Inspiration is for Amateurs
How painting yourself into a corner can be surprisingly useful
I love a good inspirational quote. There’s one that I return to quite often to motivate myself to get up and stop simply waiting for the creative spark to strike: “Inspiration is for amateurs— the rest of us just show up and get to work.” This quote by Chuck Close has stuck in my mind since I heard it in my painting 101 class the first year of university. I was terrible at painting, but I ended up creating some things that I really enjoyed, if not for the finished product then for what I learned in the process.
I often paraphrase this quote, as I did in this week’s podcast, but the meaning remains the same: if you just start working, the inspiration will come to you. You will find things you didn’t expect to find, and you will unlock the creativity that’s already inside you. It won’t unlock itself. Creativity thrives on inertia, so once you start working and firing your artistic neurons, the connections will all start to come. It’s true for any discipline, but writing and photography are the ones I have the most experience with.
When I don’t know what to write about I will just look around and pick an object or a color or a shape to start with. I describe the sky or the light or a shadow on the wall, and from there it all starts to flow. With photography the act of just taking my camera out somewhere makes me look at the world differently. I start seeing things in the frame of my viewfinder, even without the camera to my eye. I’m looking for scenes and light in the same compression that will happen when I use my telephoto lens. This has all come from my years of experience, but just being there with that mindset lets my artistic brain take over. Another art school reminder of walking around with a viewfinder in my pocket not attached to a camera to hold up and frame things like a pretentious auteur in a caricature holding up their fingers at right angles.
While looking up this Chuck Close quote to be sure I got it right, I stumbled across the original interview from which it was pulled, from the book Inside the Painter’s Studio by Joe Fig. Unsurprisingly, Close had some additional words of wisdom to add. Some of my favorite parts:
And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will — through work — bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art idea.’ And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every day.
While the above reinforces what I’ve already discussed, the following gets into some other great advice for keeping yourself honest and unique in your work. In this week’s podcast I talked about giving yourself limitations. With phone photos being edited and filtered so easily, cameras being more powerful and versatile, having access to so many possibilities can be more limiting than ever before. It’s too easy to just go with what you know or use technology to assist you, so you have to intentionally force yourself to work in a different way. I suggested going out with only one lens on your camera or writing from a single word or idea for inspiration; whatever it is that limits your scope and makes you find a creative way to solve that problem. Fittingly, Close has similar thoughts:
…for me, the most interesting thing is to back yourself into your own corner where no one else’s answers will fit. You will somehow have to come up with your own personal solutions to this problem that you have set for yourself because no one else’s answers are applicable.
See, I think our whole society is much too problem-solving oriented. It is far more interesting to [participate in] ‘problem creation’ … You know, ask yourself an interesting enough question and your attempt to find a tailor-made solution to that question will push you to a place where, pretty soon, you’ll find yourself all by your lonesome — which I think is a more interesting place to be.
I love this advice, and it’s quite fitting as I had a whole other layout for this article planned before I found this full quote. Once I read this I knew I had to follow this thread of interest, and I’m glad I did. Thanks, Chuck Close for being my inspiration today! I hope my interest can spark something in your creativity as well. As always, I’d love to see or hear what you’ve been working on so please share!
Listen to this week’s podcast or watch the video version on YouTube!
I posted a video about traditions while I run from NJ to Philadelphia, and a snowy photography video on limitations in art, related to what I discuss in this article. Please check them out, comment, and share!
Let me know what you’re interested in about my life and travels! Comment below or send me a message on Instagram or dontworryimfinite@gmail.com.
Nicely said Don!