Do you consciously go looking for inspiration or is it usually serendipitous? Do you find inspiration mostly when you are adventuring out in the world, like on trips or day excursions, or is your source primarily online or in books or magazines? Maybe you find it in the people you know or your everyday world, the place you live and the things around you? Most importantly, how do you hold onto those inspirations so they’re ready for you when you need them?
In this episode, I share with you a new practice for not just finding inspiration but recording and using it in the studio. Learn to develop a ready source of inspiration that comes from recognizing your aesthetics, motivations, and joys because in doing so, you tap into your unique artistic eye and feed your unique artistic voice.
Other Resources mentioned:
Matthew Dicks:
https://www.youtube.com/@matthewjohndicks
Random image sources:
https://www.generatormix.com/random-image-generator
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CREDITS:
Cover design & sketch by Sage; Illustration by Olga Kostenko
Music by Playsound
Transcript:
–AI transcribed, unedited. Please excuse the copious errors.–
What you’re doing is training yourself to look and see inspiration wherever and whenever you are, so it’s not going to be about finding a real gem of inspiration every day you will find gems because you’ll be looking for them…
Hello all my fabulous and patient creatives out there. Thank you for joining me on the Sage Arts podcast. This is sage and we are back after an extended time off due to puppy recovery and a couple of other things I really thought I was only going to do a 2 month break. But somewhere in the middle of July, if at great get to get back to you guys, I really miss doing this and we took river there a dog in for a check up on her surgeries and one of her elbows was not doing what it was supposed to do and she had to have another surgery. So she is about 5 weeks out. Of a second surgery on her right elbow just now, without all the casts and the cones and all the stuff that we had to have on her constantly to take care of her. So the puppy care or stuff is lightening up a little bit. But it’s still. It’s a lot of work. It’s it’s amazing how much that little creature who can’t go anywhere or do anything and has to stay in a crate. The time really takes up a lot of time and serious energy, but in any case, This is why I didn’t jump back in August anyways. She has a check up in a few days, like a final set of X-rays to see if it took well this time and it better have the poor creature. I just feels so horrible for you. She’s 11 months old, so she’s been most for puppyhood. In surgery and casts and all this stuff. So we are also ready for her to be able to just get out and do her. And there’s still several more months of physical therapy and whatnot, but at least I think it should calm down here. That is my hope. So I’m getting back on board. I’ve really missed you guys. I really missed getting connected to you getting those emails and the feedback and those things that always really keep me motivated. So one of the things I. Did get to do over this kind of time off since sitting with the dog and not being in the office has. Been something that I did a lot of. I was reading a lot more. I was getting through that pile of books on my night stand. Do you? Guys have that just. Think I’m going to read these and it doesn’t happen, but yeah, so I was getting to do more reading and one of the things I read was a book called Story Worthy. It’s by a professional storyteller. I don’t know if you knew that, that that’s a thing. It’s actually a thing. A professional storyteller named Matthew. 6 I actually found out about this guy through a podcast about podcasting, and I found his explanation of storytelling just really fascinating, not just because of its interest to me as a writer, but because the things that he does to develop his stories and finds his stories in everyday. Life seemed applicable to so many other areas. Beyond being a storyteller, hearing about his process, one big part of it at least, really got the Gears of mind turning more than usual. And that’s saying something. And I came up with this whole idea that translates what he does for storytellers, along with some tried and true. Practices that I see artists do into something I think could be a really wonderful experience and tool for artists. It’s a kind of exercise that will help you find inspiration, identify the types of inspiration most valuable to you, and allow you to remember and recall what you saw so you can use it when you actually are sitting down and about to create. I think it’s going to be kind of a surprising exercise. I know it was for me, especially when you discover that patterns that you have, like what inspiration that you are drawn to and where you find it, and then I’m going to encourage you to dig down to the core of what inspires you. So that’s what it was for me. I hope this idea is going to be something of that sort for you. But before we get into that, as I mentioned, you know, I love being connected to you and getting feedback and hearing what you think it’s what keeps my motor running because I just want to make a positive difference in this world. And hearing from all of you affirms the importance and usefulness of what I’m offering. So if you want to drop me a note, or even if you have suggestions for what you’d like to hear or what I can do better, I’m all for it. You can reach out to me on the website, asasagearts.com on Instagram or Facebook through direct messages or posts, or if you get the newsletter, just respond directly to it and that will send an e-mail to me. If you’re not already on the newsletter. By the way, you can sign up for it. On the homepage of the sagearts.com, just look for the news and notices button. There the newsletter, by the way, lets you know when new episodes are out, and it also provides you with any additional materials or visuals or links or anything that might aid in the understanding of the subject matter for the that particular podcast that. Week and if you find value and get jazz after listening to these episodes, you can give back through a one time or monthly donation. You’ll find links or buttons to my PayPal page that’s good for monthly donations as well as single donations and buy me a coffee account as well. Good for single. Donations. You can find those in the show notes. Of of this episode or any episode, and on the homepage of the sagearts.com, just Scroll down a little bit on the website to find those links for PayPal and buy me a copy. OK, let’s get down to the fun business. I’d like to start as I do with questions for you, I want you to think about your sources of inspiration. Where do you get them from? What kind of inspiration do you tend to pull in? Do you consciously go looking for it, or is it usually serendipitous? Do you find inspiration mostly when you are? Venturing out in the world like on, you know, trips or day excursions? Or is it like primarily online or in books? Or do you find it in your everyday world in the place that you live in, the things that are around? And lastly, do you record your inspirations when you find them, or do you just see what sticks and falls out when you get into the studio? So let’s take a moment just to really think about that. You know, where do you usually find inspiration and how do you hold on to it? What kind of recall do you have for the things that you find out in the world? For me, it can be literally anywhere and anything. For inspiration, and I’m guessing that’s true to some extent for a lot of us, but my primary sources are somewhat dependent on my medium that I’m working with at the time. So with polymer photography, because I’m a texture and pattern feeding, it’s a lot of close up stuff like tree bark and age skin or the veins of cabbage leaves or rusted steel. Insect wings, plant roots, or the center of flower is really big on that, or it’s patterns from very far away. Like you know, winter trees against the cloudy sky. Are the ombre change of color in mourning hills or maybe the lines of rivers and mountains as seen from a? Plane. But back when I was doing photorealistic drawing many many moons ago, it was the human body. Really unusual lips really grabbed me. Prominent noses, elderly hands, scars especially scars because they have stories behind them. Now to my experiences that I just mentioned because I was. Trying to push you a. Little bit, did that bring you? Any thoughts up for you on what you tend to gravitate towards? I was really honestly just rattling up that stuff off to give you time to think about what you do. If you have the luxury right now, you might even pause the podcast for a few minutes. Think about where you get your inspiration from. Maybe jot down a few thoughts. Think about how you record your inspiration before you actually use it in your creative process, and that will give you a focus to kind of root to the ideas. That I’m going to talk about today and with that in mind, let’s move on to this exercise challenge thing that I can. Up with it’s not some kind of groundbreaking thing. I’m not one of those people who’s going to tell you this is going to change your life or whatnot. I think it could have the potential to do that, but I think for most of us, it’s going to be a tool that will help us if we put the work into it because it is going to take some time and solid work to get to those payoff. But I think the paths are going to be immense for those that really get into it, and especially for you people who have trouble either staying focused or struggle a lot with artistic blocks. So earlier this year I was repairing a fence, as I do, trying to get myself jazzed up to go and record a podcast. And it’s not, honestly, not ever a problem with. Having enough enthusiasm for doing the. Podcast. But we were doing all this work on the yard and it was taking up so much of my focus that I was having a hard time shifting gears. And when that happens, what I usually do is I go and listen to a podcast or watch YouTube videos or even read a book associated with the subject or the tasks that I need to do. And I then get really revved up about it because I’m putting my mind in the right type of. Space. The right type of subject matter and hearing other people’s ideas. That generates my own ideas and it gets me excited. And then it’s just really a little hop from listening or reading that information to doing it myself. I’m not sure that works for everybody, but I guess that for most creatives, since we are idea people that it would help a lot of you. So if you’re lacking that natural motivation to do the creative work that you need to do, read something or listen to something that has to do with what you’re trying to do and see if it doesn’t get you into the place you need to be to put the energy and joy into the work and have fun doing it. So yes, there was fixing fence pulling out a piece of rotted 2 by 4, and this podcaster brings on this guest, Matthew *****, and he starts telling these little stories that were really engaging just little things like watching his 12 year old daughter set the table and realizing how seriously she took the responsibility. And in that he could see that she was on the verge of adulthood. He told it much better than I just did, or he had this one. He’s walking his dog in the middle of the night without a shirt on and it started to rain and it kind of brought out his inner. Child and then he explained that he got these little gems of a story from doing something he calls homework for life. And what this is is this little observation makes every day something that he experienced that stood out some story. He was a part of or observed and was moved by and he writes it down every day he finds. One thing in this day that could be the seed for a story and what impressed me. Other than that he was finding seeds for stories every day of his life and even doing it for like I think 6 years at the time. So it’s like, what, like 2000 little? Story seeds, which that’s a lot. What it did? Was it helped him become more aware of his world, of his life and and what’s important to him. And it’s a pretty big result for something that requires just a little bit of time every night and just to write down a couple of sentences and that’s all he does. He just has a spreadsheet. He writes a couple of short sentences on what it is that. Be observed and so it’s quick and. Easy to do. And through these observations he has gleaned and created 500 stories that he tells at his various events or classes. Now I know some of you are already starting to think you know what does telling stories have to do with my artwork or you’re thinking I don’t tell stories with my art. I just make pretty things. Or maybe I just try to make whatever’s in my head, or I just like to play with the material and make whatever I’m inspired to make in the moment. And of course you do. And of course, that’s legitimate and valuable and a wonderful part. Of the art we make as human beings. But what you make is almost certainly going to be drawn from your observations of the world around you. The things you experience, the things you think, the conversations you’ve had, and the stories you’ve heard. You may not reproduce any of these things directly or in an obvious way, but what you create is influenced by your life experiences. And so I got to thinking about how this homework for life stuff, this daily practice of really kind of mindfulness. And how can that be applied to every type of creativity with just, you know, maybe some kind of little tweak or two? And the first thing that came to mind when considering how this might apply to visual artists were the challenges that some artists do that you see online on social media. They often do something for 100 days or there’s a three month. Challenge our whole year challenge where they not necessarily every day, every day or every week or whatever, they create a specific type of thing or do a specific type of work and then they as you share it on social media to get them accountable and those things work for a lot of people because they. Give those creatives a level of accountability that they don’t have when working alone in their studio or at the computer, or whatever their creative space is. But the other more important aspect in regards to what I’m thinking of is that these challenges give the artists a goal and something to work towards with a limited time frame in a very specific set of criteria. And because those creatives have time frames and limitations, they’re probably constantly thinking about what they’ll do next and looking for ideas in all kinds of areas they might not have looked. Before those regular and constantly looming goals force them to push their ideas to really dig down, to find new ways to create work under the limitations they’ve assigned themselves, and the result is, is that they are always looking for inspiration. I would think they are literally training themselves to see the. World through the lens of the work they’re trying to. Create. So I think if we can take aspects of this Homer for life type thing and the motivation and emphasis on inspiration that is found in these challenges and putting them together create a daily practice that can provide us with some of the best benefits that these two practices have to offer. So I came up with something and I tried it. And yes, my test period thus far. It’s not been very long. It’s just been about a month that I’ve been doing it and previously I did do the homework for life thing. When I first heard about it for a couple of months, so I can confidently say that even though I don’t know what the true long term effects of doing this. Will be. I can already see the benefits in the short time that I’ve done the visual aspect of this visual exercise I’m talking about, which right now I’m calling mindful inspiration for visual artists or like meta. That would be. The acronym for it. But in case it’s a mindfulness kind of practice. Without it being the woo kind of thing, whether you’re into that or not doesn’t matter, the fact is, is that being able to train yourself to see inspiration more often means you’re gonna have a lot more to work from when you get into the studios. So I’ll tell you some of what I’ve discovered so far. But first, let me tell you what I propose that we do what this actual exercise is. So you kind of understand where my outcomes come from. So what I’d like to suggest and what I did is to find a daily source of inspiration and record it so very much like the homework for life storytelling thing. And you can record it by taking a photo of the inspiration or writing the description of it, or sketching it, or even like do a voice recording on your phone, whatever works for you. One thing I’d say, though, is that you should record it in a way that you can look back and easily see all the work that you’ve done, so that for one, you can be motivated to keep doing it. When you see all the cool ideas you have. And secondly, if you’re going to use this as a catalog of inspiration when you’re hitting an artistic block, or you want to challenge yourself or for prompts or whatever you want it to be in a format that’s easy to access and easy to thumb through or scan. And then the things that you choose for inspiration? They should be in line with the kind of things that normally get you jazzed up to create not just things that you admire, because we can admire something, we can be really drawn to something, but it’s not necessarily something that we want to use in our own work. We can just acknowledge the fact that we think it’s really beautiful and an artist or a creator of some sort that made this thing that we’re admiring. It’s it’s an amazing person, but we don’t need to be like them. We don’t need to be doing the work that they’re doing. So you’re looking for things that make you want to get into the studio and. Great. And then also I want you to be specific to capture the particular characteristics or visuals that drew you to notice this source in the 1st place. So if you see this beautiful late day Vista as you’re driving down the freeway, you could take a picture if you’re not driving. Of course, or make a note or say you know voice. Court the dying sunset off the freeway, driving into Ventura, and that’s your note so that it just enough information is there to jog your memory, but that’s not going to tell you what drew you to it, right? Like just describing what you’re seeing is different than understanding why you were drawn. To it because. Maybe what caught your eye was not the whole scene. Itself, but the dark silhouette of the hills against a Peach and deep blue sky. Or it could be the twinkle of lights in the shadow of the hills from the houses. Or maybe it’s the contrast of the man made foreground of the concrete and railing of the of the freeway against that more natural. Backdrop of the distant scenery, so the contrast could have been what caught your eye. So you want to dig down kind of try to figure that out and I’ll tell you why that’s important and just a little bit as another example, actually maybe you see someone else’s work because this is going to apply to looking at other people’s work for inspiration as well. But you can look at someone else’s work. And think it’s really cool. You don’t want to just put down. I saw a sculpture by so and so as your inspiration. Note instead try to find the thing in that sculpture that stirred up your imagination. Being specific will also help you 0 in on what draws you to things which can be really telling about your aesthetics and maybe even help you find a more particular direction. For your work now, not all your daily inspirations are going to be amazing things, so don’t be disappointed that the only thing that you end up putting down just didn’t mean anything to you the next day when you read it again. In fact, many of the things you put down. Will not seem like much at all, at least at first. But what you need to keep in mind is that, especially at the beginning here, what you’re doing is training yourself to look and see inspiration wherever and whenever you are, so it’s not going to be about finding a real gem of inspiration every day you will find gems because you’ll be looking for them. Just don’t expect. All of them to be some great. Sure. So this is what I’m thinking every day you open a sketchbook or a journal or your computer, or pull out your phone or camera or whatever, and you write down or sketch, or take a photograph of something that you find inspiring. OK, got the one down, and then you make it a goal that once a day you record. At least that one thing that catches your eye fires up your imagination, or just piques your curiosity because. You need to. Do more than just take that picture or jot down a note or make. A voice. Record. You want to think about it. Think about the thing and ask yourself, why did this inspire me? And then make a little note about that? And you can do that in the sketchbook where you sketch your initial thoughts or in a journal, or you can be like me and you can. Make a spreadsheet. Or a table or something like that. And I know that sounds a bit more administrative than creative, but it keeps things organized for me, especially since I’m trying to record photos, but I don’t always. Take a pick. You know some days I do. Some days I don’t. And I want something that shows me that I’ve done this every day and also have something that I can quickly reference. So choose a time to do this kind of recording and contemplation and choose just one or two methods for recording your inspiration. And choose something that works for you. You know, organize yourself however you want. Record as much as little as you like. The idea is that it needs to be easy so that you’ll do it every day, so don’t over complicate this unless you’re a crazy person like me. You actually like to do all this organizational stuff. The important thing is to have. That specific time of day, something kind of wedged into your routines where you stop and you review your inspiration. And then you have time to really think about it, recognize specifically what you were drawn to and then make a quick note and keep them really, really short. So like I said, you’ll do it every day if it doesn’t take too long, right? So you have your time of day, you check in and see if you actually found and recorded, you know, quickly and inspiration. And if you haven’t, you can think back on your.
OK. And see if you can recall any visuals that caught your eye and if you don’t, you can wander around the house or yard and and see what you can find. You know, don’t forget to look in weird places like your refrigerator or your garage or the ceiling, you know, just places you don’t usually look for inspiration and see what you can find. And you can make that your inspiration for the day because initially it’s going to be hard because you’re not. Train yet, right. So if you need to fill in, you fill in. But you’re getting yourself to look. And that’s really, really important. And on those days where you didn’t find anything kind of in your day-to-day, you know, movements you can use things like going online and finding images of artwork or just random things. And see what catches your eye. I like using a random picture generator. My preferred 1 is called generator mix, so just literally GENERATOR mix.com. Or you could go to Google images or you can go to a site like pixels. Is there stock photo sites and that’s. Exel, s.com and those are all free images, by the way, and I’ll put all of these things I’m mentioning. Any links in the show notes and in the newsletter, but you can go into these pages and in their search bar just insert the first word that comes to mind and see what images pop up. And when you find something that really piques your interest and that could be your inspiration for the day. Initially, though, work really hard not to miss what you are seeing around you and make that a primary goal primary focus for yourself because you’re initially trying to establish this routine, right? So don’t worry too much about what you actually record if that makes sense, just give yourself that goal of getting it done every day. And once you’ve done this for a while, I think you’ll find that you are going to be on alert for inspiration in a much more conscious way and a more deliberate way than you had done before when you just waited for inspiration to hit you over the head, right? If you do this, I think with just recording daily as your initial primary goal that you’re getting that one thing a day, you’ll train yourself to be on the lookout for inspiration and recognize it so much more often. I just, you know, I stop and think about like when we’re not aware when we’re not looking for it, how many wonderful things do we miss? Because our minds are elsewhere. Because we haven’t trained it to constantly be feeding that muse with inspiration, that is probably all around us all the time. I mean, we do see things that are visually enticing and or something that we’re curious about and we take it in in either a kind of subconscious way or just below the conscious or maybe it registers for a fraction of a second, but we just don’t hold on to it. I think this exercise or challenge, whatever you prefer to call it, should help you see your inspirations for what they are and would hopefully allow you to hold on to them both through your choice of recording them and through being more conscious about what you see. That is creatively inspiring for you not just say ohh, that’s cool. On a mental note, that vanishes like 3 seconds later. OK, so you pick a recording method, photos, journal, spreadsheet, whatever and a time to check in. You got those two things when it comes to picking the time that you’re going to record it, I think it’s best if you can attach that to an already established routine like breakfast or whatever little things you do before you go to bed. And if you attach it to an already established routine, you’re more likely to actually make it happen, because you’re going to go into that one routine and then, Oh yeah, I’m adding this to it and not just say, oh, it’s 6:00 every night, I’m going to record it because it’s just kind of random. Too many things can happen in 6:00. Just comes and goes because you’re distracted by all your other usual things other. Usual routines. You also want to be open to changing up your process once you get going, because it can take some finagling to figure out what you can do to guarantee you get this done every day. So like when I started, I tried checking in and recording any unrecorded information at the end of the day, but I had to change it up because I found that at the end of the day. I was really just too exhausted. To look back at the day or go in search of something. If I’d not recorded an inspiration. So I moved my review time to the beginning of the day. But the issue I seem to be having right now is at the very start of my day and the very end of my day is kind of all wrapped up in the puppy care routines that we have trying to carry this recovering puppy. So eventually I just decided I’d let it be the hopefully just 24 hours previous. That I had not done any recording. I will pick something from that time period since I last recorded my time ended up being breakfast time. So my breakfast time isn’t really specific because I go to a job like other people, so I breakfast any time between like 8:00 AM and like noon, sometimes even a little later if I’m fasting. So yeah, you just pick a time that works for you and try different times and see what what sticks best. Just set it up so you know, you’ll get to it. At least one. Today, then also talk about things changing up. There’s my recording method. I thought I would be taking pictures of inspiration and then maybe just jot down what I saw in them at my recording review check in time. But then the whole day would go by and I wouldn’t take any pictures of anything I could set aside time to wander around my camera and find inspiration. And then I did do that a few times, but that didn’t train. Me to look for inspiration in my day-to-day comings and goings at my house, or out in the world. So what I’ve consistently been doing now is just writing down inspiration, and if I happen to get a photo, that’s a bonus. But I don’t give myself a hard time if I don’t get an actual image anymore. The thing for me was that being. Focused on getting a photo. Ohh limited me especially when it came to opportunities when taking a photo is difficult, like when I’m driving and I don’t want to run up on people’s lawns and the lawns and while I’m trying to take pictures of of the cool flowers I mean maybe some of you are really bold and you don’t care and you’ll just do that anyway so you go for it I guess, but I don’t. So that restricts me. And then there were times I didn’t have my phone on me or it would take a couple minutes to register that I had just seen an inspiration. But then it was too late to go back. And that last one happened to me a lot because apparently my brain is like usually running 100 miles a minute on something else, and the visual would just kind of come into my sight and it would just sit there in the back of my mind, like waiting it’s turn. But. By the time I. Realized what a cool thing it was. That I just saw it was. Too late to turn around and go back. So the picture taking was a little restrictive. For me, if you want to do this, start by writing down the method or methods by which you would like to gather your inspiration. You know yourself best, so pick what works for you. If you always have your phone on and you’re not shy about where and when you take pics, then taking photographs may be easy and makes most the most sense to you. If you know you’ll rush by things that you won’t have time to stop and photograph, or won’t have a phone. On you then writing it down or sketching it later may make the best sense. You can also bring a voice recorder, like I said on your phone, just bring up one of those apps and make a quick voice note when you’re on about so you don’t forget. But I would transcribe anything that you put into the voice into a written form of some sort, because written forms, you know, a document is going to be a lot easier to prove and look through and see what ideas you have and see patterns which I’ll talk about more in just a minute, which can be really helpful for you in other ways. And let me share one other wrench that was thrown into the original plan of my. We had family visit and that really threw me. We had someone sleeping in like every room that didn’t have running water. And so it was really hard to find a spot that I could quietly go and do my recording things, much less give myself permission to drop the. I’ve got to take care of everybody. I’ve got to be the Hostess kind of thing. And so when I did try to get back to it. It had been, I think 7 days that I didn’t have anything, so I felt a little discouraged that I hadn’t kept up. I was just initially going to just forgive myself for the missed time and start up again and not worry about all the blank lines in my spreadsheet. But. I I think I don’t like blank. Lines in my. Spreadsheets cause I decide I’m going to make up for these days, so to do that, to make up for the missed days, I started by doing 4 observations one day and I thought I’ll do 4 observations the next day and then and it would 2 on the third day and then I’d be caught up and I thought that was pretty reasonable. But then what I discovered was that in having to find more than one. Inspiration in the day it was like it’s supercharged my observational skills. I had to be looking around a lot more and I didn’t get to just find something on my morning walk and then forget about it the rest of the. It really only took the first two days and I found myself looking at everything as potential inspiration. I’m back to my one item a day that I’m recording right now, but instead of finding that one thing to record and just working with that, I’ve been able to pick out of several because I’m seeing so much more. That I actually have options. Day. Now that doesn’t happen every day, finding multiple things, but you know, some days we’re all about the upkeep of our regular kind of boring life stuff, and it’s hard to find a moment to stop and look around. But I have found myself making it a priority and doing it much more than I used to. So if you are driven and you can start. Giving yourself those higher goals, you could do 3 inspirations a day for a little while, at least until you find yourself looking for inspiration all the time and know that’s kind of kicked. Or say you do 1A day usually, but you allow yourself to miss a few here and there and then you can do the supercharged thing. You know, like every few weeks. Let’s just say you’re. I’m gonna give myself this weekend off and then on Monday, I’m gonna look for three things, not just one thing. So you’ll just be pressing yourself to see. What’s around you more often and more consciously. Now, let me jog back to this storytelling stuff as just a way to illustrate how I think you should get the most out of how you look at and interpret your inspiration. That kind of digging down thing, the reviewing of it. First, go entertain yourself and listen to some of Matthew Dick’s stories. The storyteller guy. You can go to his YouTube channel and listen to them. They’re really enjoyable. They’re often funny and they’re usually touching as well. It’s at Matthew. John ***** OMATTHEWJOH. NDICK. Yes. And again, I’ll put those links in the show notes and the newsletter. You’ll get a taste of his stories there and I think you’ll be surprised by how small some of the incidences are for which he develops the core of the story, some of them, the stories are initially big, monumental things in life, like the time he was arrested and jailed for a crime he didn’t commit or the time he was in a car. Accident and actually died, but was brought back to life. But you’ll see. In those stories that the thing that draws him to them, the thing that like. Means something to. US.
Point of them, really, the most interesting aspects of those stories are not the big monumental things in the story about dying in car accident. The story ends up being about him discovering that he has family in his friends and coworkers more so than his real family, and he hadn’t realized that until then. And then the one about being arrested. It was really about finding out that he thought of himself as the kind of guy who wouldn’t stand up for himself and when he believed him, only to discover that wasn’t true. True. And I think that’s what really grabbed me about what he was saying the first time I heard it, cuz visually I think we find ourselves inspired by large scenic vistas or other people’s artwork as a whole or, you know, a beautiful face and interesting building. And we think of the whole of it being the inspiration. But chances are it’s going to be. One or maybe 2 aspects of that thing that you think of as inspiration. That is the real draw for you. Like I remember taking photos of this wonderful ceiling in a cathedral on the island of Malta. All the tiles and the imagery that gilding and the high arches are. Really gorgeous, but once I really try to focus my camera on something other than the whole of this fantastic feeling because it was really, really difficult to get all of it in, I realized what I was really drawn to were the curves and the arches and the lines that swept back and forth across the width of this huge space and the way those lines. Kind of bounce off of and echo each other. When I stood off into a corner not in the, you know, not in one of the aisles where you just look straight down on them. There was just so much movement in those repeated lines and their ornate flow back and forth across the steeple. Space. As for the why? Why does that draw me in? In that example, it was probably because of the sense of movement in those arches. I’ve always been really fascinated by the sense of motion we can create in inanimate visual art, and I can take that even a step further, because I think why I’m fascinated with motion is because motion means things are moving. Things are happening, that there is the potential. For story, because I’ve also found the other things that I’m really drawn to. Do like cracks and bear tree branches and other things that represent erratic growth in nature or even the degeneration of things. And I realize, you know, I’ve been a writer most of my life, and I’m always looking for story and I think things that show the passage of time, such as things that are old and cracked, or the trees that have lost their leaves because it’s now winter. And scone through seasons. Each of those things are like echoes of stories. Or maybe they aren’t particularly dramatic in and of themselves, but they could be the background to the stories or metaphors for our own story. So I think story is really, really important to me, right. And I kind of knew that. But I can look at other things that I’ve done and I see it. It keeps popping up. So I’m also like, really fascinated by the interiors of flowers rather than the whole of a flower. So my macro photography is largely looking deep into flowers or close up on seed pods or. Whatever I can look into or you know, take apart. And I recognize that this kind of curiosity is something I’ve had since childhood. I like to know how things work. And I like to get into things and open up and reveal their inner parts. Things that we don’t really notice because we’re often just looking at the whole of things and then what I find is that I’m most fascinated by the chaos or orderly nature of what I find in those flowers or in those seed pods, and I equate them to like people. So like little stains of flowers often to me or like people like in some kind of relationship. And it’s a chaotic arrangement. Then maybe there’s there’s a a fight or a disagreement or whatnot. If they’re really orderly, then they seem like armies to me or something. That sort. I personify the parts and then I make a story around them like, just like I’m watching people and trying to decide what their story is. Right, you’ve probably all done a little people watching and you try to figure out what everybody’s about, right. So, yeah, in all of those cases, it comes back two-story. And that was something I could really see from doing that kind of supercharged week. That I had. It made it really clear what it is that was drawing me to these things and made it even more fun and interesting for me. So like I could make notes of what drew me in, but also I got to make up. These little. Is for my inspirations, or maybe I’d? Just craft a. Really creative description for what I saw because you know I like using words so it feeds that for me too. But for someone else, they might find themselves doing quick sketches more often, and that really motivates them, or they’re getting more creative with their photographs. Finding these commonalities and patterns in what we are drawn to creates a better understanding of our interest and will probably renew your motivation and give you a different outlook on what you’re doing, even not just from these little inspiration. Recordings. But in your actual work, and I think this is really useful when looking at other people’s artwork, is inspiration. That’s digging down the. You don’t or shouldn’t. I’d say look to other people’s artwork to copy what they do. You look at other people’s artwork to see what can be done and then you find. The. Little Nuggets that speak to you in their work that can be applied to your work, but The thing is, when you take out those individual aspects from someone else’s work, they may. Not have the same impact. And well, when you put in your own work, I mean and that’s why when you try to do something, you’ve seen someone else do and you do it in kind of your way. It’s not going to feel the same. And that’s because most artwork works as a whole. And the impact of a particular image or symbol or color is only as effective as it is because of everything else around it. About all the choices that the artist made makes those things as impactful as they are, so look at other work in terms of what can be done in that medium or genre and look for aspects that draw you in, especially those that fall in line with the themes and patterns that you’re finding by recording your inspirations on a daily basis. You might look at someone else’s work and say I could take that texture or that set of colors, or those lines, or the way that it was constructed, or the way that it was composed and use its essence. Its basic nature from those small things that make it interesting to you, then the inspiration from those people’s work will actually really, truly inspire you. Rather than being something that you simply mimic. So the things that we go out into the world and find ourselves drawn to reflect those things that pique our curiosity and knowing that we can take the parts of the things that we see as inspiration and create something that’s meaningful to us and reflects our fascination with the world. Well, that’s what making art in your authentic voice. Is really. All about so on top of that, this kind of digging down this, reviewing this, really looking closely at your inspirations, figuring out what specifically attracts you and get your wheels turning is a process that will for one make your inspirations much more memorable. So they’ll be easier to recall when you’re in the studio, but also it will help direct your work in ways. That are going to be truly significant and fulfilling for you. So yeah, go find those things that inspire you each day, and then at the end of the day or in the moment, if you’d like, determine what it is that is really drawing you to those things to that scene or that place or whatever it is. Find the thing that if it was removed, would greatly diminish your interest. Be sure to look at the parts to look at the small things. As individual and specific as you can. Now the things that draw you in won’t always be small. It won’t always be just a little part of something. It could be something more conceptual, like the contrast or juxtaposition of elements, or just the fact that unusual, disparate or even ordinary things are brought together in a really beautiful or exciting way. But. Do the digging. Figure it out. Give yourself a gift of that time to check in and record what you found out in the world. It won’t take long, but it’s like exercising. Yeah, use it or. You’ll lose it, right? Flex those observational muscles daily. So when you’re sitting down to create, you aren’t straining to get an idea going. You’ll have dozens or hundreds to work with, and you’ll know why you value them and the why will tell you so much about what you need to make, what you want your voice to say in your work. Now I haven’t gotten much done in the studio since I started this. But the ideas have been plentiful. I have to tell you, I have so much I want to do. But yes, this daily observation thing has been super motivational. And here I’ll read you some of my little recordings and kind of explain why I didn’t always make notes as to why, especially at the beginning there were, like, really short sentences. But I’ll go from some of my shorter recorded items to some of the longer ones. So you can kind of get an idea of the range of of. Things you might. Be putting down. So let’s see, like 4 weeks ago I just wrote the ruffled feathers. Crows, I have a lot of crows in my yard because I encourage them to come see me and I just they’re melting right now, so the real ruffle feathers. But first I thought they either sick or they gotten in a fight or something like. That so that suggests. Story to me, and then a week later I put the pock marks in my driveway. They may have been rocks in the cement, missing pieces. In smooth surfaces, I was curious about the missing rocks and wasn’t necessarily visually. Beautiful. The thing that drew me to look at that was curiosity about what was missing, and there’s no reason why that curiosity itself can’t be a visual element. Does that make sense? So if I created something in polymer and I had little pieces that looks like they should have been there, but I didn’t put them in, that would make somebody curious or. I don’t know what episode it was. We talked about unfinished work, where you can actually make work and leave parts of it unfinished because. Makes the viewer fill them in, so that could also be the kind of thing that I could have drawn from this observation of a concrete driveway of all things. How boring, right? But I still found something in it. Well, here’s what I really liked. Pine cones with long needles sweeping out top and bottom, longer and more abundant on the bottom, and wind swept all in the same direction. So they look like a parade of ballerinas dancing across an aerial stage. Now, this is one of those where I saw it, and then I’m walking the dog and I’m like half a block down. And I realized, oh, that was really cool. I should have taken a picture of it. So my description got a little bit longer so I can tell myself what the pine cones look like. So I had a visual of it as well as. Knowing that again looks like stories looks like ballerinas dancing across the stage in mid air, I get a visual in my head and a story because I need story of recognize that you’ll have something else. Possibly you might have story too, but it gets me thinking and it gets me jazz to try out visually. This thing that I was inspired by, but those are just a few ideas. In my, what do I have like 33 items here that I’ve actually written down and that’s just a month little over month of? And if I’m feeling stuck or I’m not really sure what to do with it together piece, I can come back and look at my inspirations and just let them jog my memory about other things and why I do what I do and what makes me curious. And it’s almost like getting it’s like kicking the refrigerator when it’s not working. Because all you do is kind of like rattle everything and resets, right? So you can use these kinds of things to start new work or to you. And like I said, help you with something that’s existing and you just need to get your mind out of the rut that it’s been in or the kind of focus that you have when you’ve been working on the same piece for a long time. So I’m really really looking forward to the possibilities that will come of this and I would love to hear if you do this, but one I’d love to hear if you do this at all, that’d be cool and you can tell me how it worked out, but it. Also be super. Curious to see what kind of artwork. Comes out of. It for you, so try to do. This this month, we’re going into the fall. Going into that season of the weather starts to change, and maybe you’re gonna be indoors a little bit more, so this is perfect time to have this kind of challenge. Because you can start stocking up for you know, the winter season and have all these ideas that will keep you jazzed and keep you going. So write me if you do it, please. I will check back in. Like let’s say at. The. Beginning of next month and see if you guys have done it and I’ll tell you what I’ve done and what it’s done for me. So far. So that’s my idea. I’ll make a more organized. List. And I’ll put that in the newsletter so you can kind of have something that says, you know, like what kind of steps to take to get this exercise off the ground. And it did occur to me that a social media aspect of this would be a good thing. I am not on social media right now, kind of just for my well-being, but I like the idea of doing a challenge in social media certainly helps with the accountability aspect of that. I was seeing it starting it now, but why don’t we do? This why don’t you. All figure out what you are going to do. If you want to. Buy this and kind of set yourself up right. You can practice through this month trying to figure out what the best times are for you to do it and and then let’s do at the beginning of October, October 1st, we’ll start posting mindfully inspired pieces that could be the pictures that we take. We could be sketches, they could be just the words with your ideas in it. And then let’s make it that we do it one a day together. So October is going to be a mindfully inspired month for us. It’ll get us ready for the winter time and for kick starting our work as we go into a new season. Plus, we’ll be in the middle of fall, which is just an amazing time to be inspired, especially by colors. Even people’s Halloween decorations. So October 1st, so get ready for that. I’ll come up with the hashtag and then on the, I think it’s the 27th or 28th of this month will be the last podcast of the month. I am going to try to do it weekly. Again, some of them might be really short on, you know like every other week there might be a short one just cause it’s still hard to get things done with the the puppy Ness going on here. But I’ll remind you all on the last podcast of the month. And we’ll kind of count down to the first from there and I’ll reiterate the rules. Anything else that has changed cause I’ve figured something else out in the meantime. So be sure to stick with us this month. And then on October 1st, we will start that challenge. Make sure you’re on the newsletter so you get the information. I’ll put a list together about how to do this so you can get yourself started this. Month sound. Good. I do hope that you found something useful. Even if you aren’t going to do this exercise. Just to really think about where your inspiration comes from and how you take it in and how you record it and how you hold on. Do those things that feed your work. You know, we don’t live in a vacuum or we shouldn’t live in a vacuum in order to create, we need to have food from the outside world. That inspiration. So, make inspiration your focus for the next couple of weeks while I get together some new episodes for you. And if you would like to write me about what you’re doing with these mindfully inspired visual art ideas, you can do so at the sagearts.com just go to the contact page. There you can respond to the newsletter if you get it again. If you don’t have the newsletter. Hit the news and notices button on the home page of the sagearts.com. If you want to talk to me directly on social media, I do get the messages. So both Facebook and Instagram leave me direct messages or messages in the post and I will get to them as well. And if you were inspired by this episode and you would like to give back, you can do so through PayPal or by me coffee. Find the links and buttons. Either in the show notes or a little ways down about halfway down on the home page, you’ll find them there. As well. And before we leave, please do hit the follow button in the podcast player from which you are listening to this or the whatever it is subscribe thing in the YouTube you tell how up I am on all this to just let me know that you’re there and that you’re listening. And also let you know when the new episodes are coming out. Another way to pay me back is also to leave a review. On whatever podcast player you’re listening, let’s call that a day and you know, just get out there. Find that inspiration. And and as usual, feed that muse of yours with new experiences as well as these day-to-day observations. And you. Know be treating. Rudeness and enjoy me again next time on the Sage Arts podcast.
To practice this Mindful Inspiration, you’ll look for and record at least one source of visual inspiration each day:
- Set a time each day to check in and record your inspiration and/or thoughts.
- Challenge yourself to find at least one inspiring visual each day.
- Set up a way to record it in the moment:
- Snap a photo
- Make a quick sketch
- Jot down (or voice record) a one sentence description
- Describe it to yourself so it’s commited to memory
- At your appointed recording time, check in with yourself. Did you record an inspriation? If not, can you recall an inspiring visual or find one near you?
- Write out or sketch your inspiration if you haven’t already and make note of what specifically drew you to it. Keep recordings/notes together as best you can for easy perusal later.
- Record thoughts in a notebook, sketchbook, word document or spreadsheet. If you take photos, consider moving them to their own folder on your device or computer.
- Keep the record of your inspiration brief so that it’s a small, easy task to complete.
- When you’re in a rut, have artistic block, want a prompt, or just want fresh ideas, look over what you’ve recorded.
If you do this daily, after a time, you will be finding inspiration everywhere and will never be short of ideas!
