For my artistic friends: I submitted this blog post for entry into a wonderful and creatively inspired blog called Kisses and Chaos. The blogger had already written on this topic so she passed on my particluar blog article. But since I am on a creative quest of my own, I decided to repost it here for my readers. (All 5 of you!)
Before you hit the proverbial wall of the universe and collapse into creative unrest, discover these techniques for enhancing artistic inspiration while on your creative journey.
We all get stuck from time to time. We’re rolling along, our artistic vision streaming ahead, fireworks going off as the union of divine creative genius flows through us. Then suddenly we screech to a halt, or at times it is as if we slowly come down from the heavens and rest above our work, floating yet unmovable.
Have no Fear!
Here are some fun, fearless ways to get your creative juices revved up and make some new friends in the process:
- Talk to everyone you know and ask them to send you something that inspires them. This will give you new media to explore, which you may have never known about.
- Visit a gallery or museum, take a tour or spend time talking with the curator, ask experiential questions to open the door to new ideas.
- Check out your local independent theater company or indie movie theater, spend the day infusing your senses with film art.
- Browse the bookstore or library art and photography section; pick up a coffee table book of your favorite art; splurge on fashion magazines. You’d be amazed at what comes to mind when looking at other people’s artistic expressions!
- Visit a fabric store or a craft store, look at materials and art supplies, touch textures and patterns and notice color.
- Get silly, let your inner child have free reign. Visit a theme park, a novelty shop, a playground, volunteer at an after school arts program. See how your spirit soars when you are given to blowing bubbles in the wind, eating a bowlful of tri-colored ice cream, buying a balloon just because, even putting glitter on your face!
- Buy yourself a bouquet of flowers, spend time seeing the vibrant hues and definition of each leaf and petal, smell the roses. (That’s my mother’s favorite piece of advice)
- Go to websites like www.deviantart.com; www.flickr.com; www.etsy.com to see what people just like you are creating.
- Listen to music you love and find more inspiration on www.last.fm where you can browse by category to find all the styles of music that you love by thousands of artists. Build your own soundtrack and listen to radio plays based on your interests.
- Go outside and take photos of beauty, capture nature at its finest, a stretch of crumbled street, odd angles, glittering things, statuary in a cemetery and take pictures of lots and lots of different kinds of people. Beauty is everywhere!
Do all this without the intent to create from it. Let go and enjoy the time you allow yourself to do these activities, as long as it takes. Do not force it. It is in the stillness that we catch our breath to take in the beauty that surrounds us every single day. You will see, sooner or later, the more you infuse your senses with the true wonderment that life has to offer, your creative instincts will once again flourish and you will move forward as if you had never even stopped.
