Inspiration

What inspires you? Where do you go when the muse is mute?

Unfortunately, I think what often inspires me is the deadline. It's really difficult to think about the last great photograph, a recent piece of music, a design that's thrilling, the movie that worked on both head and heart, or the sublime beauty of nature, when the clock is ticking and the project is due, isn't it? But, is that inspiration or simply fear-driven motivation? Adrenalin and that fire-in-the-belly feeling when you know it's happening feel the same physically, to me.

If pinned down, I'm not sure I could say what inspires me because I think creativity in design and art comes from the total of our experiences--the good and the bad. Having creative ideas depends on being exposed to a lot of creativity. Or, to put it simply: creativity breeds creativity.

I think another thing that may motivate, if not inspire, is a sense of humility. I know a lot of artists and designers are known for their huge egos, but I think each of them also, deep inside, has this sense of unworthiness--that they are much smaller than the beauty, the aesthetic, transcendent concept, that they are trying to achieve. If they don't have that, then what they produce may be popular, may be attractive, may be engaging, but is it creative? In other words, when you're trying to produce something creative, it isn't about you. Paradoxically, you have to be objective and maintain a certain distance from your work in order to be subjective.

At the same time, I think we are often our worse critics. We judge ourselves too quickly, and in doing so, eliminate some possible creative avenues. False starts are still starts. Dead ends, while frustrating, may allow you to get a glimpse of where you need to go.

 To the right --->, there, are some blogs from which I find inspiration. But that's not the only place. I find inspiration in music, in art, in literature, in conversation, in the sky. If you limit your sources of inspiration, you're limiting your abilities. The cliche "thinking outside of the box" usually means thinking out of a self-imposed box. By limiting ourselves to only certain kinds of stimuli, we're drawing a box around our creativity.

Finally, I think another thing that motivates me is when I look at the work of someone else and say, "I wish I had done that." Then, I try it. After all, the only thing that really differentiates them from me is that they had a vision and figured out how to make it reality.

Dr. P