Save the date!

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Posted by in Feeding the Muse

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Snickersville AcademyOn June 2,  Feeding the Muse will host a fundraiser to aid the restoration of the 186-year-old Snickersville Academy, a Loudoun County landmark in Bluemont, Virginia. We invite you to join us as we celebrate community, camaraderie and creativity with a Summer Garden Party at Carrington House.

Guests will enjoy an evening of live jazz from The Robert Larson Trio of the Shenandoah Conservatory and feast on the creations of John-Gustin Birkitt, chef/owner of the French Hound in Middleburg.

This fundraiser also marks the official launch of Feeding the Muse. We could think of no better way to announce our enterprise than at an event supporting the community where our partnership was founded. Find more information on our Upcoming Events page.

The art of inspiration:
Andrea Clearfield

19 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in Performing arts, The art of inspiration

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Andrea Clearield with Tashi Tsering

Andrea Clearfield records Tashi Tsering (2008)

Composing music can transport one to the far reaches of one’s imagination. Commissions often inspire me to explore places, subjects, sounds, and spaces that I might never have imagined, musical and otherwise. However, I had no way of knowing that my life would change as a result of a collaborative commission that would lead me to the top of the world. Continue reading »

Don’t let rejection starve your muse

13 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by in Writing

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Lately, I’ve felt grateful when an editor spends the time to let me know he/she doesn’t want a piece I’ve submitted. When than happens, at least I know I can move on and try another market. When I first started submitting, I was devastated by rejection–until I learned to glean what I could from that “no.” Here’s a reprint of an article I published a few years ago…no matter your genre, one “no” (or even 20 of them) doesn’t mean a piece you believe in won’t eventually garner a “yes.”

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The hungry muse:
Butternut Squash Soup

09 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in Food for thought

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Butternut squash is an excellent source of beta-carotene, which the body converts to vision-enhancing, antioxidant Vitamin A. But that’s not all. According to Hindu traditions, beta-carotene fuels one of the body’s chakras, or energy points–the sacral chakra, said to be the realm of all things creative. Ginger has also been used as a medicine in Asian, Indian and Arabic herbal traditions since ancient times, believed to aid everything from digestion to arthritis and headaches. 

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The art of inspiration:
Alison Sigethy

29 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by in The art of inspiration, Visual arts

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Tipping Point by Alison Sigethy

Tipping Point, 20”x20”x8”, salvaged building glass. Photo by Pete Duvall, Anything Photographic

Tipping Point, two pieces of sculpted glass literally in balance, was inspired by my time in the Arctic. Since 2006 I have kayaked in Greenland and across portions of the Northwest Passage. Faced with the endlessly fascinating and rugged beauty of 1000-year-old ice and cliffs showing centuries of strata, and aware of how rapidly those environments are changing, I returned from the Arctic with a renewed focus to protect and showcase the natural world. Constructed entirely from salvaged building glass, a material that otherwise would be buried in landfills because it cannot be recycled, Tipping Point is one of my first works to give voice to the beauty and vulnerability of the Arctic landscape.

–Alison Sigethy, www.AlisonSigethy.com

Write for yourself

28 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Writing

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Denise Levertov says that a good poem starts as something hanging on the edge of your peripheral vision that you can’t quite see and can’t quite shake. It’s something you need to get a good look at for your own personal reasons.

No matter what genre you’re working in, your real subject matter is essentially connected to you and keeps nagging no matter how you keep trying to ignore it.  Left unattended, it drifts and multiplies like hydra heads.  Yet by handling it during the process of giving it written definition, you become familiar with its real nature and can pin that down on the page to better observe and understand it.

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