What brings inspiration back when it’s missing?
Artists ask this of each other every so often when work slams to a halt. So if you don’t mind, let me talk about it a little from my own perspective.
The source of inspiration is different for everyone. But to me it’s more a matter of enthusiasm rather than inspiration when work slows to a standstill. Enthusiasm is what brings the drive to understand enough of the elements to create the whole work and add a magic bit of life in your own style to the finished work with the talent only you own. You do know that you own your talent, right? Thing is, you’ll never in a lifetime’s worth of work know the farthest limits of it. So maybe it’s enthusiasm rather than inspiration that’s missing for you.
So you’re experiencing an uninspired, self-inflicted tsunami of over-analysis big enough to drown your enthusiasm and now you’re tempted to turn your unique talent into a mystery specimen to be dissected? Why not drag that specimen right back off the table, stop being so scalpel-happy, and instead set your mind on the hunt for an art project very dear to you. Choose a subject, a scenario, a happening you’ve always wanted to capture visually but doubted you had it in you to accomplish. At this point you have nothing to lose by diving in and exploring all the things that mean something important to you.
Where would the inspiration come from, then? Well, it’d have to be something that personally hits you with a powerful emotion or reaction. Think of all the sweetest or most bizarre things in life that you and only you have experienced. Did it make you almost pee your pants laughing? Did it make you freeze in wonder at the sadness of it? Did it constrict the breath from your lungs in excitement? Start there. Plan it out, figure out just what you want to say in each part of the work, research the mundane details, sketch the prelim images, paint it out, sculpt it out, in the way you know best. Make it your finest, most important work of the moment. Take your time, work on less important art in between. Make it a signature moment only you can bring back to life in your own style to the amazement of anyone viewing.
That’s just my thought on enthusiasm vs. inspiration, when you feel it all lag like that, particularly after you’ve picked your talent apart trying to gain insight on something that doesn’t always need a scalpel approach to understand.
And that barrier you might fear? The one that you think keeps you from going further in your talent?
No, it’s not a barrier. I know the thing you mean. It’s a plateau, and artists are not the only ones in a creative field who reach a certain plateau and get stumped for a little while about it. All it means is that you have to pay your dues a little more, put in a bigger effort, and bust your butt to climb up past it to the next level. A plateau doesn’t warrant any pouts, gloom and doom, tears, or self-destructive acts to move to the next creative level on your part.
Just to mention, when you’ve done that particular work of art, the important one, please, I’d love to see it! I know it’ll kick some serious butt. And after that success, nothing will stop you from finding another equally incredible moment to capture as your own. There are so many of those moments in life and in imagination, you’ll have a tough time running out of inspiration, or should I say enthusiasm, ever again.
My best to you,
HWD
