Asked and Answered:
Questions from ArtHASH: A Pulse on the Art Beat.
(8.26.10)
As artists, we are often inspired by the world around us-- but there are times we also need a nudge. I was curious as to substances that enhance the creative process. Well, I will be honest-- "I" was not curious-- Rainer was curious. So anyway, does boozing, hashish, loud music, ten large pizzas, or skinamax get your creative juices flowing...
There is no one thing that get the juicy flowing. For me they are always flowing, just the speed of the current varies. I have well over a hundred ideas sketch out and each of those will have a dozen branch directions I want to follow given time. I have many on going series, such as my man with the green umbrella. At times I will do three four four piece in a row. Other times he will reappear three four four times over a course of twenty to thirty paintings. If anything stimulates a new image its simple a moment or a curve, a line that I glimpse ad then my mind fills in the details and I start to create an internal narrative and back-story.
Some people speak of music as inspiration. This is not the case for me. What music does for me is top create repetitive memory and mood and moment. I will have the same CD playing repeatedly as I work on a piece. If the particular piece takes days or weeks, the music in question allows me to slide into the same mood-space that I began the work in, thus allowing me to maintain a consistency of mood. At times I will do this with the same DVD playing over and over again, allowing me to listen to dialogue and incident music. Most often these are films from the 30's through the mid fifties, and often from Film Noir genre.
I, for one, cannot image creating work under the effects of alcohol or some form of narcotic. People tell me I already posses a wild mind that goes places few under the influence of mind altering substance would ever dare going.
If you want a more concise answer, it would simple be the act of living life and pursuing creative lines without fear.
