Call it Inspiration. Maybe creative spark. Whatever you call it, it is the lifeblood of an artist. It’s that magical sight or sound that motivates us, animates us — even when we are at a total loss for imaginative ideas. it’s then that the message from the Muse (if we are lucky enough to receive one) feels like hitting the lottery. Most artists never know when it will come around — and each time it does, they worry it will never come back. Wouldn’t it be comforting to know that there was something you could count on to trigger your creativity? I realized this past weekend, I have something just like that — and it always delivers.
2024 marks the 35th year we’ve have been holding art workshops for children in South Los Angeles. It started when I was a TV reporter/anchor and my news director told me I was long overdue to give something back to the community. I’ve been doing it ever since. It feeds me in a way almost nothing else does. But I didn’t completely realize until this past weekend that these kids are my creative Muse. Watching the unbridled joy they bring to painting, and the fearlessness with which they do it, always helps me reconnect to that 7-year-old with the big box of crayons who begged her Mom for just 10 more minutes to color.
During our Halloween workshop this weekend, I stumbled upon a little girl (pictured above) who blew my mind. She had seen a pair of my scissors with a white rope tied around the handles. She asked if she could use it. She didn’t need the scissors exactly, but wanted to untie the rope, and with it, fashion a set of long braids on her pumpkin head. Then, she sculpted hair toys out of red and green pipe cleaners. In a million years, I would not have thought of those moves. Both were original. She saw something no one else saw. And like an artist, she expressed her vision in her unique way.
When I got home, I was exhausted, I had all my art supplies to put away, and about a hundred things on my to-do list. But all I really wanted to do — was paint. Why? Simple. I’d just had a profound encounter with my unexpected Muse.
(Pic #1) “Skeeter” – My modern day cave painting, formed by poured water on rock. Wildwood Regional Park, Thousand Oaks. Photo by Josh Kaplan.
