A few years ago I was listening to a radio interview with Tom Waits. He said, “I like turning on two radios at the same time and listen to ‘em. I like hearing things incorrectly. I think that’s how I get a lot of ideas, is by mis-hearing something.”
I love that! And I do that – but visually. Does that happen to you? See something and just for a moment see it incorrectly? I think we all mis-see things occasionally, but until I heard that interview it hadn’t occurred to me to use those moments in a purposeful way. It’s something I often take advantage of now.
For example, the display of Halloween ornaments I saw in a Country Living magazine. For just a second I thought they were bright, colorful, fat-bodied spiders with long spindly legs. But really they were just balls sitting on some branches or something. I don’t actually remember the photo very clearly, because I made an effort to remember the spiders until I could them sketched out on paper. That one visual miscue started a whole project! Handy.
Anyway…other than pondering these things, I’ve been working on a bunch of projects that I can’t show you! I’ll have a whole backlog to post after Christmas. :o) I can show you today’s batch of super-good Chocolate Chip Cookies though:
