I recently ran across this great quote from artist Chuck Close in the book Wisdom:

“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. 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 lightning 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… Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”

While I agree with this from a practical work ethic standpoint, at the same time we have all felt genuine inspiration and it’s such a source of power. Even Chuck does not deny its existence.

Inspiration is powerful in two ways. First, it helps us discover what matters to us — the emotional response to something we find inspirational reveals what’s important to us thematically and aesthetically.  We often then find ourselves reaching most ambitiously in directions we have been inspired in some way.

Second it’s helpful, sometimes essential, to inspire people around us toward a clear consistent creative vision. Every team needs alignment and direction, and to the extent it can be done in a way that inspires the group you will see a more committed and more determined effort.

I’m inspired by creative people cross a wide range of arts. I was quoted in a magazine article about being inspired by the authors David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon, and this is as true today as it was back when I said it in the interview. I’m inspired by filmmakers like Wong Kar-wai, Christopher Nolan, and Alejandro González Iñárritu. Painters such as Rene Magritte and Mark Ryden in terms of concept, and Caravaggio and Rembrandt in terms of technique are also a huge source of inspiration.

Inspiration exists in so many places. Architecture is all around us, revealing magnificent gestures both small and large. I recently discovered the work of Bjarke Ingels and was blown away (see photo above for example). The documentary “The Sketches of Frank Gehry” reveals insights into the process and career of a person who radically broke boundaries in a field limited by many practical and commercial constraints. Industrial design can be truly remarkable, from obvious category-changing examples from Apple to the elegant or functional innovations on the simplest everyday items.

So while careful not to use “inspiration” as an excuse for laziness or unproductive tendencies, be hungry for inspiration.

    Related posts:

    1. The Inspiration & Productivity Battle