What Inspires Me?

To Muse or not to Muse…

What inspires me? Where do I find inspiration? I get questions like this from time to time about inspiration. I suppose that those not creatively inclined find it interesting. It’s something that’s incredibly unique to every artist, musician, dancer, actor, etc. Some call that inspiration a muse. The ever elusive, and not always cooperative muse. The muses are the nine goddess daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. The muses presided over the arts and sciences, offering inspiration in their respective realms. Some artists name a specific human individual as their muse. Perhaps in those cases it is love, infatuation, or admiration that inspires them.

Column of Muses in Achillion Palace, Corfu, Greece

I find that the latter to be dangerous. What happens if things go sour between you and that individual? Does your inspiration then dry up? Gone with the one you named your muse…until you find another? Because I’ve always been enamored with Ancient Greece, I’d be more inclined to cast my lot with the original muses, the nine goddesses who presided over the arts and sciences (though none of them specifically claimed drawing and painting as their own).

There is magic in nature, beauty and wonder…enough to keep an artist inspired for a lifetime.

So then the question remains…what inspires me? Honestly, I find inspiration all around me. Nature inspires me. Gaea, Mother Nature, planet Earth. Why? My question is…why not? She is vast and wondrous. And there are things about her that we discover every day. Science is still trying to unravel her mysteries. And some of the most breathtaking images I’ve ever seen come from nature. A sunset, a full moon, the crystalline waters of some untouched shorelines, rain forests, glaciers, and deserts. Not to mention the countless forms of animal life, which if you know me by now, is my specialty when it comes to my art.

Technology. Does tech inspire art, or the other way around in the case of Star Trek?

Technology inspires me. Not just the cool things tech can do, but the genius and the imagination behind the tech. It reminds me of the original series of Star Trek. The tech they had on the show is tech we now use. The communicators were flip phones. The computer interface was touch screen and they had tablets. So I wonder if art in that case inspired the tech? Either way, the seemingly endless possibilities of both sci-fi and tech is inspiring in that we are limited only by our imaginations.

I think however, that what inspires me the most is other artists. I love seeing other artists’ work, their finished work as well as their sketchbooks. I love watching the work in progress because it allows me a little insight into the thought process. YouTube is chock full of time lapse and how-to videos of artists at work. I’ve even posted a few myself! I love those because I get to see the artist actually working, figuring things out as they go, problem solving. It also doesn’t really matter to me what type of artist they are. I will be equally inspired by product designers, transportation designers, fine artists, animators, graphic artists, graffiti artists, comic book artists, caricature artists, storyboard artists, illustrators, etc., etc., etc..

Some of the YouTube channels I subscribe to.

What inspires me about them isn’t so much what they’re drawing as to the creative flow. There is an energy that flows around artists that is contagious to me. I am intrigued by how other artists do their thing. I am fascinated by what they see, what they envision, how they interpret, and how they solve problems. That energy is like no other. I remember walking onto campus at Art Center in Pasadena, CA and that energy was all around the place. One of the hot spots where it was especially concentrated was the cafeteria. There was never a student in there without a sketchbook. I’d go in there sometimes, not to eat, but to just sit there with my own sketchbook and try to soak up that creative energy. Even when I’m watching a YouTube video that I mentioned above, that energy starts bubbling up in me and I want to go run off and create something of my own.

Lynda Carter
as Wonder Woman

However, if I had to choose one individual as my muse, I’d have to go with Wonder Woman. Yes, Wonder Woman. Hey, no one said that the individual that inspires couldn’t be a fictional character or that you had to know her personally…which I do happen to know her personally. So there! Okay, okay, so maybe not like BFF’s. But seriously though, folks. How can anyone not be inspired by the character? She stands for justice, she’s highly intelligent, she upholds the truth above all else, she values life, and does not allow limiting beliefs into her thinking (which I struggle with as an artist from time to time…see my Not Good Enough Mentality post). That character inspires me to be the best me possible and to aspire each and every day to be better than the me that I was yesterday.

Me & Lynda Carter – WW action figure on my drawing table

And as for the actress, Lynda Carter, who played her back in the late 70’s, she is also a wonderful, kind person who stands for pretty much the same things. So I have the photo hanging in my room and the action figure stands watch on my drawing table. And there you have it. That is what inspires me. Nature, technology, and other artists. …And Wonder Woman.