Books that Inspire.....

Maybe it's because I'm a librarian but books have always inspired my art.   I don't just mean art or technique books, although I'm crazy about them too, but fiction, biographies, non-fiction, poetry....you name it!   Do you ever read a passage in a book and something in it strikes you as beautiful or meaningful and you reach for your pen to write it down so you can read it again and again?   I do.   That's why I have journal after journal filled with profound and awe-inspiring quotations and passages.  

Sometimes it's the theme of a book that gets the creative juices flowing:

I'm in the process of reading a book called "A Fierce Radiance" by Lauren Belfer.   I'm finding it to be a fascinating read.   Here's the description provided by Harper Collins:

In the anxious days after Pearl Harbor, Life photojournalist Claire Shipley finds herself covering one of the nation's most important stories. At New York City's renowned Rockefeller Institute, researchers are racing to save thousands of wounded American soldiers and countless others by developing a miraculous new drug they call penicillin. For Claire, a single mother haunted by the loss of her young daughter—a death the miracle drug could have prevented—the story is cuttingly personal, especially after she unexpectedly begins to fall in love with the shy and brilliant head physician, James Stanton. But Claire isn't the only one interested in the secret cure. When a researcher dies under suspicious circumstances, the stakes become starkly clear: someone understands just how profitable the new drug could be—and will stop at nothing to get it. Now, with lives and a new love hanging in the balance, Claire will throw herself into harm's way to find a killer—no matter what price she may have to pay.
What has really struck a chord with me personally is the fact that at the time when this novel was set, a person could die from a scratch on the skin.   I knew that but hadn't really given it much more than a passing thought.  Heck  I periodically trip and fall on my face while running, ending up with nasty looking knees and hands.   What if penicillin hadn't been invented?  What if we weren't  immunized against the terrible diseases that claimed so many people in the past?    My Grandmother's Sister, Grace, died from a scrape that she received when she was riding her bike down their family farm's lane to retrieve the mail.  She was only 8 years old and is pictured in the photograph above.   She's the little one on the left at the front.  I, for one, am grateful for the amazing medical advances and dedicated researchers who discover them.

At other times, it's a person that I've read about that touches me in some way:




I read a book....yes, I know that is shocking given that I'm a librarian....but it was a book that has stayed with me for years. It is a book about a woman called Mina Benson Hubbard. She was a remarkable woman. This is how the online Canadian Encyclopedia described her and her accomplishments:

From the time she plunged into the unknown Labrador wild, crossing huge lakes of wind-whipped white caps, running kilometre after kilometre of dancing, foam-flecked rapids down the George River until it lost its wilderness spirit in Ungava Bay, Mrs. Hubbard was not idle. She brought back the first maps of the Naskaupi and George River valleys, which were accepted by the American Geographical Society and the Geographical Society of Great Britain. She made notes on the flora and fauna of Labrador. She described in detail the great Labrador caribou migration and photographed the Naskaupi and Montagnais Indians who hunted the animals for their food and clothes.
Mrs. Hubbard's expedition was extraordinary by any measure. Given the era and the fact that she was a woman, her trip stands out like a beacon in the annals of Canadian exploration.
I'm blessed to be a part of a round robin journal exchange that has just begun. I have to admit that I am partial to exchanges in which the journals actually travel. I know the risks....postal issues being the biggest....but it means something to have a journal in one's hand. To feel its textures and experience it's colours and vibrancy. The theme of my journal is "Women Who Dared...." and that is what inspired this post. The spread on Mina Benson Hubbard had been nibbling at my artful subconscious for some time and this was my chance to release it. I hope to continue to commemorate females who accomplished extraordinary feats in times of incredible hardship and in societies that discouraged them.

If you get a chance, check out the book on Mina....you won't be disappointed. I'd love to hear about the women who inspire you!

And then there are snatches of poetry:

How do books inspire you?   When asked that question, the very talented Cathy Calamas sent me this pairing of book and artwork....absolutely stunning!