Life: An Artist’s Undying Inspiration

The one thing I have found absolution in for never-ending inspiration as a writer is life. Life is such a challenging force, a downward (or upward) spiral of constant events to provide me with every subject matter needed for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and short stories. What would I do without it? Ha! This, I guarantee you is one thing I am in no hurry to witness. Over the years, I have written about divorcées, single parents, older siblings acting as mothers or fathers, drug dealers, prostitution, and much more. Not all of these things are a part of my life, but they have been or are a part of someone else’s. The most intriguing aspect I find about life is that it is unpredictable. There is no one thing that can be molded and shaped into something we want or need it to be unless there are underlying factors that God, a higher power, a stronger force, or something behind the “bigger picture” exists. Therefore, life… Well, life is the greatest inspiration of all.

A mother’s first born, a father’s first kiss from his baby girl, a grandmother’s tight hug, a ten year stint in the penitentiary, a drug bust, an art exhibit, a concert; these are all events that take place as happenstances of life. We congratulate, celebrate, abhor, and have disdain for them, but they make up a portion of the person we are and will become. Where would some of our favorite songs come from if life’s experiences had nothing to do with them? What about our favorite books? The plots and even something as simple as the setting (s) would probably push us into sheer boredom if life did not inspire the authors. I shudder to think about my writing style if these twenty-eight years had absolutely nothing to do with it. What or who would be my focus? How would I begin a new poem? From where would I draw inspiration? I am thankful as an artist that life is a constant. It provides me with instances that can be embellished or draped in my imagination to fill up pages and lure in audiences.

For the visual artist or painter, their best piece is probably derived from a winter storm, a tropical breeze, a school fist fight, or a flaming forest. These images seep from their minds onto canvases to create art brought to us by life. Everything that is what it is has had its beginning and will have an end. If life ceased being today or tomorrow, then so would we. I look forward to each day. The newness that lies ahead boggles my mind and fills me up with ideas to continue to create art. I am in awe of my surroundings and welcome every second of every minute to each day of each week and every year. The beauty that life brings knows no bounds. The misery that life provides cannot be properly described. Yet, we need it. We yearn for it and our art would be absolutely nothing without it.