JANUS

This post is about "inspirational" images (orphans) and ideas that exist in my files, but have no place to go until the 'Ah Ha' experience kicks in. A suggested blogger meme might start the ball rolling for one of these orphans, or one of them might be found to be inspirational and begin to tickle another blogger's creative juices. There is so much in the blog world that is inspirational.

Sometimes "cross pollination" has happened when long time friend Brenda Bryant of B ryAntics has been inspired to write a poem in response to one of my past blog images. This new blog shows newer images that have not yet been chosen for special treatment for my other two blogs. The images here are still "homeless", not caught up in any creative surge or passion. They are here because I like to look at them, they are the chosen ones out of the many I have discarded.

For some, inspiration is signaled by a tingling feeling at the back of the neck (Emily Dickinson), for others a warming-up to an idea that leads to another idea (Einstein). The "process" is like taking a journey into the "unknown" (the unconscious meditative stage), before something emerges by way of an individual's creative techniques - when the image becomes more significant, or has changed into something unique, perhaps earning an accolade in the end.

Then, in the words of Lily Briscoe (the painter in Woolf's novel, TO THE LIGHTHOUSE) it may be said, "It is finished. I have had my vision". And hubby Leonard will say to Virginia, "It is a masterpiece"! Needless to say, Virginia Woolf's work, her novels, essays and ideas, tend to influence my work in many ways, particularly her interest in art.

Creativity works differently for different people using different tools and techniques. Sometimes, an image in itself, or word or two, can be seen to be "IT" and that is valid, too, because there is something about it that captures the imagination enough to want to make it a favourite, to NOT want to improve upon it. It is a collector's item in one's own personal museum or library of the mind.

The term 'inspiration' used to be described as 1% inspiration, 99% work, to make a "masterpiece". But, today, there is a less scientific approach about what makes art, apart from aesthetic issues - as I am sure will be noted in Weaver's meme idea, INSPIRATION FOR WEDNESDAY. One of her bloggers, Seth (The Altered Page), apparently is of the opinion that today, "Anything goes". I would like to read more about how that works.

Particular family photographs can be, and are great sources of inspiration, too. And, in this digital revolutionary age, my own grandchildren are now camera-carrying members of the family. Already I see amazingly inspired photographs for which I will have to ask permission to blog!