Where does inspiration come from? Artists that have come before you? Color palettes that sing? Home decor? Fonts? Food? Fortune cookies? All of it. Inspiration fascinates me because I have learned, ok, am constantly learning with an “ing” that inspiration doesn’t really exist before the art, it exists within the doing of the art. I can have hunches and inclinations and a knowing that certain topics, colors, ideas light me up but not one of them will surface until I meet it half way.
Take Schooner. I had this sea and sky background painted for weeks, sort of loved it in it’s simplicity, even thought of leaving it that way but felt I lacked the “professional” polish to get away with something as simple as an ocean scape. It needed something to live on and in it. I wanted a mermaid and a whale. Bad. I have googled and researched more mermaids and whales than is probably normal or necessary but there you go. And within doing that, one single image that I wasn’t looking for at all, popped up and literally “clicked” with my brain. That’s it. A schooner. The quote came later, easily, found with little effort as if it had been patiently waiting for me to find this ship to paint. And that’s what I call process.
I am headed to my studio today. That will require me getting out of bed to walk down my hallway into the living room. That sounds easy enough but in between there will be laundry, dishes, bizarre amounts of paper that accumulate in untidy mounds and a mystery ball of cat fur that resembles a tumbleweed. So now the vacuum is involved in this little scenario. All of it is necessary and a form of me resisting getting to where I need to go and forgetting that inspiration only hits when I’m physically plugged into the action socket. Right. That is why this topic continually fascinates me because I forget. I forget daily and need a constant reminder, in writing, painting, exercise, whatever it is that we make a practice, that I am the divining rod. My schooner mast can only get struck by lightning if I’m out sailing in the wind. xo
