I recently visited the Phoenix, Arizona area and had a little unexpected extra time one morning to visit Taliesin West, the desert camp of Frank Lloyd Wright.

I don’t know much about Frank Lloyd Wright except that he was a bold innovator and visionary architect who is quite celebrated. I’m not all that versed in architecture — to be honest, I didn’t really process that there are two famous “Frank”s of architecture: Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gearhy. They kind of blended together in my mind, despite being from radically different time periods and having different styles.

Here are some of the photos that I took while I was visiting Taliesin West (click to see the photo in a lightbox):

I never claimed to be the smartest or most observant person in the room. I probably didn’t even notice whether the room had an abundance of strange angles or zero angles at all. Ahem. Look at me, learning stuff!

I intended to drive up to Arcosanti to study the bold and unique experimental development of one of the only architects who I am familiar with: Paolo Soleri (not to be confused with Paulo Coelho, who wrote The Alchemist), but it was so far North of Phoenix and I needed to get back to catch a flight home. Next time!

When I saw that I was coming up on Frank Lloyd Wright Drive, I remembered I saw something about an inspiring place to visit and I decided to look it up.

“This is the nature of my road trips alone: I often go toward a destination, but find that a more suitable destination presents itself along the way.”

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This is why it’s very hard to book lodging when I’m on a road trip… or even have an estimated date of arrival. A friend of mine used to say, “Don’t leave fun to have fun somewhere else,” and when you’re on a road trip, everywhere is somewhere else except exactly where you are.

I parked and saw that people were apparently on an audio tour, which was the only way you could get in (and good thing, too, since I would have absolutely not known what I was looking at otherwise).

The audio tour is a BONKERS EXPENSIVE $44 and they expect you to use your own phone and headphones (my phone was out of batteries and my headphones were in the car, so they loaned me an mp3 player and some headphones), and I’m VERY glad I didn’t know that in advance, because there’s no way I would have gone.

That would have been foolish.

My trip to Taliesin West was so inspiring and delightful. Heck, my trip to Taliesin West was one of the reasons I was inspired to revive my travel and photography Instagram account and even create this blog!

“Regular visits to inspiring places are important. Not ‘important’ as in ‘I’ll go to an inspiring place when I get the chance,’ but ‘important’ as in ‘this is your creative food and also your job, so get your ass over there and BE INSPIRED, GODDAM IT.'”

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Making the time and spending the money to go to inspiring places — often, to me, seeing the work of other creative people — gives me a kind of permission to open the window to my own creativity.

Creative people who are confident enough to COMMIT to their creativity… Creative people who make no excuses for their own work and unique vision… Creative people who do not apologize for being “weird” because they’re not being “weird,” they’re being visionary. Creative people who invest in their craft and do not squander their talents under the struggle against the oppression of the way things are… they respect themselves and their vision. They respect themselves and their efforts.

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.

Clint Eastwood

And not everyone will like them or their work, but that doesn’t diminish its value or worthiness, especially for the people who appreciate it.

It is important for creative people like you and me that we can observe this and be in the presence of the fruits of these creative labors. And eventually maybe we will someday inspire creative self-respect for others.

Be well and do good work,
Danielle