The Thirteen Best Places in Sydney to Get Inspired

Sometimes the ideas just ain't flowin'. You want the paragraphs to flow freely. You'd like that band to start itself. You'd appreciate if your inner Iron Chef would just come out already. Sometimes it takes a little inspiration to get the creative juices flowing, but you've got to know where to start the quest.

Teaming up with our buds at Kirin — who've just unleashed a whole ton of creative collaboration with their newest line of inspired cider — we've trawled through Sydney's alleyways, secret music venues and fresh food markets to find the best spots in the city to get inspired. After a tour through these babies you'll have enough inspiration to found All The Labels, write All The Plays and master All The Sous Vide. Get amongst it.

For Street Artists: Mays Lane

Street artists with a slight writer's block should scoot over to Mays Lane in Petersham. The legal graffiti thoroughfare is somewhat of a Mecca for Sydney graf crews. Take design cues, find your own spot of wall and get painting — knowing the po-po won't shut you down.

For Art Enthusiasts: Alaska Projects

Budding artists and curators, if you're lacking for inspiration in the art department the team at Alaska Projects will make you rethink Everything. Turning curatorial endeavours on their head and finding a regular exhibition space in the Kings Cross carpark, AP specialise in installation projects, performances, talks and straight-up gallery hangs that make you revisualise possibility. Plus, they throw killer openings — solid frosting.

For Design Addicts: Koskela

Feeling uninspired by your less-than-stylin' apartment? Learn how to make your abode look like one o' dem glossy magazines at Koskela. The Roseberry-based furniture and homewares company not only sells the slickest home-wants in the business, they also run baller workshops. Take Gemma Patford's rope basket workshop, or dye your hand at the Shibori indigo dyeing workshop. You'll be holding your own crafternoons in no time.

For DIY Go-getters: Work-Shop

Holding your little paw while you step outside your comfort zone, Work-Shop is your gateway to inspiration for all those projects you've either put off or haven't even thought of yet. With 89 artists teaching 103 programs, Work-Shop can teach you everything from how to make kickass kimchi to making your own bottle lamp. Want to do public speaking like a boss? Always yearned to make origami jewellery? Feeling like you're the next big street artist? There's a class for that. Peruse The Makery to check out the pure genius you could be.

For Fashion Fiends: Somedays

Feeling the need for a creative impetus on more levels than one? Fusing fashion and art in a nifty retail/exhibition loft space, the Somedays crew know what's up when it comes to the designers, photography, collections, art and cider-fuelled launches you should know about. Whether it be reams of jeans in store or entire exhibitions of live music photography, Somedays will leave you wanting to seize creativity by the haunches and make your own mark.

For Culinary Wizards: Gastro Park

In case you haven’t heard by now, Gastro Park is as inspiring as food gets. Food lovers around Sydney are fixated on how bad the name is and how incredible the food is.The slogan rings true: Gastro Park is indeed 'a fairground of deliciousness'. They'll take a spot of snapper and craft it into a modernist delight. They'll construct an entire dinner themed around Game of Thrones, with edible candles and handwritten letters to boot. If this place doesn't inspire you to get innovative with your own culinary masterpieces, you haven't ordered enough calamari crackling.

For Unstoppable Gardeners: Wendy's Secret Garden

Perfect for finding perspective and gaining some creative inspiration from one of the greats, Wendy's Secret Garden is a small testament to heartbreak hidden amongst the skyscrapers that line the city's foreshore. The garden was created by Wendy Whiteley, the wife of one of Australia's most celebrated artists, Brett Whiteley. After Brett's death of a heroin-overdose in 1992, Wendy got hold of the derelict land adjacent to their house and restored the grounds, transforming it into a beautiful, secluded space laced by winding paths, fig trees, antiques and esoterica all against the backdrop of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Hard not to get a little inspired here.

For Budding Twangers: Hibernian House

Are you a solo guitar-touting musician with not a songwriting idea in your little ol' dome? Head along to a gig at Hibernian House and you'll be scrawling and twanging in no time. Home to reams of lit candles, intimate 'stage' space, actual residents and all the lounge roomy vibes, the not-so-secret-anymore Hibernian House has long been a staple of the unconventional, always rewarding gig roster.

For Architecture Tragics: Rose Seidler House

Architectural inspiration comes from the most unlikely of places, but why not force the point and wander through the modernist hallways of the iconic Rose Seidler House in Wahroonga. Open on Sundays for a small $8 entry fee, you can check out designs by iconic mid 20th-century designers Charles Eames, Eero Saarinen and Ferrari-Hardoy, and Harry Seidler himself — then run around the garden for a spell, crack open a cider and redesign your own dream house when you get home.

For Pantry Raiders: Bondi Farmers Market

If you're keen to get creative with the possibilities of pickling, the potential of pastry art or just creating something different for dinner, Bondi Farmers Market is your inspiring produce hub. A super chilled Saturday venture for many a Bondi local, the markets take over Bondi Beach Public School (including the canteen) with seasonal produce, organic meats, homemade jams and honey, baked goods, cheeses, olive oils, fresh flowers, street food and live music, with some vintage fashion and countless local pups thrown in for good measure. You'll be unleashing creative fury on your pantry in no time.

For Crate Diggers: Title

Sick of your Spotify playlists? Want to get in to some real crate digging? Crown Street's Title store is full of inspiring and unexpected little gems that are as niche as they come. Run by Fuse Music upstairs, Title has all your restorations, reissues and limited editions to reinvigorate your love for tunes. Justin Vernon buys his records here when he's in Sydney, so if it's good enough for Bon Iver it's good enough for us.

For Antique Aficionados: Doug Up on Bourke

Antiquing has never been so fly. Boasting one of the largest collections of rustic antiques and hardcore collectables in Sydney today, Waterloo's Doug Up on Bourke is a bonafide treasure trove of everything you never knew you needed. Find inspiration for your latest interior design project, or just brighten up your drab old lounge room with some vintage bowling pins, wooden hot dog stands or antique merry-go-round horses.

For Multi-Hat Wearers: 107 Projects

Redfern's most versatile creative space is simply made for inspiring. One of Sydney's best spots for new, innovative theatre, book launches, exhibitions, food pop-ups, performances and general creative collaboration, 107 Projects ticks many a potential-realising box.

Now you're sufficiently inspired, reward yourself with a crispy beverage — check out Kirin's range of Japanese-inspired ciders over here.

Top image: sexyninjamonkey via photopin cc.