I am apparently thought-provoking. Whodathunkit. Paula (The Quilter) tagged me as a blog that makes her think thoughtful thoughts and has awarded me a Thinking Blogger award. She very kindly also included a link explaining the concept of the Thinking Blogger Awards, which I pass along here for those curious enough to follow just one more link. Paula is a fiber blogger, which means that she’s both into making things with fibres (quilts, woolen items, etc.) and is also good for your bloggal digestive system. I read her blog regularly and am delighted to hear that she reads mine.

Anyway, one of the apparent duties of being honorifically dubbed A Thinking Blogger is to, well, um…. think. I have to think about who makes me think and post links. This is starting to sound like a “yink who drinks pink ink” post, so without further ado, I pass along the torch. The five top bloggers who regularly make me stop, look up further information, process new ideas and thoughts and move in a specific direction are (in no particular order, but with annotations as to why I find them relevant):

1. Christine Kane, who has no idea of who I am but regularly gives me little pep talks when I most need them and a kick in the pants when I deserve those, too. Specifically at the forefront of my mind at present is her post “Business Advice for Artists and Sensitive People”, which was also linked to by another blog that I read regularly (my next in the list),
2. Alyson Stanfield (Art Biz Blog), whose advice is often overwhelming, but generally very good. If there were more hours in the day, I’d do more of what she recommends.
3. Debra Roby (A Stitch in Time & Deb’s Daily Distractions) – specifically her post about Vanishing, which has stuck with me and replayed itself in my mind a lot lately.
4. Melissa of FabricDyeing101 and Empress of Dirt, who dyes and gardens in the mercurial Canadian environs and provides inspiration, helpful advice and unwitting reassurance that it is possible to do both, be a mother and stay mostly sane.
5. John Gushue (Dot Dot Dot) and Robert Hiscock (RJProduct). I honestly couldn’t choose here. They both provide excellent local content that reminds me that there’s a world outside my studio. John’s daily quotes have come at disconcertingly accurate times on occasion, while his historical info never fails to make me think. Robert lets me know about upcoming events and other creative forces at work in this province, which providing some excellent photographic inspiration and connections to other remarkable people. I couldn’t pick between them….

There are others that make me think, of course, but that’s the short list off the top of my head at present. I tried to keep it somewhat work-related, too, simply to narrow the field a little. The information for those thus nominated is included below. I rather shamelessly just cut and pasted the following:
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From Ilker’s blog:

Congratulations, you won a

Should you choose to participate, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging. I thought it would be appropriate to include them with the meme.

The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.