We start today's discussion with a quote from artist Chuck Close, who said "inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work." This sounds a little confrontational, but the he continues with an explanation: "If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightening to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.”

We both agree that this is the way it works for us - we paint and the ideas come. If we simply waited for an idea, we both think nothing would happen -the  bolt of lightening would never strike. But we wonder whether there are some people who really do have to wait for the spark of an idea? Who have to respond to external stimuli rather than stimuli that come from within. This leads us to contemplate the discussion also wanders to the pandemic and how it has effected our inspiration, both in positive and negative ways. For many artists lockdown took away their source of inspiration but in many cases that resulted in new and creative ideas. Finally, we ask how you can find inspiration when it has gone, and offer some of our own solutions for getting past that stuck feeling.

Mentioned:

Louise course: https://www.louisefletcherart.com/

Gary Peters' manifesto: https://garypeters.info/manifesto

This Naked Mind: https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Naked-Mind-Annie-Grace/dp/0008293430

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"Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License