Musing About the Muse

Back in the day, when I was feverishly working on the Magnum Opus of my Master's Degree, I covered a very large segment about John Keats.  Like many good poets, he understood the value of Greek and Roman literature and paid homage to the muses.

I used to chuckle to myself at the idea that some magical being would come to a writer, and inspire them to write.  I knew it was likely the influences of drugs or alcohol or other natural or unnatural substances not the divine.

But lately, I've been understanding where they were coming from.

Frankly, I am more like them than I would usually care to admit.

Something has happened at the beginning of this new year.  I am inspired by everything.  My artistic side is busting a move. Today, I spent my Saturday relaxing while I still try to expel the last few dregs of a wretched cold I had a couple weeks ago but that still haunts me.  But the one thing I did not do today, which I have been doing every day for about a week and a half, is draw.  And not just draw, but draw with my new dip pens.

You see, while artists have no specific muse, I believe I might be entertaining a muse in disguise or something.  Maybe she's taking a holiday in California. Maybe it is because I am both a writer and artist? All I know is that not having drawn anything at all today after several days of being on fire has made me jittery tonight.  I feel like I'm going through some sort of addict's withdrawal symptoms just from not having inserted a nib into pen holder, dipped it's perfect tip gently in an ink bottle, and then gliding it across a paper.  But it's late at night and I don't want to do too much before sleep.  So I will merely layout my plan of action for tomorrow.  But I swear, I must work on a little soon or I may go crazy.

The artistic surge is tangible and unavoidable. I feel invigorated and I refuse to back down.

So, my love letter to my muse, my angel, my holy intangible spirit guide whomever you are that is inhabiting my soul, I welcome you.  Please stay.   Your presence is most appreciated and most welcome.   You and I can make the world more beautiful, I know we can!

Proof?  Here:

Work that is coming out of me is blowing myself away.

I feel like I'm on the verge of something amazing.  And that's a really good feeling.

Let my own inner flower unfold!

Discovering something new

Being an artist and a writer, I'm always exploring, improving, and otherwise looking for ways to express myself in new ways.

Thanks to a rampant round of insomnia, I managed to discover an artist named Natasha Westcoat.

Starting while she was still a teenager back in 2004, she started selling her work online and since then has sold an astounding 1000 pieces.

Her work has been so successful that not only is it all over the place, but now located as patterns on linens in major department stores.  For a relatively short career, she did what many aspiring artists like myself dream about: making it big.

While making it big would be exciting, big for me these days would be eeking a living.

However, her story inspired me in another way, in that it has turned me on to a growing art movement.  Whereas I had always thought that art had to be huge (after all, my instructors were always encouraging bigger and bigger) it seems that more people are catching on to a trend of shrinking.

What I am referring to is Artist Trading Cards.  The idea is to create original works of art but tiny that can be exchanged for other tiny works.  Clubs have formed around the world, and you can even do exchanges of work online to get exposure.

But apparently, people like to purchase these little gems as well.

As an artist, I consider this a tremendous opportunity to try something new at a low risk.  One of the most annoying aspects about trying new techniques is that feeling of investing time in it only to see it not come out the way you want and only finding this out at the end of a very long investment.  Or accidentally making your work a catastrophe by one screw-up.

The marvelous thing about this, is that I can complete an entire work in a matter of an hour.  If I want to try a more time-consuming technique it won't take me a week, but maybe a few hours.  If it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world.

Even better, I'm upcycling by using discarded paper samples from a prior job as a graphic designer.

All of this serves as proof, that often annoying circumstances like insomnia can actually turn into something productive and amazing.