#inspiration

“Where does your inspiration come from?”

“I don’t know how you make so many different things, I have to wait to be inspired before I make any artwork.”

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These are two of the sentences I hear a lot. A lot. It’s also something I recognize as a clue that you’re not ready to become a professional artist. I know, that sounds harsh, but it’s tough love, and it’s the truth.

Career artists don’t wait for inspiration; they’re in the studio doing work whether they’re inspired to do it or not. That’s just how business works, creative or otherwise. The best way to find inspiration is while you’re already making the marks, laying down the paint, throwing the clay, welding the metal, shaping the stone, etc. It’s much easier to act on inspiration when you’re already in your studio, supplies in hand, ready to set aside what you were working on to follow that inspiration than it is to get the inspiration and then get into the studio, set up your space and your materials, all while holding onto that spark, and then trying to fan it into a flame.

Lesson: Just as with any other job, you need to show up at a scheduled time and do the work, even if you don’t feel like doing it.