Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’
Pink Marshmallow Heart
This mornings inspiration could be summed up in this little poem.
Marshmallow hearts and sea urchins
the giant turtle returns
she is in a trance
tears on sand
she’s multiplying
so she might survive
then disappears again
into marshmallow hearts and sea urchins.
Mariannne Potterton October 2008
Putting ourselves in inspiring places
Inspiration and influence can come from all sorts of places; it could come from everything we experience. Maybe we should be a bit more particular about what we experience? I think that what we look at and what we read does go in, and even helps shape who we are. This is why media controls the world, well certainly has a huge impact on it, and now the Internet is changing the world; because it is coming from millions of individual sources. Saying this Google knows so much about everyone, whoops I better stop now! I think of artists being like digesters and distillers of everything that we witness; it is munched and mulched and then played with to create something original. A large part of an artists job is to witness that which my inspire and lead to interesting art being created.
This morning we all loaded into the car, off to see a Dolmen. I wonder what they were for, there are so many around the Burren. I have only visited a couple so far but each one has felt very special, and I would not be surprised if the people then, knew far more than we do about the earth and energies in it. For me Dolmens symbolise a connection with the earth and the spiritual; enclosing a small piece of sky within large rocks that usually lay close to the earth; the earth and the sky becoming intertwined. For me this part of the world is very mystical, maybe because we are in the clouds most of the time! Or maybe Liscannor really is the gate way to Hy-Brasil (Read more about this and an art piece by Maeve Collins, in another post to come.) I was very glad James suggested we jump in the car and go to see the Dolmen.
Thought of the day
When you open up, it opens up
The illusive nature of inspiration
I know nothing about the nature of inspiration, usually when I think I do, it disappears completely! It is mysterious and that is what makes it so appealing. When art is too easily understood or needs to be understood it looses its allure. Clever art that is like some kind of trick or brain tease is not the art I love. No puns, this is one of the reasons that Basho is one of my favourite Haiku poets; because all of his Haiku poems are devoid of all “cleverness” and puns. Saying this, you will probably find one or two in my own work! Though I have not intended to have any.
Often in order to be inspired I have to be searching, as if in the dark going on a journey making awkward often ugly attempts of painting, then over time something happens, each time it feels like it wont, something new and unexpected happens. I am in the middle of one right now and it feels very awkward. It does remind me of giving birth! Paintings are born! You cant really go into it in a half hearted way! The difficult thing with painting may be imbuing it with life and soul. Not necessarily the artists soul, but soul, these are the painting and other pieces of art that have a kind of presence. There can be many different ways of getting there but this kind of describes the road I am on!
Finding great women from the past and present.
I would like to know more about great and inspiring women from the past. When I think about the people that I don’t or did not know personally, that have influenced me I am sad to say that there are few women. Some of the men I think of as being great are: Basho, Herman Hesse, Joseph Beuys, The Dali Lama, Derek Jarman and Christy Moore and last but not least my greatest inspiration James Slevin. Though the women I grew up with and went to college with are profoundly inspiring. I wonder why I don’t know about more about great women that I did not know personally? I know they are there. Some of the discovered women I do know through books that I think are great are: the artist and painter Frida Kahlo, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, who wrote Women who run with wolves, and Suzi Gablic, who wrote a great book called Conversations before the end of time, among others. Please let the great women from the past and present not be a secret anymore! Come out come out who ever you are! Please let me know who you have discovered by writing in the comments section of this post.
The secret gallery's blog 