mortal muses - the beginning

Uploaded by journeyswithasimplegirl on 27 Jul 10, 8.54AM EDT.

Welcome Everyone!

As a surprise, I decided to jump start the fun and pick the above photograph by journeyswithasimplegirl from the submissions in the Mortal Muses Flickr Group as our very first featured photograph.  Congratulations!  I encourage you to make comments here and in the Flickr pool. Who doesn't love comments and a virtual hug?

Each day, in addition to a featured photograph from the Flickr submissions, you will see a photograph and post from the Muse Of The Day based on the current challenge theme. You may see journaling, poetry, quotes, or whatever might be inspiring them that day. In addition to the daily posts, we will continue the "What's In Your Bag" feature that started yesterday with Michel. Next Saturday, we will feature April's bag of goodies.  Remember that you can submit two photos per day.  Feel free to invite others to join the Flickr group and to submit photos that reflect the current theme.

Before we start the official STAY COOL challenge posts, we wanted to share how the nine Mortal Muses came together. When Picture Spring, a BPS workshop of seasonal celebration with Tracey Clark of Shutter Sisters started on April 1st, we never realized the wonderful blog friendships that would soon develop and how instrumental Tracey would be to bringing us all together. After this inspirational 30 day class ended, I continued to follow the blog adventures of Stephanie, April, and Kim.

In June, Creativity Boot Camp began with Maegan Beishline. This intensive two week course designed to deepen and enrich your creative spirit was open to all art mediums. Through this experience, Kim and I became more involved on Flickr and met artists from all over the USA. Lucy, Suki, Maureen and Michel were among the talented photographers in the class. I enjoyed following their blogs and Flickr submissions. Also through Flickr, I started to follow the work of Kirstin from the UK. In July, we came full circle, when six of the nine muses joined Tracey Clark again, this time for Picture Summer and another month of inspired prompts.

A week ago Saturday, I was dreading the last day of Picture Summer and came up with the concept of the Mortal Muses. After a few tweets among the Muses, the result is what you see here and on Flickr. It has been a labor of love to get this all together in such a short time.

I know that I speak for all the Muses when I say that we sincerely thank you for joining us and hope that you enjoy and are inspired by the weekly challenges, the photography from the Muses, the featured photographs from our participants, and the friendships that are destined to develop.

Tammy Lee Bradley