Inspiration Avenue: Ingenuity

Today is Friday and time for my Inspiration Avenue Challenge entry. I struggled with this theme, possibly because I didn't have much time to make art this week. Originally, I thought about making my first ever Steampunk entry, because that style showed a lot of ingenuity. Additionally, the definitions Judy Goddard, this week's challenge host, provided lent themselves to the Steampunk style as well.

After all, I had already played with this image in a swap and knew the digital file was still on my computer. However, after I read Judy's interpretation of the word, I started going around to the early IA challenge entries, and realized they were interpreting this challenge basically the same way I was: with sort of a Rube Goldberg device, if you will.

That got me thinking while I was busy trying to get a swap ready for mailing. I came from a small family: an only child raised by Grandparents. So big celebrations were simply unheard of when I was growing up. When I was barely 19, both my Grandparents had died, and I was alone, with no living relatives. That has never stopped me from making friends and enjoying their lasting friendships. For years and years, I invited people to my home for Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday). Many were friends I worked or went to school with who also had no extended family. Even though I worked full time and went to school, I would spend every waking minute for up to a week in advance, planning, prepping, and preparing the meal.

However, there was one thing I never seemed to get right. And that was how to make everything come together at the same time. Seems something was still cooking when we sat down to eat, or something was left in the fridge, or the olives were still in the jar, or the ice had already melted in the water goblets, or . . . (you get the picture).


So when it comes to ingenuity, I raise my glass of eggnog to any host who can prepare a large meal and have it all ready and hot at the same time! Now that, dear friends, is my definition of ingenuity.

Talk about ingeuity! Today I'm featuring a web site of an artist who "paints" using her sewing machine. It's hard to believe all these lovely and detailed pieces were made using nothing but cloth and thread! But that is all Miyuki Sakai uses to make her masterpieces. Born, raised, and educated in Japan, Miyuki now lives in San Francisco, CA in the US. Some of my favorites are in the Office or on the Street. Be sure to click on each of the thumbnails to get the full picture. I think you'll like Miyuki Sakai's site as much as I did!

Now I'm off to see what I missed yesterday when I was totally unplugged from the universe web.