas.

Blogging provides an endless stream of inspiration, no matter what your interests are. When I began posting my own mandalas on my blog at the end of last year, my blog friend Alexa asked (in an email, I think) if I was familiar with the artwork of Louise Gale. I wasn't, so I clicked over and proceeded to spend the next good chunk of time perusing her website and studying her beautiful mandala artwork.

I loved the flow and feminine feel of Louise's mandalas. The colors she used really called to me, and I was so inspired by her mandalas that I fell more deeply in love with the process of creating my own. I'm now enrolled in my second online class with Louise and am so excited to incorporate some of the things I've learned from her into my own work as a yoga/mandala workshop leader.

I also want to talk about a local friend who is such an inspiration to me, and someone who has been by my side on this mandala path I'm walking. I met Barbara about nine years ago when we worked at a scrapbook store together. Our friendship has grown over the years, but has recently deepened through our yoga and mandala practices.

Barbara attends my weekly yoga classes so we have the good fortune of practicing yoga together on a regular basis. And! We meet on Monday evenings whenever we can to sit and draw mandalas together. We admire each other's work and inspire each other not only to explore our own individual styles, but to move out of our artistic comfort zones from time to time and try something a little different.

We recently had a conversation about how much each of us wished our own mandalas looked more like each others. We laughed when I pointed out that if my mandalas looked like Barbara's they'd be Barbara's - not mine. And vice-versa. We continue to be inspired by each other, but are becoming more mindful of embracing our own art as our own form of self-expression. Barbara inspires me with her beautiful designs, eye for color combinations and interpretations of shapes and forms. {"Are those surfboards in your mandala?!"}

So, for Artist Appreciation Month my accolades go to two of the most inspirational mandala artists I know: Louise Gale and my local friend, Barbara. My creative heart could just explode with admiration and gratitude for these two lovely ladies.

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