Inspiration

[Cooperix]

All of us being the artists…Kotei

Good discussion. Lots of references directly or indirectly to intuition.

The book ‘The Zen of Creativity’ (referred to in a previous post by Kokuu), which hopefully we will read and discuss after the first of the year, was written by the late John Daido Loori, an American Zen teacher. He was a well-known photographer. He says ‘[c]reativity is also an expression of our intuitive aspect. Getting in touch with our intuition helps us to enter the flow of life…’

Meishin, your photo speaks to this. For me entering the flow of life is what opens me up to inspiration because I am, at some level, paying attention. But it is always, always a gift to feel that pull of creative energy. And when it goes away (or I’m not open) for a while I feel bereft, empty. It’s a state of grace, as a friend of mine described being in the creative zone.

Kotei, your muse seems to be in the form of the ineffable! I love that.
This might be an interesting topic of discussion down the line...'how we express the ineffable' through our art.

Scientific American put out a special edition last year The Mad Science of Creativity. Lots of provocative articles in there. I am currently reading one on dreams:
‘Brain areas that restrict our thinking to the logical and familiar are much less active during REM sleep. Such disinhibition is a crucial part of creative thought.’

SO Eishuu, you are on to something there. I personally have never solved any aesthetic dilemma while dreaming but it’s evidently not uncommon. Both the novel ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ came from dreams to name just 2 examples mentioned. Lots of science and mathematical breakthroughs.

Here are websites of 2 artists that I think you might find interesting when considering inspiration.

The painter, Susan Myo On Linnell is an ordained Renzai Zen monk http://www.12k.com/artist/steve-peters/

gassho
Anne

~st~

[Meitou]

Things seen every day, ordinary nothing special things, suddenly become inspiring, for their colours and shapes and their interraction with the spaces they are in. In the moment before the mind produces labels and concepts such as food, rice, tomato, place mat, beans, photo, etc forms can be seen just as they are.
IMG_20180913_124423.jpg IMG_20180913_124250.jpg

Gassho
Meitou
satwithyoualltoday

[Kokuu]

Hi all

I am a writer, primarily of short poems (haiku etc) but also some longer pieces. For me, I need an initial spark of inspiration as a way in, and the rest seems to take care of itself.

A single moment provides that spark, most often from nature, and then there is a flurry of words and images from other things I have seen read and experienced that come together to produce the finish piece. I have little control over what comes, only to filter the relevant/good from the not so good. Pieces may also sit and mature with additional inspiration coming to change it later.

Being open to what is coming, and not having a fixed idea of how things are going to turn out sems most important to me.

I have also noticed there are particularly good times for inspiration such as dawn and just before sleep (always have a pencil and paper by the bed but the turning on and off of the light to record inspirations can get tiresome!). This seems to be because the conscious mind gets out of the way and allows other material to come through. The same can happen in meditation but it is important to put that down during sitting. Interestingly, Irish poet monks were said to have sought inspiration in the darkness with a practice called 'poetic incubation'. This is not unlike meditation but with the focus on creativity rather than sitting with everything as a manifestation of all that is.

Being busy and doing often shuts off inspiration. It tends more often to be found among the still and quiet spaces.

just sitting
my body
becomes the east wind

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Doshin]

All this has called to me to pause and think of the place in my life where art resides. My father was a painter, he was the first of his family to go to college and there he studied art. I remember as a childing watching him apply his skills to canvas, mostly landscapes and still lifes. I never thought of myself as an artist. However my wife told me years ago that I express myself in landscaping. Others have said that as well so now I see art in ways different than those glimpses into it as a child watching a canvas come to life. I used to write articles for several magazines an ocassional journal, one small book, but they were technical and required an approach that in restrospect I still would not label as art. I never tried poetry until I wrote one and shared here in the forum a week or so ago. However I did write a series of magazine articiles in the 1990s about personalities in the herpetology world and there I tried to bring humor and insights and it was with those that I felt creativity/art in the process.

To the question of Inspiration I turn to nature. Sunsets, sunrises, flowers appearing, a lizard running through the grass, an elk bugling at sunset, owls calling and so forth. My home encompases paintings, prints, weavings, sculptures, artifacts collected in the wilds, and more. Their common theme is wildlife, that which is central to my Inspiration and motivation.

Gassho
Doshin
Stlah

[Nengei]

This is my first Art Circle post, so greetings to all.

I have always thought of myself as struggling with creativity. I think of myself as a technical person; a scientist. The creatives were others in my family. But I spent a lot of my life making music, at least up until the point where science became overly demanding of my time. My grandmother was a painter, and my mother is a painter. My oldest sister is a potter. I have dabbled in music, photography, and drawing. Now, I am a painter.

Something that my creative side has taught me is to find peace and pleasure in being mediocre. I don't expect anything from the art that I do. Every once in a while thoughts of going pro creep into my brain. This is an ongoing issue that I have, the desire to turn everything that interests me into a profession. But art forces me to the process. I have to look beyond (or maybe before) the finished product and wallow in the making. I think that is why painting appeals to me. Yes, I can go alla prima and try to produce a painting in a few hours (I suck at plein air painting). But really what works for me is the gradual, extended process of building a painting from the ground up, progressing through many layers that take weeks or months. This gives me an intimacy with the scene that I don't think I could get in any other way.

Process photo.

Finished painting photo.

I started associating art with practice through my experiences at Zen Mountain Monastery. Daido Roshi convinced me that some sort of art practice was an essential piece of the puzzle. I work at creating with a breath. It is one thing to position, focus, and press a shutter-release in one outward breath. It is another thing with oils and canvas. I did figure out that the goal is other than to produce a finished project in 20 seconds.

Inspiration... sometimes that is hard to put my finger on. The most inspiring thing to me is the work of other artists, particularly the Renaissance bad-boy Caravaggio. I get a lot of inspiration from the world around me, and what I see every day. A lot of the time what I see makes a great scene to my eyes, but not such a good scene on canvas. I like still life work. I like setting up my model, sketching it, roughing it in, and watching it pop out of the canvas. I also get inspired by simply picking up books about art and looking through them, especially if they are about a particular technique or style that I am interested in. I often find myself looking at stuff just sitting there, and thinking about how to put in the darks and lights to make it come to life.

Gassho
Joseph
Sat/LAH