Inspiration?

I get inspired in, well, I won't say weird ways, but they certainly seem at least random to me.

There have been a good number of times this past year where, having not started a design project till the night before it was due* I have been at a loss for any sort of real idea or, at least of a way of enacting the concept which I wished to express. These are, to say the least, not fun times for me (though probably a good reason why I never gain any weight, the sheer amount of pacing and franting I do burns off any calories before they even get a chance to settle). I generally wound up walking into the hall where I would walk to the end while listening to some music, often The Decemberists. Doing so, I would pray (as best as an atheist can) for something. Most times, something would hit me, a fleeting and not completely formed image of rectangles of different sizes overlapping with a background not quite of blues that perfectly expresses the peace and prosperity that largely denoted the rule of the Roman Emperor Hadrian and the emperor himself. Or maybe something even less specific. Then, as I would walk back something else would hit me, but not accompanied by the freedom coming from having the stress of an uninspired night working at the studio, but by the return that same stress. I would notice a flaw in the idea, either conceptually or technically, that would prevent it from working. Damn. Still, it was a starting point I got used to.

I got into these habits that most of my friends (and more often the people I would hesitate to use that word with) would remind me are fairly self-destructive though it simply was how I had to work. Forcing inspiration is something that doesn't really work for me, nor does the all too common practice of creating something for a project and finding a concept to fit it once complete.

Only once that I can remember did something that I just happened to observe while walking (or whatever) inspire me. I was about to go work on a project for Waiting for Godot that I had yet to have any solid ideas for and was walking across the Great Lawn at Purchase. It was right then, as the sun was beginning to get low, that I finally came to appreciate the beauty of my school. I had never understood before how the very plain and generally accepted to be ugly bricks and mortar of my school had won design awards when it was built, but it just came to me (though I have no idea if this was intended by the design or simply my own interpretation). The school was designed with a fairly simple exterior and low profile buildings and a large field angling slightly down towards the hill of Stepford houses immediately recognized as being a part of Connecticut. The school itself was built on an old farm and is essentially a large circular clearing in the middle of the woods, so nature is literally all around the campus. The buildings don't really draw attention to themselves, so you can really appreciate nature without being distracted by the hand of man even while standing directly on its work. Right at that moment, it seemed perfect to me, the idea of accenting nature as a source of inspiration for a community of burgeoning artists. At least, that's how I see it.

That moment didn't help much with my project, but it made me feel good.

A few months later, I learned that one of the most beautiful things I have seen is the Great Lawn at Purchase at sunrise. With our great star rising over the hills, illuminating each of the white and off-white houses of Connecticut with brilliant reds, yellows, and oranges, I stopped walking and just stared. It was almost perfect to me the way the two trees on the otherwise empty field broke up the picture as the golden light slowly creeped towards to college.

Maybe I was just too tired. I like to think I wasn't.







*To clarify, it's not merely an excess of procrastination and lack of time management, but simply a lack of time. New projects each week with crew often till 10 o'clock at night at which point I often wouldn't sleep. Not justification of the delay with which I started my projects, but just so my mom doesn't put her palm to her forehead.