Inspiration from all the arts

[gr82bart]

This past weekend was personally uplifting and left me to ponder.

Saturday, I spent the better part of the day at an annual arts festival - no, not the digital postcards, organic candles for sale type. This is one where artists open up their 'studios' to the public.

Some notables:

• http://sidewaysstudio.com/
• Joseph Saccio
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaksdesigns
• Dead Link Removed

Sunday, I taught twirly 3D polyhedral origami to some eager students at the Museum of Natural History. These models combine mathematics and art into a single entity, and it was amazing to see the students think of new models once I showed them the three basic units.

Here's the originator of these designs and the one who taught me 2 years ago: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kburczyk/

In the afternoon, I had lunch with a friend at Spice Market in the Meat Packing District. One doesn't think of art necessarily in a restaurant, but the modern take on a bento box at this place was visually pleasing, in addition to the overall colonial relaxed ambiance of the place itself.

http://culinaryconcepts.com/

Then, gallery hopping nearby. It was a pleasure to meet notable fashion photographer Sam Haskins in person at his Fashion Etcetera show at Milk Gallery. Here's a guy who's 83, recovering from a stroke and still produces beautiful creative images. We talked Hasselblads, South Africa (he and my best friend are from there) and he enjoys film tremendously, but the fashion world is all digital today. It amazing to see how he has taken over a new medium and mastered it. Definitely not a luddite! Always learning, always growing and expanding. I hope I will be half as active at his age.

http://www.haskins.com/

Ever have weekend like this where you're just inspired by all the art and artists around you? Do people draw inspiration from other arts? Or what about other human interests like the culinary arts? Origami or other 'crafts'? What about seeing other people being inspired, does that inspire you? I'm starting to see the world around me with much more appreciation for the arts, and less cynicism - I mean everything from mundane place settings at restaurants to an entire urban design of a former brown space. It's good to see we humans have more within us than just war, money and ego.

Regards, Art.

 

[SuzanneR]

Yes.

 

[marcmarc]

There are only two endeavors worth pursuing in life: One is the love of art. The other is the art of love.

 

[winger]

I'd say you had one really great weekend. For me, just being around artists who are actively creating art gives me ideas (not just for photography). I never seem to find the time to do as much the ideas as I'd like, but they're there.

 

[Allen Friday]

My wife and I belong to a dinner club. We take turns hosting the meal. The club is composed of 3 lawyers, 2 doctors, an engineer, a minister and a computer programer. Our conversations run the gamut from what is happening in the local high school to the impact of recent research on Paul to movies, music and books to the relationship of spirituality and religion to gardening to travel to.... I find interesting people inspiring, whether they are artists or not.

 

[bsdunek]

Agree! I find all kinds of art give me ideas for my photography. I also find them interesting in their own right, not just for my ideas. Meetings of our local art association Dead Link Removed are great, even though there are only two of us photographers. The painters are very inspiring and the conversation is great. I also love my Wife's glass and copper Dead Link Removed and we bounce ideas off each other all the time.
It's the ideas, not the medium, IMHO.
Glad you had a great time.

 

[Q.G.]

Why not draw inspiration from life, in all its aspects?

Ask yourself, for instance, why only 'interesting people' are interesting.
Consider that "all the arts" is an excluding expression. So challenge your views on life!
You may well find that more interesting than trying to draw inspiration from 'interesting people'.

 

[removed account4]

it sounds like you had a great time art!
food, and a feast for the eyes and soul ...

====

sometimes, i find the uninteresting and mundane to be as inspiring as
the interesting and no so common, ... ( when you have lemons ... )

 

[jd callow]

sometimes, i find the uninteresting and mundane to be as inspiring as
the interesting and no so common, ... ( when you have lemons ... )

Maybe most times or maybe seeing what's there is an act that interests and inspires me. None the less, viewing art and seeing how and where people creat it is wonderful and time well spent.

 

[dpurdy]

I find looking at paintings is far more inspirational for my photography than looking at photography. Also working in ceramics for a time had a huge impact on my photography.
Dennis

 

[stradibarrius]

Finding inspiration?????

For the last several years I have been working at trying to learn how to use a camera. Taking pictures of anything, the sole of my shoe, the table lamp my car wheel blah, blah, blah. I was wanting to learn how to get the basics of exposure, focus, DOF and the technical "stuff" that you need to know to be able to capture inspiration when it hits you.

Now I have developed reasonable skills wioth the technical things but find I have no soul, no inspiration.

I can continue to try to duplicate something I have seen someone else do but I am loosing interest in copying others ideas.

Any suggestions as to how to break through and find my style and my inspiration?

I know that is a loaded question open to all sorts of interpretations but...

 

[Q.G.]

You mustn't focus on photography. Even forget about photography.
Discover what the things are that you find interesting. Try to find out why you find them interesting. Dig deep under the surface of those things and your interest in them, and see what you discover.

Maybe you'd like to share what you find. And perhaps you'd like to do that using a visual medium instead of words. Perhaps photography?

And if not, you'll know that you are spending your time on things that do interest you, instead of finding interesting things to do with a thing that itself has no soul.

 

[Rudeofus]

Any suggestions as to how to break through and find my style and my inspiration?

Have kids

 

[stradibarrius]

My kids are grown and I have wonderful grandchildren now. For me it seems to be just trying to copy what I have seen others do!
I wonder if it would of any value to folks if we posted a photo of the types of things that appeal to our eye? For example, I like things that have patterns, lots of detail, technical sort of things. Not real very interesting but maybe somebody with a more creative mind might see a way and make a suggestion as to how to channel those things to something more creative???

 

[Domenico Foschi]

My kids are grown and I have wonderful grandchildren now. For me it seems to be just trying to copy what I have seen others do!
I wonder if it would of any value to folks if we posted a photo of the types of things that appeal to our eye? For example, I like things that have patterns, lots of detail, technical sort of things. Not real very interesting but maybe somebody with a more creative mind might see a way and make a suggestion as to how to channel those things to something more creative???

It really is an intuitive process that involves a lot of practice.
Practice has two advantages: It will sharpen your technical skills but most importantly, once it becomes part of you there will be a point when you will feel you have reached your own voice. Don't try to find it, just work and the rest will come by itself.

 

[Domenico Foschi]

Someone once said that style is what we do when we don't do it well...
Some truth some bull*&^ in it.

 

[dpurdy]

It has to come from inside if you want it to be personal and not a copy. It is like in my life up until I was 30 I studied music. After studying trumpet and music theory in school I fell in love with the folk singer guitar playing song writer movement that was strong then. I loved Neil young and Bob dylan and many others. I dedicated myself for a decade to constantly playing and trying to write songs with my guitar. At the age of 30 when I was as usual up against a creative wall and unable to be inspirational other than to play other people's songs I came to realize that my problem was that I didn't have the personal need to make a musical statement, I was just really wanting to be like the people I admired so much. I didn't actually have the music in me I had a personal myth in me that I was trying to live up to. At that realization I gave up ever believing I was a musician and took up photography as an art endeavor experimentally. I immediately virtually exploded with things I wanted to do in visual art and photography. It is still going today 25 years later. The music is still not in there though my guitar is still standing in the corner in tune. You have to do what is in you to do.
Dennis

 

[removed account4]

hi barry

i have a question for you that might help ...
you have apprenticed was ready to make their own violins
but was just going through the motions and making them as s/he was taught,
(instead of putting him/herself into the process), what would you suggest s/he do ?

 

[phenix]

I would say you should stop taking photographs of what you see. Instead, imagine things, built settings to reveal them in an artistic way (metaphors, suggestions, symbols if not too prosaic), and photograph these settings. You’ll photograph what you think. See yourself as a movie director, just that the movie is a still one.

 

[stradibarrius]

This helps me...I hope it helps others as well! I have found in violin making that it wasn't until I became totally as ease with the process, as though it were second nature, before I was able to translate my ideas to a finshed product.

 

[Jim Chinn]

I really enjoy looking at all kinds of visual or "plastic" arts. Omaha has a very good art culture for a city its size with the Joslyn, univeristy galleries, commercial galleries, artists cooperatives and a pair of in residence art communities, The Bemis Center and Omaha Hot Shops. The Sheldon Museum on the UNL campus in Lincoln has a tremendous collection of modern art and a great number of local galleries. Brownville, NE (about 60 minutes away) is small town that has converted a number of its downtown storefronts into artists studios and galleries. And 2 hours away is Kansas City with the newly expanded Nelson-Atkins with probably the best collection between Chicago and the west coast as well the the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. KC also has a large number of galleries in the Crossroads District near downtown.

I try to get to all these as often as possible, Lincoln every couple of months, KC when Nelson-Atkins rotates major exhibitions (about every 3 months) Brownville once or twice a year. I usually get to Chicago once a year even if its only to spend a long day at the AIC.

I dont' know if any of it really influences my photography. I think it does help me apreciate beauty all around me in the most common of surroundings. I just love to look at the creativity of others. That can be in art or architiecture (another reason I love going to Chicago) music or literature.