Visual prompts work for me. As a graphic artist, what I see is directly influential to my wordy author side and both of those impact my musician side. My brain automatically wants to know 'who, what, where, why, and how' and a story is born.

Here are three that I find very beautiful, striking, and inspiring. Enjoy.

Renaissance Woman

If y'all will pardon me for singing my own praises, then let it be known that I am a triple-threat of creativity and the trifecta of talent!  (Plus BONUS ROUND extras below!)

1.) I write novels. Y'all know that part. Blah blah blah.

2.) I write music.

A.) ROCK. If you pay attention here at all, you probably know that little ol' me also plays a mean guitar. 6 and/or 7 string electric guitar. My collect isn't huge, there are currently six. The first was the cherry red Peavy Razor. My dad bought it when I was 15. I'd taken piano lessons from age 8 to 14 and was ready for something new and cool. By 16 I was in a band. A METAL band


The summer between my junior and senior years, I was 17, and I was the lead guitarist for an almost-all girl rock/metal band. We were the house band, played every Thursday night, had dibs on opening for touring acts and were supposed to fill in if someone had to cancel, but that never happened. It was THE spot to play around here.

 

We played AC/DC to Metallica, Iron Maiden to Ozzy, Sweet to Sabbath, GNR, Ratt, Crue, Poison, and the standard chick songs...Lita, Benatar, Jett, Runaways.

B.) SCORES. I have a keyboard with multi-track recording built in. I once scored a book I was writing. (It is yet unpublished.)
I've been playing in another band locally, but we haven't gotten together in a few months due to various other band member things going on. But I still love to play.






3.) I can draw and paint.

I went to college initially for Visual Communications...a fancy way of saying Graphic Artist. But more than typography and layout, I can sketch, and I loves to do me some doodles. And photo-shop...oh, yeah, the POWER!!!!

<--- On the left is a gargoyle atop a church steeple, a study of foreshortening from the wingtip. That is the original image.


Below is the photoshopped one... What do yu think???

I also paint. Here is my boys room long ago...with the stones painted... and shaded. EACH and EVERY one. Then...

 

Then...I planned pillars, distant mountains, and sky....

 

And when it was done...SIX WEEKS LATER...

 

AND in the bonus round, I claim even more creative pursuits....

 

4.) I also enjoy cooking and baking.

Yes, I kick ass in the Domestic Goddess round, too. I can cook, anything. I am descended from fine hillbilly folk and I can make you biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast lunch or dinner. My soups and chilis are among the best, and I slay the casserole or crock-pot competition. Want a five pound Death by Chocolate cake? Done. Oh yes...anything chocolate...I got your number, and the recipe to bring it home.  

 

**NOTE. In my mind, I want to be Tomb Raider, out having adventures and kicking ass...but the truth is I'm more of a Betty Crocker. So I write the adventures and such. 

 

5.) And I frigging sew.

COSTUME ONE: Assassin  I sewed various pieces here. I did not sew the main vest, nor the hood though I did make the pattern for the hood out of newspaper. I made measurements from the EZIO TOY my son had, and then increased it exponentially and drew the pattern on newspaper from the measurements, cut it out and my friend Deb sewed it.

COSTUME TWO: Elder Scrolls (some armor....??) I sewed all of this except the pants which we bought. I spent 60+ hours on this. The kid wore it for 3 hours. **The things moms do because we love our kids.**

My Expensive Hobby

by Jeffe Kennedy
My great indulgence? The thing I splurge on, even when I shouldn't?

Art.

I know - it sounds kind of harmless. After all, it's not like I can't stay off the crack cocaine or that I'm on the home shopping channel compulsively buying things that stack up in the spare room. And, art is an investment, right?

Not the way I buy it. For it to be a real investment, you have to know the market and purchase artists who are likely to gain in value. Kind of like stocks. I buy out of love, which is akin to always betting on your home team, regardless of the statistics.

I blame my mother, really.

Some of my earliest memories are of cruising in and out of art galleries. My folks would go on vacation to Santa Fe or San Francisco, giggling over whatever outrageous art purchase they'd made. Once, after a particularly wonderful and wine-filled dinner in downtown Denver, they fell in love with a painting in a gallery window and resolved to dig up the (piles of) money to buy it. If the place had been open, they wouldn't have had the sober reflection of the next morning to change their minds.

Dutifully following in my mother's footsteps, I've spend a lot of money on art. The one to the left, Straight is the Gate, is something I saw in Newport, Oregon and had to have. Over a year later I got a new job with a shiny new salary - to celebrate, I had the gallery ship this to me.

I buy art from people I know and those I don't. Hey Arnold, up above, was painted by David's sister. I've informed her that I'm expecting great things and ample return in value.

The painting at the very top is by a Santa Fe artist. I fell in love with one of her paintings, resisted buying it, like a good kitty, then experienced severe non-buyer's remorse. The painting I'd wanted had sold, but she painted me one on commission, from a Celtic symbol I love.

It's gotten so that David can tell the moment I've spotted a piece of art I have to have. He just shakes his head at me and says I might as well just buy it now, instead of hauling him back multiple times to gaze at it and yearn.

One of the worst things about this habit is, you begin to run out of wall space. We actually bought our last house partially because it had lots of lovely places for me to hang all the art I've collected. In our much smaller house, a bunch of it remains packed up in storage.

It would be lovely to have a splurge that doesn't cost me hundreds or thousands at a pop.

But then, this was never about logic. Only love.