Manufacturing Inspiration, in 3 Acts

Art Essays

Nov 7

Pardon me for my lack of experience in writing. Also, for my theatrics. As in, beware - there will be theatrics. I do not care to be pardoned for making beautiful things. If something can be beautiful at the expense of no one, then it should be.

Ever since Homer, creatives has been praying for a muse who will bestow upon them endless inspiration. But the muses are whimsical and absent. Natural inspiration, the kind that comes to you like a revelation, is rarer than birthdays. For a creative who needs to create like they need to eat, this is too sparse and unreliable.

Lucky few find inspiration in love, hate, curiosity... Like Monet’s lilies*, Magritte’s questions*, Lebrun and beauty of the feminine*… It seems to come naturally to them, almost like a side effect of an obsession. But for those who are still searching, or have found their obsession in arts themselves, this isn’t feasible. We are left paralyzed in the absence of a love to channel through art because art is the love itself. How can I find inspiration from art, to make art, about art? Creating the creation itself, it’s a paradox.

In the hopes of creating as much as I want to (rather, need to), I came up with a way to cultivate my own inspiration. It doesn’t always compare to the revelations that can make one paint for days without a break, but sometimes it gets there. And unlike those revelations, it can be channeled with intent. This method will take us three separate steps, which my life is now cycling around:

The Flood, The Surfacing, and The Carving

Act I: The Flood

Every cultivated thing has a source, a spring, something that feeds it. Artificial inspiration is no exception. Considering how wide the range of art is, the flood can come from any conceptual source. Emotions, books, contemporary content, conversations, experiences & trauma, other people's concepts and creations… The only condition is that it should be a flood. One does not simply stumble upon inspiration in any random place. Inspiration is an invisible and rare thing in its raw state. The way to ensure finding any is to take in large quantities of source material to sift through.

But this shouldn’t be done blindly... We already live in an age of blind flood, endless streams of snappy shallow content that is made to be consumed rather than digested. This content is spoon-fed to us at such a speed that it doesn’t even permeate into our short-term memory. Can you, at a random moment of scrolling feed content, stop and recall the last 5 things you have watched? Dare I say, this kind passing of flood even prevents the inspiration from being manufactured because it keeps our minds busy without yielding to any retention. The kind of flood we seek is the one we can retain, process, and harvest. This isn’t to say “Delete your mind rotting social media!” but rather to say “Be intentional with what you flood your mind with.”. Curate your feed, use save folders and watchlist things, make time for meaningful people, pick your books, seek recommendations from people you share a taste with, seek experiences…

Often what we find beautiful or interesting, what we tend to remember and ponder on is a solid starting point for finding flood sources. Even if it is as simple as a puppy you saw the other day. Memory doesn't lie about what matters to us.

As I went through these three acts repeatedly, my inspiration started showing patterns. Some people are more receptive to certain kinds of sources. For me, I was drawn to the human anatomy, the morbid, the delicate… I got to know what source is most likely to hide inspirations within. Getting to know the nature of my own inspiration lessened the quantity of flood needed to yield it, and increased its reliability.

Act II: The Surfacing

Why are we all constantly flooded yet also chronically uninspired? Because in the turmoil, nothing can surface. Floods without any break will simply drown the mind and heart. And in our era, we avoid these breaks like they are lethal. We are scared of being alone with ourselves, our fears, insecurities... And even if we could find peaceful silence in our own company, we have avoided it for so long that it became strange. Boredom is treated as a problem that needs to be solved. And how dare you be bored? You are supposed to be hustling, not missing out, self-improving, and overall thriving. We don’t have time to be bored.

But boredom isn’t a problem, it is a need. Noting new emerges in an occupied mind. Rethinking conversations in the shower, processing emotions as we try to fall asleep, murmuring songs we have heard idly; our minds are grasping at straws to sort out their burden. It is only in the boredom that the water stills and things start surfacing. Some of these things sink into the depths to never be seen again, like earworms we sing out of our minds. Others remain on the surface: ideas, regrets, newfound tastes, memories... And as the clutter of our minds gets cleared through boredom, only they remain. These are raw inspirations.

I have found that I can speed up the surfacing. There are many ways to slow down and contemplate. Thanks to this effort, I have understood the German love for the “Ruhezeit” (Peace Time, certain days and hours mandatorily dedicated to being quiet). In silence, in journaling, in slow chores, in taking the time to just sit down for some time, I have found intentional boredom. I imagine this will take different forms for other people. But the end game stays the same: Be bored.

I know the Flood and the Surfacing sound mutually exclusive. They are. This forced me to change the way I approach life. I cycle my weeks in these three acts now. Which goes against the nature of habits, routines, and the way we structure work days in modernity. So I have the weeks of Flood where I read and experience and learn, as wild as I can. Meanwhile, I try to finish creative projects I have already ongoing. Then a week of surfacing where my phone stays in a drawer unless it rings and people know I will be quiet. Creative work continues but with less social media. Which is followed by The Carving, which we will cover next.

I am aware this isn’t possible for everyone. I wish I could fit these three acts into a 9-5 life. It is clear that our workweek structures are too standardized and packed for our minds to unburden themselves. What an irony that boredom became a luxury.

Act III: The Carving

Now that we have sorted experiences and ideas from the flood and are left with raw inspiration, we can give it form. In nature, sometimes inspiration is found with form. But manufactured inspiration needs to be carved down to form. The ideas we have are rough and too close to the form we have consumed them during the flood. They contain a spark but lack intention.

To carve raw inspiration requires spinning it, trying it in new shapes, and testing it. Any raw inspiration has dozens of potential outcomes. Often the first we can think of isn’t yet formed away from the source. To make a source our own requires us to put ourselves in it.

For a painter, the standard way to do this is sketchbooks. Quick and dirty work, seeing the results, then feeding the result back into the loop… Raw ideas will evolve and find structure. Sketches can be messy drawings to search for poses and compositions, small versions of the paintings to test the end results feel, various colour palettes tried digitally…Do not think of sketches only as drawings of the end result. Often these attempts are less of a clear target being shot at and more a process of elimination by comparison. When it comes to abstract I ideas, I carve them by talking to myself, discussing them with others and mapping them in visuals. But for purposes outside of painting, I am not equipped to advise.

At the end of the Carving, we are left with inspiration with form, a vision. It is now up to our capabilities to pull it out of our minds and bring it to life, with the least corruption possible. My classmates once discussed if having an idea for a sculpture is enough to make you a sculptor. Whether the labour is truly necessary. I think it is. The attempted execution of inspiration exposes its practical impossibilities and forces us to adapt them as a part of the process. No vision is in its final state prior to execution.At the end of the day, creativity without the ability to create is being a daydreamer, disinterested in reality.

Below are the artists mentioned in Act I

Claude Monet

Impressionist painter known for his ability to capture light and nature as he saw it. Made dozens of paintings of his garden in the last 20 years of his life.

René Magritte

Surrealist painter known for his question-provoking and often philosophical art. His works questioned the way we understood reality, language, and semantics of specific works.

René Magritte, Not to Be Reproduced, 1937

Madame Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Rococo and Neoclassic painter known for bringing ethereal beauty and feminine qualities into portraits. According to her memoirs, she paid passionate attention to women's beauty.