Lately, I’ve been spending time with a new online tool called Cosmos. It’s a way to collect and curate visual inspiration—kind of like Pinterest, but without the ads, algorithms, and kitchen makeovers.

What sets Cosmos apart is its focus: it’s filled with images curated by designers, illustrators, and artists. Real people with real taste. And the quality of what they’ve gathered is next level. I recommend you try it, but that’s not the point of this essay.

As I meandered through the site, I started building my own collections—little personal folders of examples and ideas. Each image is linked to its original source, so when something caught my eye, I could trace it back to the artist’s larger body of work. There’s also a feature that suggests related images, which pulled me even deeper—new palettes, styles, techniques.

One image led to another, and soon I was lost in an ocean of creative possibilities. It’s a rabbit warren of more and more sources and more and more work, and I could easily get lost in that and just keep gathering more and more images, as if shopping was my job, which it’s not.

The experience isn’t just scrolling and bingeing; it’s clarifying.

I started to notice patterns in what I was saving—certain colors, types of lines, styles, media, textures. I began to understand what’s resonating with me right now. That in itself is a kind of art-making—focusing in on my own taste as it evolves.

Then, after a while, I got itchy. I wasn’t content just to browse and collect anymore. I wanted to respond. To add something of my own to the mix. It’s my time — pass me the ball!

I’d just been sent a big box of acrylic markers and I cracked it open. I pulled out my trusty tempera sticks. A few colored pencils. A fountain pen.

I started drawing, it didn’t matter what.

Bold, bright images came out—some familiar, others completely new. I could feel the influence of all that looking, but I wasn’t copying. I was translating. Synthesizing. Speaking in my own voice again, but newly charged. I was transcending the source material and heading into my own creative space.

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Which brings me to Thai food.

I open the take-out container and smell the basil, the peanuts, the heat. It’s intoxicating. It fills my senses, and then I bite down on the first forkful, and my mouth floods with flavor. I continue gorging, working my way through the food. When I'm done chewing, my mouth ruminates on the experience, spices linger there in the crevices of my mouth, marinating into my saliva.

But an hour later, the spice and the heat have dissipated, and that food is now in my stomach, being converted into muscle, bone, and (most likely) fat. What was food in a cardboard container dropped off by some guy on a motor scooter has turned into stuff that is me.

Inspiration works the same way.

At first, it’s someone else’s vision. Then it becomes fuel. Then it becomes my art. The colors and lines I discovered on Cosmos don’t live in a browser tab anymore—they’re folded into my taste and style and history. They’ve been metabolized.

The initial zing of inspiration slowly dissipates but doesn't ebb away completely. It is integrated into who I am and will continue to resurface. In different ways. It might lead me in a whole new direction, but it will be informed always by who I am and what I've done and what I've seen and what I've made so that it becomes integral to me.

But I need to start with that spicy Thai food. That rush. That surprise. That flavor of something I didn’t know I was hungry for.

Time to put down my fork and my mouse — and pick up a pen.

Your pal,

Danny