Florence + The Machine - Dog Days Are Over (2010 Version)

Inspiration/Awe

I finished up a few mosaics and paintings, and was kind of stumped on what to do next.  Its difficult, because I have a lot of ideas, but picking which one to go with is hard.  I think art should be associated with some emotion/meaning/deeper feeling than just being something neat to look at.  but I tend to think so hard about what i want to do that i get paralyzed and end up doing nothing...partially because i know it won't be "perfect" and I'll talk myself out of action because I'm afraid it won't be good enough.  Besides, I tell myself, I haven't had much formal training and I don't have an art degree so anything I make will be worthless.  Now I know this is not true, but it is just one example of my negative self-talk that I continually fight against.  One of my friends in the local recovery community always talks about how he somehow mistakenly thinks he must be "either hero or zero."  That makes sense to me.  With a lot of my endeavors I feel a sudden need to be the very BEST at something or not do it at all.  This is a self-destructive and unhealthy mindset so everytime I begin a new piece of art I chip away at these false thoughts little by little. ANYWAYS, I have been searching for ideas and inspirations and I stumbled across a Nikon website that has tons of microscopic photographs and I have been entranced.  these pictures really combine love of science and love of art, and for myself when science/art intertwine like this I get such of feeling of awe for God and what He has created and how little power and control I have over anything that happens.  Which makes me that much more dependent on Him.  Here are some of my favs.......

this is part of a retina from a bird:

These next pictures are all "diatoms" which are tiny creatures that float around in water...they are usually only 1 cell and are classified as algae. 

The next few are pictures of various dinosaur bones.

Next are pics of plants, some are leaves, some are stems, some are flower buds. 

Next are just some misc. ones of chemicals and other stuff that i thought was cool. 

If you want to see more, go to Nikon's microphotography website and see the competition gallery.  There are hundreds of pictures. 

Joe Purdy: Far Away Blues @ Schubas