All The Goods is not only an enterprise where we chat with people doing interesting things but it's also a place to showcase our art as well. The sort of things we tend to create around here ranges from handmade cards to t-shirts. We also create our own jewelry. We've done fairly well at selling all of these things, nothing to make a living at (quite yet) but enough to give us some pocket change here and there.
We're always looking for inspiration for our art, either by being around artists or experiencing art at some level. Lately, we'd seemed to have hit a valley rather than a peak. It's kind of hard to figure out the 'why' part of it and lately, we've just felt stuck with no way to move forward.
We were recently told about a book called 'The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity' by Julia Cameron. Upon delving into this book, we found that we could relate to a lot of it. The book is divided up into various chapters and there are exercises that the author suggests that one do to help unblock the flow of creativity. One of the exercises that seemed to resonate well with us was the idea of an 'Artist's Date'. The Artist's Date is where you take yourself to an art museum, an art show or something relatively creative. It's a way to get yourself away from your house and out in the world to see what else is going on.
Today was finally the day that we at All The Goods got our ducks in a row and took ourselves out to a local art show, where a friend was selling her work. We met up with other friends from our art society and then visited the friend at the art show. I think it meant a lot to have so many from our society show up in support of this lady. The art show ran yesterday and today.
We always get inspired seeing other people's work. There's something that clicks off in our brains and gets the wheels turning. It definitely happened to us. We'd thought, 'well, the art show was great' and it did for us what we thought it might. But there was more to come, in unexpected ways. We got more out of today than we'd ever hoped for.
The other people that we ended up palling around with for the remainder of the day are fellow artists, who specialize in different media than we do. They both draw, paint and in one lady's case, did photography as well. When we sat down to lunch, we spoke about our art society in general as well as our own art. This is where the magic really began to happen.
As we spoke more about our own art, the other two ladies began to give us ideas for things we hadn't previously thought of. The wheels were not only turning, they were ready to hit the track at the Daytona 500. The ideas were off and running full speed ahead.
After lunch, we took a leisurely stroll up the main street. (We are in Florida, by the way and today's weather was warm but breezy.) Most of the galleries were open and there were people everywhere. We went in and out of a lot of the galleries.
We also saw a lot of things to take pictures of as well. All The Goods didn't bring their camera but the Smartphone was a good stand-in. We took a lot of photos. It was an interesting concept to see this little town as an artist as opposed to just a tourist. We saw plenty of ideas for photos and the like.
I think what helped to unblock us was the fact that the three of us were feeding off of each other's energy. Our spirits were high. It was a sunny day and we were like little kids with our first cameras.
In case anyone is curious, we were in Gulfport, FL and the show was the 2Cool Art Show at Gulfport Casino.
Here are some of the great shots we ended up with from today-
Bottom-The Cottage also along Beach Blvd
Our favorite two colors-green and purple together on one building. The flowers made it look extra quaint
This was in someone's small side yard. It just looked like a nice place to sit and relax. 
We are really attracted to cast iron gate work anywhere. We love the look of them. This was between two businesses on Beach Drive in Gulfport.
We just wanted to go sit on this porch with a glass of iced tea and lemon. I believe this was at one of the multitude of restaurants we passed. (Sorry, didn't get name of it.)
A more straight on shot of the green house. We don't know if we could actually live in a house with these colors but from an artistic standpoint, we thought it was cool.
We had so much fun on this Artist Date that we cannot wait to do it again. I think that the concept of doing this is a good way to unblock anything that holds back creativity.
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