Where Artists Get Their Ideas

    It seems to me that it is the same with all artists and craftsmen, inventors and cooks. They are inspired by the smell of basil, a lovely song someone shared, the sight of a sparrow in the garden, the sunlight turning the hills gold, a child's funny question, a thought expressed in a book, the pain of losing a parent. 

    The song or the sun or the smell evokes a message, a course of action, a kind of beauty that wells up inside the artist and begs to be embodied in words or paint or a piece of carved wood or a dish of flavors set on the table before a loved one. 

    Even law makers do this. They see a problem or an injustice that begs for action. An idea of goodness asks them to draft a new law. 

    It manifests itself as a kind of yearning, a compulsion perhaps, to do or to express that whiff of something that we caught. Although, perhaps "caught" isn't the right word. So often it doesn't feel as if we did anything to catch an idea. It feels as if someone opened up our minds and dropped something inside. We were jogging or doing the dishes or paying the bills, and suddenly we were arrested by that something else, that current of truth or beauty or goodness, which must be expressed in some form. So we paint or cook or invent or compose until we reproduce the thing in a tangible form. 

    Quite often at this point, the artist gets stuck on the creation and forgets the power that compelled its making. Quite often an artist tries to recreate the circumstances where the idea overtook them so that they can experience that same thrill of being the conduit for something entirely outside themselves. Sometimes the artist fails to translate the idea into its medium, and instead they produce something like little images of themselves on paper or in song. Sometimes the artist begins to believe they were the source of the thing invented or the law enacted or the dress designed. They go on tours and accept homage from admirers.

    And still others recognize that they were merely the window through which a brilliant light has shone. They consider themselves honored and privileged to have been involved.  And they admire the creation just as much as if someone else had made it. They recognize that the creation isn't themselves. It isn't a commentary on their identity, but something rather separate. Something outside themselves: a power and beauty and truth and goodness so much greater than themselves that they are humbled to be asked by him to convey the message to others.