Unleash your creative superpowers!
I realized the other day, that most of the artists I admire seem to have one thing in common. They are all DISRUPTERS: Basquiat, Picasso, DuChamp. They turn something familiar into something radically whacked.
If I had musical skills, I’d spend most of my time doing what this musician so cleverly does: With one simple and profound tweak, he upends our experience and expectation. Listen to how he transforms Dave Brubeck’s classic “Take 5.”
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) The perfect set. Who knew? Josh knew.
Embrace what’s taken away.
As an artist, you know the inspiration can come from anywhere. But you have to be open to that inspiration, and sometimes, the preconceived notion we have about a piece, can actually stifle that. Last weekend I had finished painting a couple of new jackets and wanted some creative photos of them.
(Pic #2) Our newly-recruited model “Ainslee” helped bail us out.
Typically, on Memorial Day weekend, we often head to Santa Barbara for the day to check out the i madonnari chalk festival at the historic Mission. So the idea struck me, how cool would it be to get shots of me (or preferably a model) wearing the jackets against the backdrop of all that quirky, colorful pastel street art. So off we went. Unfortunately we arrived early Saturday morning, so most of the artwork had not been completed. No great backdrops to shoot against. That plus the fact — that with so many people walking around — a clean photo was going to be hard to get.
I stood on the steps of the Mission looking over the courtyard where all the chalk artists labored, and knew with absolute certainty that this was a wasted trip. I had the picture in my head, I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like, but there was no way to make it happen. Time to go home. That’s when my husband said, “Hey knucklehead, turn around.”
So I did. And suddenly I was facing the front of the mission. He pointed and said.. “Go pose against the wall.” The pink pillars, the texture of the whitewashed stone were stunning. So we shot there. I even found a model in the crowd who agreed to help us out. I love these shots, even though they were nothing like what I had envisioned.
I had closed myself off to other possibilities because I was locked into that one “ideal” image. Josh wasn’t, so all he saw were opportunities. So here’s the lesson I hope I learned: knowing what you want to create beforehand is a good thing. Thinking it’s the only thing worth creating can prevent you from seeing extraordinary possibilities.
(Pic #3) Ainslee duet, courtesy Photo Shop.
