Where Do You Get Your Inspiration?

It’s a quiet Sunday morning (except for my barking dog on the front deck). I have just posted my Sunday Evening Art Gallery blog about an artist from South Korea who paints whimsical landscapes and, although I know she went on a 673-day journey across five continents and 46 countries, I wonder what inspired her to paint a snow white horse with trees on its neck or a green grassy door that opens to a snowy world.

I think many of us get wild ideas for doing creative things. Lots of What If’s. Most of them we pass on for a variety of reasons: it’s too crazy; I can’t afford the materials; I’m not really clear on the idea; I don’t have the right color pencils or yarn. 

I can see landscapes inspiring painters and fashion inspiring designers. I can see photography of anything imaginable leading to unique images and ancient scrolls inspiring calligraphy.

But what inspires artists like Meg Hitchcock to use type from sacred texts to create optical designs? What inspires Freya Jobbins to make heads out of baby doll parts? Or deconstructed vases by Michael Boroniec?  Who thinks of photographing iron filings clinging to magnetic fields like Zac Henderson? Who comes up with an installation art idea of desk lamps running up the hill like Rune Guneriussen? What inspires a transformation of an apple into playful sculptures like Can Sun? Or paint your face in a dozen bizarre evolutions like Dain Yoon?

Where in the world do they come up with these ideas??

I am always amazed by people and their inspiration, and the way their moment can be transformed into something totally out of the box.

I don’t always get what others get when it comes to figuring out an artist’s motivation and direction. But I do appreciate their determination to follow through on whatever hunch or thought they had to get where they were going.

If that makes sense.

I encourage you to try something you’ve always wondered about but were afraid to tackle. Who cares if it makes the Art Biennale of Venice art show or not? It’s a freeing feeling to go whole hog on something not everyone will understand. Even better if people DO understand what you’re doing!

I’m soooo tempted to do something pop art and textured with glued pop can tabs and a gold rhinestone or two and zig zags and …..

Slow down or go for it?  Or Add it to the list?

 

 

Faerie Paths — Dessert

 

 

Dessert is like a cloud that melts in your mouth.

~ Jodi Picoult

 

 

 

Random Thoughts and Flat Apple Pie

~ The ‘Let’s Write That Book!’ blog series is starting Sunday, November 17th — not 16th — as this editor realized. And I’m the one heading the series …. sheeh….

 

~ Second wonderful day of retirement and I’m feeling sick and worn out. I wonder if that’s a psychological letdown or a medical paradox? I still feel like I’m on vacation and have to report to duty next Monday. That always made me feel sick…

 

~ Don’t teach your dog to bark at squirrels in the bird feeder if you don’t let them bark 24-7. My husband taught (as a joke) and we’ve been joking at 6 a.m. for the past few months. Now that I can sleep in it’s not so funny.

 

~ We dropped our Dish TV subscription and have been living through Amazon Prime and a pretty decent TV antenna. I have to watch my favorite TV shows through my computer hooked up to the TV now, which I don’t mind, but I’m finding I am caring less and less about all those TV shows that I had  to keep up with when I had DISH. I’d rather listen to music or watch Chinese TV series with English subtitles now. Strange turn.

 

~ The further I get from actually going to Paris, the further I am getting from writing book about going. I am hoping this is a temporary pause due to real life circumstances, but all the research and daydreams and twists in the story just make me tired.

 

~ Writing is making me tired.

 

~ I have to learn to cook all over again. With hubby on night shift and me coming home before he leaves, either he’s cooked and left it for me or I was on my own for dinner. Cans of ravioli aside, I haven’t tried to be Julia Child in quite a while.

 

~ Do you go through ebbs and flows like this too? Does time bring you back where you want to be? 

 

~ Think I’ll go make a Flat Apple Pie. Dessert is good for the soul.