WHAT IS INSPIRATION?

In many ways, my art is my teacher.  The way my process usually works is, I will get an inkling that there is some inspiration, or vision, wanting to emerge into  my consciousness.  It may be a fragment of a vision, or a flash of an image I see.  At this point, I just try to make myself available to it.  I let it lead me.  It doesn't do any good to try to force it... I will look through literally thousands of images of various things to see if anything resonates.  And when something does, I make sketches and notes about why it stood out.  It can be kind of like putting together a puzzle or solving a riddle.  Except, with symbols and images and color instead of words.  Meditation and getting out into nature are also good ways of facilitating the emergence of an inspiration.   My best art comes from a source that is not contrived or intellectualized.  In other words, I try not to over think it.  Most of the time I don't truly understand the meaning of one of my creations until it is complete and I have had a chance to step back and reflect on it for a while.

Sometimes I will pray for an inspiration, like I did after September 11, 2001.  I remember being so wrenched with emotion.  Every time I heard the newscasters quote an estimated total of the number of people who died, I would think, that is just a number!  These were all individuals, each with families, and friends, and pets...  It was so overwhelming and unfathomable to me that I felt like I had to respond in some way just to appease my own soul.  That is how the Open Hearts series began.  And now, 12 years later, the series has become a part of who I am as well as a source of healing and affirmation for myself as I go through the process of making each individual Heart and for those who are touched by them.