Hi, I’m Tish. If a woman could be a glitter bomb, well then it would look just like me.

I’m an author, artist, entrepreneur, photographer, idea collector, and enthusiastic connector of dots that don’t always look like they belong together. 

Tishspiration grew from that same instinct: notice something wonderful, follow the unexpected thought, create something from it—and add a little extra into every ordinary day.

In my heart, I believe creativity doesn’t have to be perfect, kindness doesn’t have to be complicated, and some of the best things happen when you’re willing to surprise yourself with what you can do when you decide to try.

Spread Kindness. Create Boldly. Surprise Yourself.

I’ve always been a dreamer, with an abundance of creativity and imagination. But there was a point in my life when I found myself wondering what had happened to some of the dreams I once had and whether I was willing to keep putting them aside.

I could have settled back into the familiar routine. Instead, I started wondering what else might be possible.

So I started creating.

It began with a blog. I was an avid reader exploring the world of writing, and initially I wanted somewhere to share my song lyrics in hopes of finding someone interested in a musical collaboration. Then I was challenged about starting a blog without actually wanting to be a blogger.

So I became one.

And something delightful happened: the more I allowed my creativity to flow, the happier I became.

Writing led to more writing. Eventually I bought a domain name for my pen name, Tish MacWebber, and I began taking my writing more seriously. When I lost a dear friend who had always believed in my talent, grief gave me another reason to stop waiting. I published my first book in her honour.

And somewhere in that ridiculous, joyful, completely-outside-my-comfort-zone experience, something clicked.

It wasn’t about whether Janet Jackson chose me.

I challenged myself to do something I didn’t think I could do... and then I surprised myself by actually doing it.

Something I have always known about myself is that I am full of surprises. Until this very moment, I did not know what to call the gift I have to surprise everyone, including myself, with what I can do when I try.

I knew that feeling needed a name.

The Art of Surprising Yourself

That name became:

Tishspiration.

I created the word, defined what it meant to me, and eventually wrote #Tishspiration: The Art of Surprising Yourself.

But Tishspiration became bigger than a word, a definition, or even a book.

It became a way of looking at possibilities.

It’s about trying the thing you aren’t completely sure you can do. Following your wandering thoughts. Letting yourself create. Moving toward something you want even when you don’t have the entire route mapped out.

And somewhere along the way, I realized that surprising yourself doesn’t always have to involve something enormous—or involve auditioning to be a backup dancer for a global superstar. (I would totally do it again, though. Even if I still dance like Tish, not like Janet.)

Sometimes it’s making something you didn’t know you could make.

Sometimes it’s being brave enough to begin.

And sometimes it’s simply reaching the other side of something and thinking:

Wait. I actually did that.

Tishspiration is still a continual journey for me. I’m still creating, experimenting, chasing my curiosity, changing directions, dreaming bigger, and discovering new ways to surprise myself.

The difference now is that I get to invite other people to see what happens when they start surprising themselves, too.

Spread Kindness Creatively.  Be The Surprise!

When I asked a friend to join me in a sunflower maze for a photo shoot, neither of us expected to capture the image that would become the cover of #Tishspiration: The Art of Surprising Yourself.

We went there to be creative and, hopefully, find a cover photo.

At one point he stopped and said, “Wait, what did you just do there?”

I had no idea.

I asked if we needed to look through the camera so I could figure it out and recreate the pose. He said no, because was sure I would know the picture when I found it later.

He was right.

That photograph captured exactly what I wanted Tishspiration to feel like: me caught mid-thought, leaving you wondering what I was thinking—and what surprising thing I might do next.

And now, years later, here I am in another sunflower field, holding the book that I wrote,  smiling at my husband behind a different camera.

I grew up in Cape Breton and went to school in Inverness.

Years later, I returned with my camera and found myself capturing something beautiful: a rainbow stretching across the sky near Inverness Beach.

That photograph became the beginning of the Tishspiration Rainbow Collection.

And it became my first art collection for a reason.

I was bullied when I was in school.

The school I attended has since been demolished. The building is gone, but the feelings I carried from those years didn't disappear along with it.

Now, as an adult, I have a choice about what I do with them.

I don't want to carry the hurt, anger, negativity, and awful feelings forever. I want to grow beyond them. I want to find forgiveness in my own heart. Not because what happened didn't matter, and not because I've magically reached a place where none of it hurts anymore.

I haven't.

But at some point, I need to find a way to release what I've been carrying.

For me, creating the Tishspiration Rainbow Collection is one step toward doing that.

There is something incredibly meaningful to me about taking a photograph of Inverness—a place connected to difficult memories—and using it to show the beauty I can still find there.

Instead of giving more energy to what hurt me, I can create something beautiful.

I can share it.

Photography has become one of the ways I do that.

The woman you see in the Tishspiration logo has a name, too: Patricia, my legal first name.

Patricia represents me in this creative world—the photographer and businesswoman behind Tishspiration, taking the things I see through my camera and finding new ways to create with them and share them with you.

She is part of the reason Spread Kindness Creatively isn't simply a phrase beneath my logo. It's something I'm trying to put into practice through the things I make and the business I'm building.

Through what I create, I can give something back to the community where part of my story began.

And maybe, somewhere along the way, I can help someone else look at the things they've carried and discover their own way of moving through them.

That is what spreading kindness creatively means to me.

It isn't pretending the difficult things never happened. It's choosing what I want to put into the world because they did.

And I want that choice to reach beyond my own healing.

Ending bullying has always been part of the bigger vision I have for Tishspiration. I don't know exactly what shape that work will ultimately take yet, but I know that I want what I create here to contribute to it.

That's where Angel Donations comes in.

Agnes is my middle name. It came from my paternal grandmother, who passed away before I was born. I never had the chance to meet her, but I like to believe she's in heaven watching over me.

As I work on my passion projects, claim some very big dreams, and turn the things I imagine into things that actually exist, I hope she would smile.

I hope she would be proud of me.

And I especially hope she would be proud that part of what I'm building is meant to reach beyond me and help other people.

It felt right to give Agnes a place in the creative world I've built, too. She represents Angel Donations and the part of Tishspiration devoted to turning creativity, kindness, and the success of this work into something that can make a difference.

I don't have every detail of that future figured out yet.

But I know where I want it to lead.

I want to help people heal. I want to spread kindness creatively. And I want to do my part toward something that may sound impossibly big: ending bullying forever.

That's the dream.

And this rainbow is where I'm beginning.

Preview images are watermarked. Purchased digital artwork is delivered without the preview watermark.