Roll Up Your Sleeves and Do Something

Let’s talk about inspiration-specifically what to do when you can’t seem to find any. Generally, there seems to be two schools of thought around it. In one camp are those who more or less wait for inspiration to strike, which is sort of in line with the Greeks who believed that inspiration was basically an unconscious blast of creativity, either from the muses or directly from the Gods. To be fair, I actually know more than a few artists who insist that their particular muses drive much of their creative work. For example, my friend Gareth has his muse Melissa—and while the work he does with other models is terrific, there is just something, oh, I don’t know…special about the work he does with Melissa. Muses in one form or another have inspired art, music, film, and poetry for thousands of years, so who am I to question their validity. In the other camp are those more in line with Chuck Close who famously said “Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.” Now, I understand what Chuck is saying, and on some level I agree with him. The work isn’t going to make itself and at some point, you need to stop the navel gazing, roll up your sleeves and do something—whether or not you’re comfortable calling it work and really regardless of whether it’s even good. LINKS Huck magazine posted a fascinating article—it’s the story of Adrian Street, an androgynous and incredibly flamboyant wrestler who inspired Marc Bolan, David Bowie, and Bob Dylan. An interesting article on The New York Times that suggests that the music we loved as teenagers tends to be the music we still love as adults. Check out the Instagram feed of Jude Allen, a San Francisco based travel and landscape photographer who recently returned from Japan with a stunning body of work. Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0