Artist Date 9 Make an Idea Line

Here’s Artist Date Idea #9

Make a Different kind of Inspiration Board — Make an Idea Line

Weekly artist dates fire up your imagination. Get down and whimsical. Do things totally differently than how you usually do. Let your imagination and your body play.  Feed your creative self by filling up the well of ideas.

This week, look around your home office, your studio or wherever you hang out when you are making creative projects, and see if there is someplace you can create and hang a line of ideas. In my home office, I have two idea lines — one is a cable-wire and the other is a piece of leather I had sitting around. I hang ideas on both with alligator clips, but you can use any kind of clip. At my studio, I used what I had around, cotton twine and binder clips. Get creative — that’s the idea with this artist date! You could even draw a line on your wall and use washi tape to hang things “on” it. 😉

Here are some ideas for the line and clips:

• For the Line: fish line, cable wire, leather cord, hemp or cotton twine, baker’s twine, rusty found wire (the kinkier the better) or just draw a line.
• Clips: alligator clips, binder clips from office supply stores, miniature or full sized clothespins, washi tape, paperclips (you might need to poke a hole in the thing you’re trying to hang with a paper clip), earth magnets, washi tape, masking tape, any kind of tape

What to hang on the line: anything that floats your boat, that inspires you … your kid’s art, photos torn from magazines, your own photos, bits and pieces of everyday life, natural objects, cards from other artists, tags, lists, things you’ve made, earring singles, fabric scraps, letters, poems, quotes, pages from old books, color studies, textures, snapshots, cool papers, anything and everything that might sparkle an idea when you are just daydreaming or when you are art-making.

Some things from my studio wall will migrate to my idea-line. I like to rotate stuff frequently. Keeps my ideas fresh.