I is for...Inspiration

It can come from anywhere...hit you where you least expect it.  Sometimes it is ill-timed, like when you're about to fall asleep.  Other times it comes at the perfect moment to seize you in a fervent grip of creativity.

Inspiration, that elusive magic all creatives have certainly felt from time to time, and undoubtedly chased after at other times.

As an artist, I am always looking for that "thing," that a-ha moment, that big idea that is different from anything anyone else is doing.  I keep my eyes open and try to look at things in a new way.

Not long ago a painting in the background of a television news segment caught my eye.  That's a cool painting, I thought, looking past the woman who was being interviewed.  Something seemed off, though, and I looked a little closer.  I realized it wasn't a painting at all, but a stainless steel fridge behind a countertop with two white plates on it, and a couple of pieces of toast on the plates!

But, the painting was there in my mind, and so I had to get to work, of course :)

Below is the crop from the original news segment and then my resulting paintings where I tried to replicate what I thought I saw.  I guess the moral is to keep an open mind and you may be pleasantly surprised!

The original background that I thought was a painting.

"The Barrens I"  encaustic on board 2.5" x 3.5"

"The Barrens II" encaustic on board 2.5" x 3.5"

"The Barrens III" encaustic on board 2.5" x 3.5"

G is for....Glassblowing

I love blown glass, and as I talked about in my earlier post (B is for Beer) I participated in a glass-blowing class a few months ago.

This Colossal article showed up in my FB feed today, and I am smitten.  Absolutely smitten by the glass work by Paul DeSomma and Marsha Blaker.

I'm sharing a couple of the images from the article here, but please check the links for more.

The Bog of Inspiration

Every day I'm bombarded by ideas for not only stories, but for paintings or drawings.  Most of these are fleeting, gone before the thought can solidify, evaporating into little more than a vague sense of something passing through.

Some ideas come at the right moment and their essence can be captured with a quick note or sketch, but far more slip away, and sometimes the sheer magnitude of those lost masterpieces can be overwhelming.

I occasionally mine my idea file for seeds, but so far only one has turned into a story.  It's a little depressing to have so many and know there is not enough time to explore them all.

This multitude of ideas -- true gems (of course) -- are at risk of being wasted, and it is tormenting to know I am not doing enough to reach my full potential and bring them to fruition.  There is always some beauty or insight I wish I had the ability to capture and share.

There is much more art to be created than can ever be hoped to be realized.  Perhaps that is the root of the stereotype of the tortured artist.

I hope my fleeting imaginings leave behind some vestige of themselves, a spark at the ready, to be seized upon when the time is right to create something worth sharing.

"Vestige" by Cindy James - encaustic wax on cradle board 7.5 x 7.5. 2013.