A big part of making decisions is determining what our actions and choices have been inspired by. So we asked decision makers from the community to tell us about what they are inspired by.

Patrick McGrath-Muñiz | Visual Artist

Inspiration for me comes mainly from past memories, from world history, ancient myths and the amalgation of these elements in art. Read more>>

Krystal Ruiz | Wedding and Portrait Photographer

As cliche as it sounds, people. The reason I love portraits and wedding photography is because I get the chance to learn about different people and their lives, and document the important moments. Knowing my clients have that trust in me to tell their individual story is such a great feeling. Every couple I shoot are different in their own ways and it’s such a fun experience to get to know them and make sure their personalities shine through their photos. Read more>>

Kim Ritter | Artist, Author, Curator and Art Car Driver

My new series “Women of the Wild Wes”t are artworks inspired my unique place in history. Born in 1956, I was instilled with an awareness of the wild west history of my family in Oklahoma, grew up on stories about Marshalls, Sheriffs and Native Americans who in habited the legends and history of my family. Overlaid on my own history was the myths of the Old West in movies and on TV. Simultaneously, I was witnessing the race to space, the rumors of UFO’s and the televising of sci-fi series like Star Trek. we played in a world of jumbled imagery. Super heroes, police, robbers, Native Americans, cowboys, astronauts and aliens might all appear in our make-believe playtime. In a time when kids didn’t have many toys, we used what motley props we could assemble: homemade wooden swords and slingshots, secret decoder rings, ray guns, cork guns, and x-ray eyeglasses. Read more>>

Joni Zavitsanos | Artist

I am most inspired by the connections I make with people through my art. In the case of my latest project, I became quite passionate about learning more of the lives lost to COVID-19 in my city. From mid to late March, I kept hearing news reporters give statistics of the deaths in our area. They read and felt like a cold, impersonal scenario. I wondered who these people were that were dying alone, without family, without funeral, without a final send off from a hopeless virus that no one knew how to cure. So I began looking them up. I have spent literally thousands of hours on the internet and reading my local Houston Chronicle cover to cover in order to find these people and their families. Their stories are heart-breaking, but they are real, and this inspires me to want to honor their loved ones. I want to give them a proper memorial service and I want their families to find some kind of closure in that their loved ones are not forgotten. Their memories will be remembered through this tribute. Read more>>