Day 16 - Art and Inspiration.

Day 16 - A picture of someone who inspires you.

Before I talk about two people that inspire us, I just want to vent. It's about the umbrella I had to carry around all day. Katie and I decided to walk downtown this evening and she insisted on taking the umbrella. The sun is finally out in Boise. The sky is blue. And people are pulling their shorts out from their closets, but here I am, carrying an umbrella. Maybe I'm exaggerating just a little with the shorts. It's still pretty cold outside, but it's not wet..at all. "Can you please carry it, in case it rains?" she asks, pointing to the few tiny clouds in the sky. Of course I gave in because she's really cute. And she did that thing where she crinkles her nose. So I'm skipping down the street, getting some weird looks. Maybe it was my skipping, but I'm pretty sure it was the umbrella. "Look at me, I've got an umbrella..just incase it rains on this bright, sunny day!" But when we finally made it to Pie Hole, a little hole in the wall pizza joint in Downtown Boise, we ordered our pizza and I discovered the greatest thing. Potato bacon pizza. I didn't bring up the umbrella again..until now. But I'll carry an umbrella on any fine day for some potato bacon pizza.








As great as it is, Potato bacon pizza is not my inspiration. There's a guy in San Diego that does local art that really inspires me. His name is Robert Wyland. Wyland is an artist who is best known for painting large, outdoor murals of ocean life. The guy is an incredible painter and seeing his work makes me want to do great things. He not only inspires me to keep drawing and painting, but he inspires me to help protect ocean wildlife. Wyland's artwork gives me a deeper appreciation for the ocean and what's underneath.





Katie's inspiration is Blake Mycoskie. Just incase you didn't already know, he's the guy that founded TOMS shoes. First off, the guy lives on a sailboat in Los Angeles, which automatically makes him awesome. TOMS shoes was founded on a simple premise: For every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of shoes to a child in need. Mycoskie started his company almost by accident. He was in Argentina after losing The Amazing Race when he met some volunteers in a café who were running a local shoe drive, and he decided to jump in on the project. During the project, thoughts flooded his head, "Why does charity have to be responsible for this? Why not entrepreneurship? Make it easy: Buy a pair, give a pair – we give away a pair for every pair sold.” Inspired by his experience collecting donated shoes and delivering them to an Argentinian village, he returned to his home in Los Angeles with an idea. Thus, Toms was born. And over 1,000,000 pairs of shoes have been given to children in twenty different countries, including the United States, under the One for One movement since TOMS started. Blake Mycoskie plans on making TOMS more than just a "shoe company" and the rest of his products will also be "one for one," donating to children in need. Katie has the spirit of giving. Giving to anyone makes her happy. Except for bums. So giving to ALMOST anyone makes her happy. Especially those in need.