I became somewhat obsessed with this question early on and have been asking myself the same one for my entire life. In my current job of mentoring artists, I now help others find their own answers to this very same question. It is not necessary to even know the full answer but it is imperative to consistently ask yourself,
What inspires you?
It has occurred to me that when you become involved with this question, over time, you get better and better at answering it. The answers change with the passage of time. They become more personal and distinct the more times you think about it. Each time you ask the better the answer becomes.
For many of us this might be the most important question of our lives. It is for me. Every time it is asked, every time we allow ourselves to realign our lives to the answer, our capacity for generating more meaningful art increases.
Moving towards the fire – those things in our life that inspire us and bring us alive – generates creativity. It took me a long time to understand that out of inspiration, doing all manner of things you love, comes creativity. If you are an artist and rely on creativity like me, then it becomes imperative to protect, to nurture all things that inspire you.
I am not just talking about art. I am talking about that yoga class, seeking out and seeing those friends who light you up, taking time in your day to walk in the woods, going to see new kinds of art, taking a workshop to learn something new or just diving into a new world of a book you have wanted to read but just never found the time. It is, of course, different for everyone. It is the practice of discernment. Choosing the big YES! over the small yes or, even worse, the plain and resigned, ok.
It is important to answer the question accurately because often the culmination of the answers and decisions based on this question manifest in what we create, what ends up in our lives. It could be a new business idea, a new relationship, a painting, a novel, a song, a career change or any other countless possibilities. In short, the decisions, the choices derived can either bring us alive or hold us where we have been. We want the former, especially if you are an artist.
We just simply must get it right. Our creative lives depend upon it.
Thankfully, as artists we actually get a lot of practice asking this very important question. The very process of making art is literally thousands (actually, millions) of yes and no decisions based solely on what feels right to you.
In an art process it is all about compromising less and less, eliminating the unfulfilling parts so that eventually what remains is something incredibly potent and meaningful to you. Your art is simply one of your answers made visible.
Our art, therefore, can stand as our personal reminder, a single placeholder of what truly matters to us at that moment. It resides within the bigger context of our art making, a practice that we can return to again and again to try to better answer that essential question: What inspires me?
I am curious. What inspires you?
30 Comments
Hi! I’m
Nicholas Wilton
the founder of Art2Life.
With over 20 years experience as a working artist and educator, I’ve developed a systematic approach that brings authenticity, spontaneity and joy back into the creative process.
Join me and artists from all over the world in our Free Art2Life Artists Facebook Group or learn more here about Art2Life.
Thank you for your post Nicholas. Every one of them seems to answer whatever I’m thinking at the time. This is no different as I’ve come to the conclusion that I can not change who I was created to be. What is inspiring to me is how closely woven we humans are woven with the fabric of nature itself. – Linda
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Music of various kinds (I didn’t expect this to come out, so maybe this is a new direction … Music has structure, rhythm, tone colour … In jazz music, Charlie Mingus is outstandingly rich. People inspire me, the soul that so mysteriously dwells in their eyes but also finds expression in their bodies, their clothes … Tranquility in quiet places, especially where there are trees, and the trees themselves with their slow, quiet strength. Maybe this is too many different things. Picasso said something about painters who invent a cake mould and then spend their lives making the same cake over and over. Well I sure haven’t found mine yet ! Some philosophy (Spinoza …) inspires me. And Picasso’s quotes about painting – he spoke very well about it …
Travel, meeting new people and learning about their cultures and way of life, nature -flowers trees animals… and art of all kinds, some music and so many things really!
I’m inspired by the tiny random wonders that happen every day; the leaping squirrels, the lone apple left on the tree, the slow blink of the tortoise’s eye, the small grasshopper perched on the dandelion fluff, the fall light . . . there’s never a lack of things to be inspired by, if one only looks. I once came across a quote by Henry James: “Try to be one those on whom nothing is lost.” It changed my life.
I love that quote Patricia — thanks for sharing it!
I love this quote, too. I’m going to post it in my studio along with Nicholas’s question: “What inspires me?” Thank you.
This article totally speaks to me – thank you so much – I know for myself, when I become discouraged with my art making or my success (usually when things aren’t selling) I come back again and again to the question: why do I make art? what is it that I need to do? why does it satisfy me so much?
Inspiration comes to me in so many ways that I actually live inspired most of the time. I am learning to pay close attention to the things that make me feel expansive, and things that constrict me, and include more of the former and get rid of the latter. Feeling expansive inspires me (creating space within). I am fascinated by the passing of time. I love old places, peeling billboards, old cemeteries, old people, history…I love rust, and torn paper, and faded fabrics, worn out shoes, worn out clothes, worn out hands. I notice details (like Patricia!) that other people pass by. I am inspired by quantum physics and what we can’t see is more real than what we can see – which now as I write that I think maybe that’s why the passing of time fascinates me so much – we only experience now and it always seems the same but in reality what we don’t see it what is true) and by spirituality – my connection to my Creator that alights my soul on fire when I paint, when I am in nature, and when I am meditating. And YOU inspire me with the sharing of your creative process, and your art. people: open people, creative people, real people, honest people, vulnerable people, spiritual people — all so inspiring.
I agree, I am often attracted by rust, historical anything, things that tell a story of a life behind/before …for some reason that is very inspiring, it’s the telling of time left behind on an object that has such beauty.
Dreams, memories, cracks in the sidewalks, stains on brick buildings, people, animals, love, anger. Every time I see a homeless person, sadly that’s every day, I think of them as newborns, wondering if they had been held lovingly or not. Most days I have to dig for inspiration because I cannot get my head around the fact I am living through what I consider a horrible time in the U.S. At 73, I never thought I would see so much greed and misogyny and racism being so prevalent in a country I love, a country I believe with all my heart to be populated with more people who are not represented by the current administration. So I needed this essay today, to get back to what inspires me, what lifts me. It’s way too easy to forget that with the onslaught of what passes for news day after day. (Well, that got away from me.)
Thank you for that. That is a sweet thought (the homeless/new born one) and I agree with about the sickening state of the “union” right now. Ugh
I agree with you 100%. In shock with what’s happening in our country.
Walking in nature. I love the odd combination of tall palm trees, giant twisty oaks, and numerous low shrubs that grow in our local wilderness parks. I love all the colors, textures, and layers that appear in nature and nature’s vistas. Recently our neighborhood parks suffered terribly in wind-driven wildfires, and I’m devastated. Many of the palm trees that I photographed and loved had to be chopped down. Fortunately parts of the parks are open again and green sprouts, miraculously, are already popping up. The parks will never be the same and I’ll miss those spots I had grown to know so well, but seeing new growth will be an incredible process to witness.
Yes, nature is so alive and inspiring!
I am thinking of this question all the time, great question!
For me it is simply, travelling, nature, meeting new people and colors around me.
I need to create all the time. Not only painting but also knitting, pottery or even cooking.
Some days I am in my studio painting terribly and I am thinking what am I doing here, should I continue…..
I feel that way often, yes continue!!
Silence, stillness, absolute quiet in which to sit and empty my mind of the tangle of “thinking” and just BE is my greatest inspiration. Often i sit in the studio for an hour or more just gently observing the work in various stages around me. Eventually where to start that day comes to me in a gentle but persistent voice and then true inspiration comes in the process of working, of “showing up” every day.
An important and worthy introspective question. A quick answer is the work and thoughts of other artists. Like yourself. However, most of the time this question is asked by the viewer in a slightly different form. “What inspired that painting?” They seek understanding and insight, just like we do. I find that my response is limited to sharing the conceptual framework that surrounds the work rather than the reality of inspiration. This framework needs to be expressed in mostly tangible understandable terms – history, experiences, mark-making, the love of color and texture, attraction to beauty, etc. I find the description of the essence of inspiration impossible. It is like trying to explain grace. The closest I can come to it is to convey the forces that promotes inspired action. They involve pure intent, striving for excellence, perseverance, devoted effort, and deep reflection. These attributes and actions give birth to confirmation of the heart, which in turn moves the hand, and mysteriously propels the work forward.
I don’t know why I feel the need to explain the unexplainable. Maybe it is the desire for art to affect both the heart and head of the viewer. Thanks for provoking this reflection.
Being out and about, decay, rust, derelict places (although sad I still see the beauty once was),watching my grandchildren play, playing with my grandchildren, movement. my own curiosity.
I’ve been asked and have asked myself so many times what exactly inspired a specific painting or even what inspired me to paint in the first place. Can’t say the times I’ve stood before my easel and wondered “where did that come from.” In time, I found that the best and simplest way to explain it was that I am inspired and impassioned by a variety of seemingly unrelated things with at least one common thread between them. They each posses this wonderful ability to evoke emotions which sometimes seem to “fill me to the brim” and I cannot adequately express by any other means than through my paintings. Great post, Nicholas. Thanks!
Love your explanation, I can definitely relate!
Thanks Caroline.
A rainy day, a sunny day, sun shining, those far away mountains lost in the mist… a book, a newspaper, my photographs, my sketch books, a poem, remembering a trip, a city, people… reading NW posts!
I like your approach to seeking inspiration by becoming more aware of what brings it on. Asking what inspires me prompts a list of things I enjoy. It is like turning on a searchlight and scanning for a good foot hold.
Treetops against the sky have always given me a lift since I was a child looking out the school window. I was yearning to be free to fly in the treetops like a bird. So I paint treetops. Far horizons. Views from above.
I’ve always been inspired by nature. For years I tried to draw what I saw. Now, as my work developed I became inspired by the spaces between the leaves and the petals, the light streaming through the trees. My creativity is coming more freely now that I’ve backed up and not just seeing what most people see. My inspiration is coming from more and more places. Your article made me look at this with excitement and gratitude. thanks so much.
Other artists, nature. People who are living their lives with intention. All that’s beautiful and true.
What inspires me? Nature, Costa RIcan Spider Howler and Brown monkeys, Mexican green turtle release, swimming with dolphins, watching 100 crocodiles at Las Tarses Costa Rica. Rhinos escaping from being poached in South Africa. Hippos charging humans that get too close to them. Elephants protecting their babies when humans get too close. Lions in the wild of South Africa that push their male offspring out of the nest and fight them to do it. Coati mundies that run in packs through your backyard in the hut where your staying. Scarlet Macaws in the forest of Costa Rica that make you burst our crying because you have never seen such a sight in the wild in nature. Also, night hking to watch a green sea turtle lay 65 eggs at night in the sand. A sloth that you watch on your beach, move one inch per day for a week. Deer that liick you because you have just come out of the ocean and you are a human salt lick. A family of Coati Mundie who come into your kitchen to get fed scraps when you invite them in. All highlights of my life for me.
Footprints in the sand, waves on a beach, a disconnected piece of a tree, a smooth stone, a bright color against a dull color, the textures and patterns in nature, Having recently started painting again, I find that I’m being inspired by the colors and textures of the desert southwest, where I live. I look for that everywhere around me, where ever I happen to be.
“Choosing the BIG yes over the small yes..” Great point to ponder.
As to what inspires me, an answer is difficult to find, right now. I have had some very challenging few months that brought a roller coaster of emotions. At the present, I feel like I’m all over the map. It’s time for me to re-center, assess, sit in stillness in exchange for all the chaos that has ensued. I do know on my best days California is getting the unusual rain, the smell, the sound, the feel of fresh rain if I get the chance to walk in it. Meditation helps clear my space. Sometimes quiet, sometimes music.
color, an interesting line. nature for sure! An expression on faces of strangers, animals, loved ones….clouds….oh my…the list is too long..inspiration is everywhere. Thanks for another good read. I couldn’t agree more with the Henry James quote listed below……