How to feel inspired

Inspiration. Where does it come from?

Angus

Our guest blogger Will Aslett, from MRM Meteorite believes the creative block can be overcome by taking time out, saying ‘inspiration cannot be forced; inspiration finds you.

‘Ideas strike us out of nowhere when we least expect it.’

An alternative view comes from student Chris Benfield, commenting on our Linkedin page, who quotes artist Chuck Close.

‘Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lighting to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.’

Lucas, by Chuck Close

Source: Andy Brannan

Lucas, by Chuck Close

This ‘work furiously until you find inspiration’ approach will be familiar to those of us who do their best work under threat of a fast-approaching deadline…

Furthermore, and this is an idea I subscribe to – inspiration can come from other people.

This can be either through being inspired by other people’s work and achievements – plenty of our Twitter followers, for example, praised Royal College of Art graduate Dan Watson’s SafetyNet trawler net device, which allows young and unmarketable fish to escape the net – ‘a cracking idea, for a product you wouldn’t ever think of redesiging’ said one.

Or it could come from an inspiration teacher or mentor, like those name-checked in this week’s voxpop.

My view is that inspiration can strike out of nowhere, like Will Aslett says, but for that to happen you need to put yourself in the right position.

Look around, talk to people, work hard and be interested. You can’t necessarily find inspiration, but you can make it easier for inspiration to find you.

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