Inspiration:
Created | Updated Jun 20, 2002
Inspiration is like the other one to the pair of your best socks, elusive when you need it, but when you’re looking for something else, like the TV remote, it turns up, and just causes problems.
I find that it loves to come and taunt me on the following occasions:
* In the very important time before exams, when I am supposed to be ‘revising’.
* In exams, when I am supposed to be regurgitating the end result of my ‘revision’.
* In the middle of large open spaces, on busy days, in the absence of pen, paper, and a good memory.
* In that peculiar state between asleep and awake, where, after sleep, thoughts have been forgotten, or replaced with blurred memories of dreams.
You may wonder how I know about the last one. Well, I was almost asleep, and had some rather inspirational thoughts running through my head, fast, in the hope that they would go unnoticed, and I realised “hey, I’m having some rather inspirational thoughts here, its probably a good idea to try and remember them”. After realising this, I found that the realisation had cunningly trapped the thoughts, so I could be inspired by them.
Anyway, I must confess that I find it most odd that the one thing every artist (and I use that term very loosely) searches for, and needs to survive, is so difficult to find. It causes me to wonder why anyone ever wanted to be an artist. Why make things difficult, and try to make a living from elusive thoughts? Why not specialise in those thoughts that are common, and easily found, easily tracked, like in maths, or science?
The answer, I suppose, has to be that artists want the challenge. Art does not look for answers, in the way that science does, but looks, I suppose, for a form of beauty, that perfect thing which expresses that feeling. It is creative, not analytical. In the search for inspiration, the artist also looks for that perfect expression, that sentence, that curve, that colour, that movement, which conveys all that they want to show, exactly what they mean. Yet, what we mean, is a very complex thing. Even if we get the right statement, series of words, lines or images, we then have to think of each in turn, consider the inflections, the tone, the intensity. And each of these too, has a number of possible variations, of which the artist must choose the right one.
In a way, as the scientist looks at smaller and smaller parts of the ‘all’, and analyses what he sees, the artist looks at smaller and smaller parts of the ‘all’ and defines, creates, what he and others will see.
It can be argued, I guess, that the scientist and the artist are dealing with different ‘alls’. The scientist studies the physical. The artist studies the emotional. But, what is coming to be realised is that the two are linked. The physical world, and the emotional one, or spiritual one, are linked. Take humans for example, as we all know what they are, even we are not one ourselves! It is proven, scientifically, that the emotional state of a human affects them physically, in the balance of chemical hormones for example. And human movement, expressive gestures, are motivated by emotions, so, according to Newton’s laws of motion, emotion has to be considered to be a force.
So, in the coming years, I expect that science will become more interested in art, as it shows evidence of emotion, which they can study. And artists, I predict, will become more interested in science, as emotions result in physical actions and substance, as the painter already knows, the science of pigmentation, and canvas, has already influenced his life.
And as for the elusive inspiration, he will be searched for by all. The artists need his help, and the scientists want to look at him down a microscope. Maybe they will, as a joined force, be able to find him. Maybe, they will find that other sock...
