The Secret Garden in My Mind

 How creating an inspiration board showed me that identity is a collage

(Ella Silverman/New Wave Zine)

Above my desk hangs a patchwork of greyscale images and floral magnets that I call my “Secret Garden board.” It’s a tactile mood board flooded with photos, illustrations, logos and words—anything that turns the gears in my creative brain. 

I put the board together while stuck in an artistic rut. Drowning in a sea of English assignments all semester, writing for myself was put on the backburner. I couldn’t remember the last time I cracked open a book that wasn’t homework or put on a movie purely for entertainment. I procrastinated on any creative projects until the inspiration dried up. I hadn’t written a poem in months. My symphony of muses was silent. 

It was a tepid but bright day in Apr. 2024. Taylor Swift had just dropped The Tortured Poets Department, which got me the closest I had been to inspired in a long time. In the chorus of “I Hate It Here,” she sings the lyrics “I will go to secret gardens in my mind.” I started to wonder what the secret garden in my own mind would look like. It would be a place filled with all my most cherished interests: poetry, dance and music; along with all the people who inspire me: writers, athletes, singers and choreographers. I decided to translate it into a mood board. 

My first step was to scour Pinterest and start the soft copy of my board. I saved pictures of every influential person I could think of. I combed through my previously compiled boards for my favourite poetry. Keeping to the secret garden theme, I sourced drawings of flowers and plants that could fill the space between. 

I carefully arranged each printed image—edited into muted black and white tones—on a framed whiteboard canvas and hung it above my desk.  

If you cracked open my skull, this is what the inside of my brain would look like: the writers that influence my work and the role models that inform my actions. There’s Dawn Staley, University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach, arms lifted in victory; Marsha P. Johnson, LGBTQ+ activist, holding a flag that says “GAY LOVE;” a fragment of a Sappho poem. It helps tremendously to have those muses carefully pasted into my space, so I can always look at them and remember what moves me. 

Putting this board together, I realized that humans are collages. We have multiple interests, hobbies, goals; likes, dislikes and obsessions. Part of what makes my work unique is my eclectic mosaic of inspirations. Combining different elements of culture, art and literature drives my writing. My interests don’t have to fit seamlessly together. Instead, they make up a patchwork quilt. Inspiration can come from any avenue.

Since I was displaying this board in a place where I do most of my writing, I first tried to focus on literary idols. But I realized my influences for writing and for life are intertwined. I’m equally inspired by the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team as I am by the writings of famous poets. The grit and tenacity of women athletes—their ability to persevere through injuries and big losses—motivates me just as much as the delicate prose of my favourite writers. That’s why I pasted a picture of Las Vegas Aces center A’ja Wilson next to author and theorist bell hooks. 

Music is also a huge creativity stimulus. I can’t write without a good song playing in the background. I included pictures of some of my favourite artists. Not just those whose music I enjoy, but those whose stories impel me—Tracy Chapman, Stevie Nicks, Adele, Whitney Houston, smiling with her debut record, Frank Ocean posed in front of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. And albums: Beyoncé's Lemonade and Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville.

My Secret Garden board is a visual escape. It helped to sit down and compile my top interests into a physical collage I can look at when I need a glimpse into my own individuality. I use the board for inspiration for everything, like finding motivation to write a long assignment or seeking a spark to work on a personal creative project.  

I’ve been adding on to the Secret Garden board since I started it. Right now, I’m at a point where I make only deliberate additions. In one of my classes, I learned about William Pope.L, a performance artist who crawled the length of New York City’s longest street to draw attention to the city’s desensitization to homelessness. His picture sits below the door to the secret garden. 

Lately, I’ve been scribbling song lyrics on neon sticky notes and adding them around the edges of the frame. I’m not as averse to a pop of colour as I was when I first made the board.

I might get to a point where I have to take things off of the board or at least rearrange to create space for new printouts—God bless sticky tack. I’m starting to run out of room; some photos have to hang off the edges of the canvas. My goal remains to fill the board entirely, overlapping images and eliminating any open space. 

Even though I tried to make it thorough and diverse, this board is not all-encompassing. You can’t fit an entire person onto a 45 x 55 cm whiteboard. For me, mood boards work best when they are specific. Just like how I would never make a playlist with every single song I have ever liked, I prefer to create smaller and more compact compilations—“summer barbecue 2021” or songs where the “chorus is a love song but the rest isn’t”. 

Though it is more concrete than a Pinterest board, I have accepted that my Secret Garden is in flux. It's not a rulebook that I must adhere to or a foundation I build my life around. It’s simply a visual representation of what tugs at the corners of my mind at this specific time in my life. As I change, I’ll let it change with me.