Inspiring Kids

Before we get into the inspiration thing, let’s first talk about kids. I don’t have any of my own - Only three fur babies. This doesn’t mean I don’t like kids though. I do. I see them as funny, weird, little unstable people. They fall over a lot, they spill things, they say some really funny shit sometimes. Kids just soak their surroundings, mix it around in their minds, and spit out the craziest stuff. It's sort of interesting to just watch them from afar and see what silly things they will do next.

Oh, did you think I was going to talk about how I inspire kids? Nope. This post is about how kids inspire me. 

When I first began my Tragically Sweet series, I had this obsession with listening. Every time I heard a child cry on a warm SoCal day I’d look for it. It? Look for what? Well, I’d look for whatever made them cry. Sometimes it was a tumble, other times they’d lose a toy, but the jackpot was when they dropped their ice cream. It wasn’t the sad child that interested me. It was the ice cream. It was always plopped down with the ice cream first and the cone slightly tilted and pointed upward. Ooooooh, pretty! Sometimes the cone even fell all the way over on its side. Splat! I watched the sweet ice cream melt into the pavement in awe. I wanted to rescue that ice cream and return it to the child, but at the same time I loved the varying emotions that this toppled cone created - for me it was an urge to help, for the child it was sadness, for the parent it was frustration. If the ice cream hadn’t fallen at all, it wouldn’t be nearly as dramatic. Like an over-acted Shakespearean play, this insignificant moment has flipped my creative switch on full speed. And just like that - The Tipsy Ice Cream Cone series was born