The world is my studio...

The title above is the tagline on a friend's business card. This friend is a very gifted photographer and I was captivated by that tagline. From a business perspective, it is a very savvy marketing statement. From a personal perspective, I just thought, "How beautiful, to have the whole world be your working space."

I ran into this friend at a gathering last night that I haven't had a chance to attend for several months. It was a wonderful evening full of laughter, shared stories, reminiscing, and that inestimable kind of fellowship that occurs from 20+ years of knowing a group of people.

I kept coming back to that tagline, "The world is my studio..." For any creative person, I think it can be a true statement that the whole world provides inspiration. This friend captures images through his camera lense. I capture thoughts on paper, but the sentiment and the inspiration come from similar moments. I can be inspired by the most obscure, overlooked, mundane occurrence and suddenly be assailed by words crowding into my mind with such a demand to be given voice that I have to sit down and write them out. Bob's business card tag line was my inspiration today.

I share his sentiment that the world is an endless bounty of inspiration. Today in East Tennessee is shaping up to be a cool, windy, overcast fall day. Some might grow frustrated at yet another damp day, as we've had quite a lot of them this year. I see endless soft grays, muted colors bleeding together with the lack of direct sunlight beaming down. If I were in the mountains, I am positive that there would be breathtaking stark blacks, whites and grays everywhere.....cloaked here and there in drifting mantles of mist. The mountains are a sight to behold on a soft, gray day.

I am in such harmony with Bob's tagline that I think I am adopting it as one of my daily affirmations. The world is my studio...my canvass...my blank, clean slate to write upon with utter, joyful abandon...my inspiration.