How does an artist find inspiration?

 


Featured image: Intersections II

How does an artist find inspiration? 

Do ideas simply appear in an aha moment? For me, those moments are rare. Most of my inspiration comes from looking—really looking, really seeing.

We miss more than we realize. Have you ever walked the same path twice and noticed something new the second time? Or looked at someone and questioned whether their eyes were blue or green? We often see things without fully realizing that we’ve seen them.

This way of seeing shapes my work. People frequently ask about the black-and-white bars that appear throughout it. There isn’t a simple answer. They come from my history—from an exhibition I once guided as a museum docent, featuring objects from an African tribe adorned entirely in black-and-white patterns. After seeing that work, I found myself drawn to those patterns as well.

Was I copying them? That question comes up often in art, especially around copyright. I recently read about a photographer wrestling with the same issue: how to make an image original when so much has already been done. Exhibition guidelines are clear—submitted artwork must not be a copy of, or a direct derivative of, another artist’s work. But what does that really mean?

I believe that the moment we make a mark, it becomes ours. No one else can make the same mark—try copying someone’s work without tracing paper. You may replicate the look, but not the mark. What can be copied, however, is the idea—and that is the harder question. Copyright rarely addresses ideas directly.

If a photographer shoots the same mountain Ansel Adams once photographed, even from a different angle, with a personal touch, the image may be different—but the idea is not new. Can it truly be hers?

That question applies to my own work as well. Am I imitating the black-and-white patterns I once saw? I don’t have a definitive answer. I only know the question matters.

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