Tag inspiration for artists

CTColumn:: The Failure of a Creative Sunday

Yesterday was a good Sunday at the art studio; I painted and my boyfriend made music and during our breaks we chatted with some of the artists whom we share the warehouse with. After the first cup of coffee, he went to the shop and came back and prepared a beautiful breakfast. Well-fed and caffeined we set off into the Sunday.

Doesn’t this sound like an ideal situation? It was, so how come it was lined with creative frustration, bad moods and a constant search for cables, which lead to a complete collapse of what could have been a magnificent creative Sunday?

Well, sometimes you just want too much at the same time and the creative force has the ability to squash everything which threatens to delay, alternate or (God forbid) kill its spirit. It is a train shooting into the future and although you aren’t behind the wheel you are on it and the driver isn’t listening to your shouts. That god damn train is flying through the air and when ordinary life is attempting to interrupt, you desperately cling on to a string of rope tied to the back of the last train car… Ugh. An overwhelming scent of creativity (can’t smell it?) is flooding the senses of the deprived expressor.  

 


Image source: www.completemartialarts.com

 

“Be like water, my friend” – Bruce Lee 

That plan to go to the park, to get on a train towards Dover, to clean the studio, to take care of piles of paper work, take a swim and then relax in the sauna, to cook a beautiful dinner, to work on the webpage, to write that project description for the funding application, to publish, edit and prepare features and interviews (in plural), to explore tantra… Maybe another day.

If you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend who is an artist and appears to be either obsessed with or even possessed by the urge to create then let them get on with it then. Whatever is begging to come out, must come out; it entered and must now materialize on the other side; pretty or ugly, challenging or soothing; humorous or frightening.

We fell asleep slightly disappointed and the following morning we agreed that London knows how to push us to the limit. The rainy clouds had gathered for another Monday morning in East London. On my way to the tube I walked through rows of houses and when glancing through a window I saw a man sitting on a chair in the middle of an empty living room watching the TV. There was only one chair and a TV in his living room.

 

This poster was created by the UK Government  during the beginning of WW2

 

I made a silent agreement with the TV junky, “If you spend the rest of your life watching movies and TV, I will continue with what I do and I am sure that there are people out there that take care of the forest walks and the tantric explorations. This way we can all focus on what matters the most.” He mumbled something about time-management, I have no idea what he was talking about.

Elinrós Henriksdotter, Founder and Chief Editor

 

CTColumn:: Echo From The Art Jungle

“Where does she get it from?” the private view art mingling Londoners mumble over the free drinks each First Thursday, First Wednesday, First Tuesday and on the odd nights when the brave and special galleries choose to have their openings. I remember coming to London and being incredibly art thirsty; drooling over brush strokes, contrasting oil textures and ten thousand other versions of creative expression. It didn’t take me long to wonder what the rest of the crowd was doing there. Where they really only there for the free drinks? During the exhibition of the wandering artist, whose name I cannot remember, in a Mayfair gallery a couple of years ago, a Ugandan Indian, whose name I shall keep anonymous, came up to me with slightly sleepy wine-eyes and declared that he was indeed an art lover. We had a chat and as a result, I ended up on a mailinglist which supplied all previously wealthy (at least in their dream world) West-End folks with a weekly e-mail report of where to go for the free drinks. Yes, I did give him my business card and hoped that he would buy one of my paintings, because my older and more experienced friends told me to network, and the man did have a nice suit and Regent Street was gleaming as prosperous as ever before.

“Where does she get it from?” used to sound like a peculiar question with no substance, until I realized that many people have no conception of creativity and what it feels like to be grabbed by that invisible powerful force that makes you walk your garbage to the tube, put on skirts inside out and eat breakfast for lunch and dinner. Observe, sketch, research, paint, and paint, and paint, and then document, throw it all online on a webpage, contact galleries and go networking. Oh, we all know the drill and it can make a wreck out of any passionate artist burning with the will to break through. How many artists come to London for a couple of years and then give up? It can be chocking to realize how many amazing artists there are out there in the complex business jungle that is built around and feeding off creative expression, and in addition, the numbers of foreign painters represented by London galleries (not including the internationally recognized) are not many.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Newtons_cradle_animation_book_2.gif

I started writing about artists because I found that the focus on art was consistently and close to entirely on the economic value and the trade of the same; the artist’s journey is absent. We must remember that we are not producing commercial objects. The story is infinitely more beautiful, and/or painful, and definitely more complex. Let’s rise above the competition mentality and focus on the real work.

Elinrós Henriksdotter, Founder and Chief Editor