Where I Find Creative Inspiration

The question artists and writers seem to get most often is, "where do you get your ideas? For me I think the issue is an overabundance of ideas. I shift from genre to genre, medium to medium, never sure which direction I will journey. Here are just a few of the places I find inspiration.

1. NATURE
Just walking in nature, around a calm lake or into the dark wood, can jostle poetry and painting ideas from the crevices of my brain. My senses come alive and life seems exciting. Ideas and poems reside among tissue paper thin flower petals, between the ripples on the lake, the tides of the ocean, and interspersed in grains of sand or beneath seashells. The song of a lark, the bark of a dog, the amorous play of the ducks in spring time, offer up all kinds of poems that I must record in any way I can before they dance away on the wind.

2. PHOTOGRAPHS
An offshoot of nature's inspiration are the photographs I take back to the studio with me. The birth of the iphone affords me an easy way to take photos of inspiration as it comes to me on a walk in a botanical garden, rose garden, or oceanfront. I get them printed from a free print app and keep them tucked into my artist inspiration journal.They become prompts for poems, or studies for water color art. 

3. MY OWN ART AND POETRY
Sometimes one of my own poems might trigger ideas for watercolor art. Or a painting, its composition, color palette, or subject, might bring to mind a verse and then I can blend the two on the page as the photo above of a page in my Watercolor Poetry Journal.

4. BOOKS
This book "Writing Poetry from the Inside Out: Finding your voice through the craft of poetry" by Sandford Lyne has been a wonderful resource. I have two copies of the book and have read it several times. Many books can motivate the writing of new poems and help the poet craft there gems. This book has as its focus a system called word groups for prompts. At the back of the book are pages and pages of groups of 4 words each to use as a launch pad for poems. I have gone through them many times, writing longer poems as well as tanka and haiku and have even used them as prompts for flash fiction.

These are just a few places where inspiration sleeps, just waiting for you to awaken them. Although sometimes its the inspiration itself that awakens the poet or artist to new destinations, new paintings or poems and perhaps enlightenment to what is out there is the world for those who choose to wander.

Creative Evolution

Perhaps the art obsession began with my first stick figure, or the color by number Venus Paradise colored pencil sets, or the paint by number oil paintings that gathered dust in the heart of my childhood closet. Wherever it began it has meandered and morphed. My muse is a shapeshifter, alive and outspoken on my right shoulder. Each evening she whispers of an assignment she wants me to follow; a new watercolor flower, or an acrylic mixed media canvas. But by morning she sings a new song, telling me to allow the watercolor paints to dry out while I pen new poems.

the dragonfly

sees her own face

in the blue mirror

of the pond

even in our own silence

we acknowledge

we are only a reflection

of something

beyond our reach

Whatever the muse has planned I listen with half an ear. Poets and artists have other calls to follow. The song of my soul leads me. Artistically into the world of watercolor which has become my favorite medium. And into flowers, for they bring me joy, whether fluttering in a breeze whispering through a field, or splashing across the blank white page of a journal.

I've always penned fairly short poems and as I approach my 70th year on this blessed planet I am more focused on writing tanka, those short five line Japanese verses, that in their lightness bear the weight of the heart and soul.

mama’s photograph

inside the locket

too tiny

to contain

life’s memories

Tanka and watercolor, what a lovely marriage of poetry and art. What a serene way to spend a few hours each morning, totally immersed in the evolution of my creative life.