Busted

 

I’ve been sculpting equines realistically for over thirty years. Hyper-focused, disciplined, perfectionist, driven. And it’s not like I ever went halfway. I’ve actively worked to refine my abilities with a single-minded mania, investing heavily in references, workshops, materials, and loads of other educational resources until my brain cells popped like tobiko and my wallet groaned in agony. And so my skills were honed, my confidence high, my motivation at maximum…nothing was beyond my grasp.

Until In Dreams.

In just 17 days, this simple, seemingly straightforwards bust blew up thirty years of effort right in my face like Wiley E. Coyote’s Acme dynamite, and I was left carbonized, dazed, desperate, and destroyed. I even lost my eyebrows.

In Dreams broke me.

Honestly, this bust just crushed me and nearly ended my career. I cried. I begged. I cursed. I lamented. I questioned. I doubted. I cried again. And I nearly gave up. As in gave up everything. I nearly walked away. I truly came to believe my Muse had left me and that was it, I was done. My career was over. I actually entertained the idea of a new life working at the local Michael’s instead. I’m not kidding. Sorting fake flowers and stacking canvases was sounding pretty good at that point.

But it was devastating beyond that though. Since so much of my identity is wrapped up in being an artist, I was left a wreck of myself. A mere bust had put me in a very real personal crisis and I was left in ruins, wracked with doubt, confusion, anguish, anxiety, and despair. I even worried if this debacle would trigger another breakdown like the one before my descent into six years of suicidal clinical depression. I could see that dreadful edge of the bottomless drop-off — I was on it. I’d never been pushed to this bleak point before as a function of my skills and it was a terrifying landscape for someone who had such a solid grasp on their purpose. Oh, I’ve been down this path a few steps, but never like this, never actually hitting the wall smack dab, full force. I was shook to my core as an artist and as a person.

But sometimes — just sometimes — the Universe gifts us with destruction. Sometimes we have to be blown apart to be rebuilt into something new with more room to grow.

You see, I had to unlearn 30+ years of Seeing which is far harder than it sounds. Here’s the gist of it: The very nature of our reality is determined by our perception filter, it’s how we interpret reality, and so, quite literally, our perception is our reality. Here’s the kicker though: We are each unique and so we each have a unique perception filter and so a unique perception of reality. This is why every artist can paint the same bowl of lemons realistically and each painting will still be different. That's to say, our perception filter isn’t objective — it’s subjective. Now in art, this individuality manifests as our artistic habits, style, aesthetics, and blindspots, those unique quirks that make our art distinctive. (For an in-depth discussion of this topic of perception, check out my blog series The Unreality Of Realism; Walking the Tightrope Between Fact and Fiction Part I-V.) So for some inexplicable reason, 30+ years of encrusted perception quirks came to a head with In Dreams and kerplewied my reality. Bang! Said another way, my perception filter not only vapor locked, it imploded.

You see — nothing clicked. Not. One. Thing. For 17 days it was failure after failure after failure. Resculpting the same areas a dozen times. And still with failure after failure after failure. Well, let me rephrase that because it was worse — after pseudo-success after pseudo-success after pseudo-success. In other words, everything looked bang-on perfect to my Eye as I completed her — awesome, right? Nope. Because when I compared those areas all to the references, they were still wrong or not quite there. And no matter how I redid things, they always pulled up short. This systemic contradiction pointed to a serious flaw in the way I was Seeing and to me that’s Defcon 1. And, of course, confusion, frustration, and anxiety set in (and oh, that always delightful inner critic), amplifying with each failed go-round until I was a worn down nub of self-loathing and despondency. Complicating matters, too, my schizoaffective disorder, riled from the stress of this, amplified those voices in my head to become another very insistent and pointed chorus of self-inflicted vitriol I couldn’t escape. Then finally after the nth failed try — since I lost count — I broke. I cried and sat there hating myself and came thiiiiis close to just walking away from a 30+ year career.

See, the thing with some artists — as it is with me — is that when we get to failure of this magnitude, it becomes deeply personal. It’s no longer just a challenge to conquer, an obstacle to tackle, a problem to solve, but you can’t just walk away from it or let it slide either. Instead, it becomes a direct reflection on who I am as a person and an artist. There’s something seriously wrong with my skills so there has to be something wrong with me, right? And even more, that because the failure is so egregious, whatever is wrong with my abilities must indicate that I’ve reached the limit of my potential, yes? That was it for me then, and failing well short of the goals I aimed for my entire life. Life as I knew it was over and it would end on a sour note. Maybe that’s too much silly drama — it probably is — but we can’t stop our emotional thoughts, can we? They just happen. So there I was, an utter lame loser with no future in this genre anymore and worse, no hope in the one thing that meant so much to me my entire life. 

But taking my own advice from Demonslaying 101 (oh, the irony!), I took a breath and tried one more time. 

Because if you know me, you know there’s one thing stronger than my despair: My stubbornness. Weapons-grade. Just ask hubby and you’ll get an eye roll. So I may have been smacked down and gutted, but blast it — I was getting back up again. And if that meant unlearning everything I knew, then I was throwing it all under the bus. But I knew I needed a break to step back and regain my emotional composure. I also needed to let my subroutines work the problem without pressure or expectation. Know it or not, we're always learning subconsciously and it's whether we keep that door open for this that determines a large portion of our progress. So I let her sit for eight long months, occasionally peeking at her as my subroutines processed new concepts and ideas, checking them on her. Gradually, new things started to lock into place, new ways of Seeing structure that illuminated old errors and new pathways. Sometimes dumping everything we think we know is just what the sculpture ordered! Because I realize now that I had stopped listening to her, I had stopped following where she wanted to go because at that point in my skills, I just couldn't hear, I just couldn't follow. 

So in May 2022, I was finally ready to get my toes wet again, truly listening to her this time. Needing a clean slate then, I dremeled near everything off and restarted with the determination not to sculpt by what “felt right” or what I knew. I dumped my entire belief system: My habits, formulas, all I was taught and everything I’d learned about anatomy and structure, even my entire mental library. Instead, I determined to sculpt completely outside my comfort zone no matter how odd it looked, how unfamiliar it seemed, and no matter how uncomfortable it felt. I put my perception in a blender and hit frappé.

And it worked. By gum — it worked! Right out of the gate, it all worked!

Now one could say, “Hey, why didn’t you just sculpt what was there in the first place?” Well, see…it doesn’t really work that way. Even in objective technical realism, the human brain introduces preferences, biases, errors, formula, and blindspots. It can’t help it. Let’s backtrack a little bit…it’s easily argued that the human brain is really just a highly sophisticated pattern recognition machine. By the mere act of processing something to recreate it then, the brain is automatically identifying and duplicating patterns best it can — even making up patterns where none exist to fill gaps. In the process, it develops habitual patterns to get the job done more efficiently and to be able to make predictions and deductions. We call this learning. And for equine realism, one of those patterns is the anatomical blueprint, from the points of articulation to the angled planes and curves to the layout of the muscles to the formation of the veins, and so on. Everything about the equine’s structure can be broken down into a series of patterns and so the closer we get to objectively expressing them, the more realistic our work reads. Yet since each artist has a unique perception of reality, we also have a unique set of recognized anatomical patterns. In this then, no artist actually renders what’s really there, they can only ever render their own interpretation of what’s really there, and that interpretation is biased by the mere act of processing it. Think of it as Schrödinger’s Arting. So put all those individually unique patterns together and we end up with what we think of as artistic style, the aesthetic pattern if you will, something which makes each artist’s work as distinctive as a fingerprint. And know it or not, even the most clinical depictions are stylized when you know what you’re looking at.

So when I was able to shift my entire aesthetic paradigm — when I was able to replace my perception filter with a brand new one and therefore perceive new patterns — that actually involved quite a bit of a shake up. I sat there marveling then, amazed at how easily it all came now and discovered that it was my old perception filter that had been holding me back. Everything also looked more realistic than my work ever had, at least to my new Eye, it just had more “organic chaos,” it was looser and “naturally messier” than my previous more rigid interpretations would allow. Plus structures were more accurate, planes more authentic, proportion more aligned. In short, I had learned new ways to play with the rules. Now granted, these were relatively little things — esoteric, geeky things really — but to me, it was a whole new world. And even more, it was like this whole new way of Seeing had been ready to go all along only it was waiting for me to get a freaking dang clue.

Because what I realize now was that my implosion wasn’t due to a lack of ability, it wasn’t a plateau, it wasn’t a failure, it wasn't the end of my potential — I had been on the cusp of a breakthrough. It was growing pains. I was finally ready to shed my old skin but the only way to do that was with a shock to the system to knock it loose. To do that then, the Universe nuked me from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure) because that thick 30+ year encrustation of patterns was so closely tied to me, there was no way to blast them without blowing me up too. Sometimes, breakthroughs can be brutal.

But now on the other side, I’m profoundly grateful. Not only did my sculpting take a huge leap forwards, but I learned quite a bit about myself in the process, some of it good and some of it bad. The best thing I learned was that no matter how awful things could get, there was that trusty seed of hope that, though pulverized and paltry, could still germinate the gumption to try again. That deep down I really did trust myself despite seemingly hopeless odds. I also discovered that I wasn’t a fearful, fatalist soul, I had a hopeful heart. That’s very reassuring! I was far more powerful than I thought I was, too, and that I could draw from this well of tactical stubbornness to give me that nitro boost when I needed it. I was also reminded that the only thing that was between me and success was me. If I could push beyond my limiting thoughts — and that inner critic that was trying to hold me back — I could achieve my goal. I learned as well that I need to be more vigilant in my “artistic awareness,” that I need to keep better tabs on my habits and that I should never get too comfortable with what I was doing. Indeed, Dreams was trying to get me to let go, but in my initial fear I grasped harder and that was the source of the problem. I also have to remind myself more often of my “why,” not my “what.” In other words, I need to remember why I’m arting in the first place and lean on that more heavily because I almost forgot. 

Now as for the bad  — yikes. I definitely learned my emotional limits, my breaking point. Now granted, it took a lot to get there, but it was there and it was a bad scene. I definitely want to avoid that again! Even worse, I learned just how darned cruel, bitter, and vindictive my inner critic could really be which was alarming. That scares me. Is there a part of me deep down that really believes those things? Perhaps so. Gosh — I need to work harder on self-respect and self-love. And I have to work to disconnect my self-worth from my art a little bit more. I need to remind myself that while I am my art in a sense, art is what I do as well — that my failure wasn’t necessarily a reflection on me personally, it was just something that happened as a function of growth, as part of an overarching process. But perhaps worst of all, I realized just how much I was willing to sacrifice to achieve a goal — too much of my mental well-being, my health, my balance, even time with my family and friends. That was understandable, knowing my single-minded manic nature, but it was still very wrong of me. I need to be far more mindful of that.

In line with all this and my efforts to live with schizoaffective disorder then, I identify very strongly with the Phoenix, of rebirth from the ashes. My emergence, my psychological rebirth, from clinical depression through Ketamine therapy is an obvious example. Through that therapy, I was restored back to factory settings and rebooted as Sarah.2, literally saving my life. But now this creative breakthrough came out of nowhere, artistically burning me away to rise again as Sarah.3. To think that a simple bust had so much power. In Dreams has easily been the single most trying piece I’ve ever done yet also the single biggest triumph and most satisfying art thing I’ve accomplished so far. Is she my best work so far? Oh, I don’t know — I leave that for time to decide. But she’s definitely my best effort! And it was all because she was teaching me so much so fast and in my reactionary fear — in the form of frustration and doubt — I was desperately holding onto the very things that held me back…yet that was part of the process, too. Sometimes our creative tectonic plates simply get stuck and need to violently jolt loose. What a beautiful disaster. I was also reminded that things happen in their own time. It just wasn't the right time, that first time around. Don't force, fail, and then make the worst assumptions. Workaround. Be patient. Know that your brain is working the problem in its own way and trust that it'll all work out. "If it's not okay, it's not the end," said John Lennon. The funny thing is though that to most folks, In Dreams is just going to seem like an everyday bust. Big woo, right? But to me, she represents a marker between my old skin and my new skin, another personal landmark piece.

So why am I sharing all this? Because maybe you can learn something useful from it, too. Maybe it can help if you ever get stuck on a piece or feel down about your creativity, even yourself. Maybe it can help you off a cliff, to fail forwards rather than simply falling flat on your face and giving up. It might remind you that sometimes what seems like a wall is really a door you can't see yet...wait for the key. That perhaps, too, it will reassure you that failure never really is the final story so don’t let it have the last word. "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts," said Winston Churchill. Most of all though, that taking a deep breath and trying one more time is an act of tremendous hope and rebellion with a huge pay off because you just never know what a piece has in store for you. Be hopeful, trust yourself, and most of all, be kind to yourself. You’re stronger than you know, more talented than you believe, and your work is more worthwhile than you could ever imagine. Fight for it.

“Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration.

Sometimes it’s built on catastrophe.”

~ Sumner Redston

Busted

Taking Off The Blindfold

 

Here’s the inescapable truth: We all make unavoidable mistakes in our work. We’re human, right? We could be at this for years, be highly schooled, famous and super skilled, and still make them. Sometimes they’re a function of our style and sometimes a function of our skillset and sometimes a function of our knowledge base, but any which way, they’ll always be linger in our clay or pigment. How does this happen? If all we have to do is simply sculpt or paint what’s there — a direct translation — how could errors even happen, especially with all that experience, knowledge, and skill behind us? It’s our blindspots and plateaus at work against us, that’s how. The pesky little gremlins that haunt our efforts, we all have them and always since they’re simply a byproduct of how the human mind works. But while they’re inevitable, still, the key here isn’t giving up in fatalistic surrender but about strategy, a game plan. So how do we do that?

STEM

Well, first, we need to fully grasp the STEM of realistic art. Yes, it’s a thing! It stands for Seeing, Translation, Evaluation, and Memory, the four components that form the foundation of all our efforts. Each is essential and cannot compensate for the other which is why the more they’re developed and work as a team, the better our work becomes.

So what’s the deal here? Well, know it or not, looking at our references, judging our piece, making our corrections, and growing from it are all separate, learned skills. It takes experience and training to synch them up as a coordinated unit, but once that happens, creating becomes easier, faster, and more advanced. Now — yes — some folks do have a knack for STEM right out of the gate, what we’d refer to as “natural talent,” but these factors can always be refined regardless. But it’s a direct equation: The better our STEM, the faster our progress.

“A good system shortens the road to the goal.”

— Orison Sweet Marden

Now the key to understanding STEM is recognizing that it rests entirely on our perception, that powerful “reality filter” that interprets the world around us. And our perception isn’t infallible. Indeed, everyone has a different perception and so perceives reality differently, each as valid and vibrant as our own. Nonetheless, we have to start somewhere, right? That’s where STEM comes in….

Most people just look at the world, but an artist must See the world with a depth of observational skills that are factors more intense. In other words, an artist has to See what’s actually there down to the teensy details instead of just what their brain wants to see with all that filtering going on. And — wow — that filtering is a powerful editor! For instance, the average person will just see a blade of grass. But an artist will note the hue and how it changes over the blade, the striations and veins, the ruffled edges, the browned areas, the curve and shape from root to tip, how the light reflects over it and shines through it, and on and on. When it comes to our art form in particular, our Eye should become like a laser scanner, moving over every inch to remember that for the work. And the more intense the laser, the more data gathered. Indeed, equine realism demands an acuity that transcends not only most other equine professions, but also many other art forms. By blending science and art, reality and illusion, fact and fantasy, biology and aesthetic, we're drawing from technicality and creativity simultaneously. In turn, this obliges us to faculties and prerogatives often unnecessary in other professions or genres. For instance, real horse folks simply have to know if a hock, for example, is odd looking to identify injury or poor conformation. However, we have to determine if it’s odd looking to also identify an error in realism. Very different things! And the latter is exponentially more detailed, nuanced, and complicated. Luckily though, most of Seeing is a learned skill that can be improved with training. That is to say, it takes work, curiosity, exploration, and lots of artistic exercises.

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend." 

— Henri Bergson

However, artists also have an extra factor in this equation: Our hands. We not only have to See, we have to accurately Translate with our hands what we See into our media. Because our job isn’t just a matter of looking at something, is it? We have to render it into our media and that’s a very different skill. It’s tricky too, being a soft pathway, it’s easily and strongly influenced by our blindspots and plateaus. Indeedy, we may see something correct in our heads, but our hands can’t seem to bang it out, which can become immensely frustrating. “I just can’t get my hands to do what I want!” Or, “I see the photo, but how do I actually do that?” When we hit this wall, it’s an indicator that our Translation skills need work. Enter artistic exercises that focus on abstraction, strategy, study and research into structure and effect, and making lots of comparisons among groups of like things. It could also be the time to learn new techniques, materials, and equipment since the Translation problem may not be us, but what we’re using and how we’re using it. Luckily for us though, Translation is the easiest to amend since it rests a lot on logistics. For instance, one simple way to render complicated shapes is to simplify them as blocked-in shapes. Like the nostril can be thought of as an inverted “9” or “6” (depending on which side you’re looking at) or the hoof as a cone cut at an angle. If we can deconstruct complex biological structures into things more easily applied to sculpture or painting, our Translation abilities just got kicked up a notch. Simplify! Simplify! Simplify! Deconstruct! Strategize! Find alignments and relationships! Even imagine the tool strokes necessary to achieve those shapes as you study the references. Everything about this animal can be abstracted into simpler forms and associations to make our Translative stages far easier and more accurate. In fact, this is exactly where our knowledge of anatomy or color genetics can have the most bang since they’re their own form of abstraction of structure and function in a way.

“Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.” 

― Albert Einstein

Now once we’ve Seen and Translated, we have to judge what we’ve done, right? Always after the fact, this is Evaluation, the moment when we step back and regard what we just did, comparing against our references, sketches, measurements, knowledge base, and expectations with our calipers, protractors, programs, and whatnot. And, boy — it’s amazing just how quickly things can go haywire! It’s here where we have to exercise our most clinical, objective Eye, where it needs the most acuity and clarity. And we have to be a bit brutal, don’t we? Nothing is precious — everything is game for re-doing if warranted. (This is also where symmetry can become a real bugger, so just slog through it.) But the point is here — Evaluate often. Try not to go for long periods of working to then stop to Evaluate. Check check check! See, the more we work without checking ourselves, the more power our blindspots have, giving them more license to create systemic skews that can become a real trouble to fix later when an early check could have prevented the whole mess in the first place. Also use landmarks or blocking-in to set guiding parameters to help dampen the effect of blindspot or plateau skews. But we have a conflict of interest loop here though, don’t we? We have to evaluate our own work, right? Now on some levels, we’ll never have a more honest, accurate Evaluation of our own work that from ourselves. We’re typically our most searing critics, aren’t we? And if our checking methods are sound, we can rely on them pretty well. But at the same time, we’re still in a closed system so if we get really stuck and feel the need, this is where outside critique can be handy to Evaluate our work with a new set of eyes, i.e. a new set of blindspots that may not include the ones we have. But overall, Evaluation is perhaps our most crucial step and the primary place where our blindspots can be checked and stopped in their tracks in a practical sense.

Then finally we have our Memory, our mental library, what we draw from to fill in the gaps to smooth out the logistical process through a go-to foundation of skills and understanding. It’s the accumulation of all our experience, study, explorations, rethinking, and just as importantly, our mistakes. In the most real sense then, Memory is the foundation and command central of STEM, being the pool that Seeing, Translation, and Evaluation draw from to function. Just know, however, that our memory is entirely founded on our perception, which is exactly where our blindspots and plateaus reside, so target that and we target Memory at the same time, or visa versa. Pretty handy! But absolutely, if our database is flawed, so will be our work. As such, we can use artistic exercises to reprogram our Memory with new data — and new mistakes. And let me reiterate that: New mistakes. It cannot be overstated how important mistakes are for our work to improve! If we fear them, we’re not going to progress, or worse, not even start out of anxiety and insecurity. Be bold! Always then, our Memory should be accumulating and evolving with every Seeing-Translation-Evaulation cycle to process new knowledge. And hey, if we were very lucky, we might even have rooted out a blindspot or two. Never let Memory become static and inert, and more importantly encourage it to be adaptive, flexible, and open-minded since new data will challenge and may even reverse everything we know. Staying pliable, curious, and as ego-free as possible is great for this and, in fact, people may blast artists for having “big egos” but it’s precisely those with small ones who progress most.

So that’s STEM! An integrated system that’ll propel any piece to competition with as much accuracy as we can muster at that moment. And that’s an important thing to remember: We can only produce as good as we can at that specific moment — that’s it, that’s all. Our STEM only works in the here and now which is why feeding it constantly with more data is so crucial to create new potential. Always stay on a learning curve since the moment we stop is the moment our blindspots take over and we plateau, and that’s a big problem in an art form that’s constantly pushing the boundaries. So boil it all down and every step in our process is actually just a sequence of Seeing-Translation-Evaluation-Memory (STEM). As we develop our STEM then, so does our work progress which is why in the highly trained artists, these four things merge into one action and why they can pump out what they do so seemingly easily and quickly. But the thing to remember is this: This is the product of practice, training, and experience, and all of those things are available to everyone. Just know though that as we attend to our STEM, our style may evolve as well and there’s nothing wrong with that. Our perception establishes our creative fingerprint, yet it’ll change as we grow and so our style doesn’t have to remain the same either. Let things unfold.

“Idris: Are all people like this?

The Doctor: Like what?

Idris: So much bigger on the inside.” 

― Neil Gaiman

Yet despite all this, never forget that our sculpting and painting are the sum of their parts,  those parts we can See and those parts we can’t See — and here’s the kicker, those parts we can’t See have more power in realism, those being our blindspots and plateaus. It’s our STEM then that teases out them out in and tells us the missing information we need to chase. So if our blind spots and plateaus exert that much influence, let’s talk about them…

Blindspots

So what the heck is a blindspot? Well, it’s an invisible knowledge, interpretive, or skill gap that operates under our radar. Born in our perception, bindspots are just some facet of reality we miss only we don’t know we’re missing it. Subsequently, we can finish something and it “looks right” to us, but in fact, there are portions that are wrong only they’re invisible to us — a blindspot. For example, the placement of the eye may be habitually too low on our sculptures or our appaloosa spots are typically misplaced, only we don't interpret those as errors since, being blindspots, they look "right" to us. However, to someone else who doesn’t have that particular blindspot, those errors are really obvious. And that’s because our blindspots are unique to each of us; we each have our own individual set. There are common ones that are often shared — because the equine is really that difficult to render realistically — but we each have rather esoteric ones distinct to each of us, like a fingerprint, and which can sometimes get wrapped up in our style. The more advanced we get, too, the more advanced our blindspots become as well, evolving with us to very subtle levels. More can also pop into existence as we develop, potentially accumulating and compounding if we aren't careful. This effect, for instance, can sometimes be seen on customs that become more extreme as the artist ventures out more on their own then we’ll see them start to self-correct. That leap in scope came with it a host of blindspots that progressively got carved out, a clear indicator of happy improvement. But even in a hyper-realistic painting or sculpture, if we compare to the inspiring reference, we can still see the differences no matter how subtle, largely because we don’t have the same blindspots as the artist did. 

But it’s our blindspots that hold our work back and, operating under our radar, they do so with efficient sneakiness. In a very real sense then, improvement isn’t really about beefing up our skillset, it’s actually about purging ever more blindspots from our work — the more we remove, the more accurate and refined our work becomes. And very few blindspots can prevail with an aggressive and adroit application of STEM — though some always will — allowing us to just soak in lots more accurate data from the living subject, our work, our references, and for our troubleshooting.

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” 

— Albert Einstein

That said, not all blindspots are bad! They can help to make our work distinct, they add to the diversity of the art form to keep it vibrant, they appeal to different collectors, and they help to make art, art. Most of all though, they keep us hungry for more, don’t they? So admitting we have blindpots isn’t the end of the world — it’s actually the only pathway to progress and to stay challenged and engaged. In fact, the key really is to identify those blindspots that sabotage our work from those that add that special, unique touch. Put another way, bring as many of our blindspots into focus so we can consciously decide whether to purge or preserve them. Because realism is still art after all; our style and our Voice are just as important as all the facts. Honestly, it’s our quirks that help to transform realism into something that communicates and connects rather than just clinically represents, so it's important to keep some of "us" in our work, too. Because remember, each person interprets reality differently even when it comes to realism — especially when it comes to realism. This does beg the question of whether there’s actually an objective reality at all. (Personally, I don’t think there is for the record.) It’s fun to think about…but anyway…this is precisely why we may quickly See how those eyes may be too low or those appy spots are skewed in another artist’s work, but be blind to the errors in ours. It's also why we may cringe at our earlier work, when our blindspots ran more rampant. And it's also why some people may like an artist's work while others don't. Each of us just ping reality differently and so respond to blindspots differently, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Blindspots are also the underpinning of critique: We're looking for a new point of view to help us See our sculpture in new ways, right? Or rather, we’re seeking another perspective that may not have the same blindspots we do (just remember they have their own). And if we get a really good critique, we also get empirical techniques to identify more blindspots on our own.

What we can change is our perceptions, which have the effect of changing everything. 

— Donna Quesada

So if achieving more realism is really about uprooting our blindspots, how do we actually do that? Well, first, we need to tweak our perception to pop them out — we must change the way we view reality in order to See were we’ve veered off track. Well, there are artistic exercises for that like “insta-art.” In this, sketch out or quickly sculpt or paint something, just as a rudimentary blocking. If sculpting, I recommend using an open medium like Sculpey or oil clay. If painting, using something quick drying like acrylic or gauche (you can do this on a junker model or on paper). Now quickly work, working entirely off your mental library — no references! No peeking! No taking your time! Fast fast fast! We want to scoop out only what you actually know and what you draw from first, what immediately “looks right” to you and get that down. Done? Excellent! Now compare that to direct good references of the living subject. Identify what you got right and pat yourself on the back. Good job, you! But now identify what you got wrong — those are your blindspots. Do overlays in Photoshop if you want to really make them jump out. So how did it specifically go wrong? Was it a misunderstanding of the underlying structure or effect? Was it an ineffective method or tool? Is it a proportional or scale issue? Was it a skewed stylistic preference that went just a little bit too off par? Do this as a regular exercise and we begin to refine our Sight. Another exercise is to sculpt or paint upside down with an upside down reference. This objectifies things which can help highlight our skews when we turn them right side up. Yet another is to use a photo editing program to invert a reference to allow us to see it from a totally new perspective. This is especially helpful with coat patterns such as dapples, ticking, or spots. Be sure to snap pix of your piece, too, and do the same then compare. Also consider flipping your work over horizontally in a photo editing program to see your work from another point of view, or use a mirror to see the piece and references backwards, a quick, handy trick. Or simply snap a photo of your piece, pop it into an editing program like Photoshop and see it objectified by the lens, then you can troubleshoot right there by painting on top of it or cutting it apart and repasting things together. Now you have a game plan for your actual piece without ever having to do all that work for real. Gosh — phone cameras are handy! Consider this exercise too — the “peek-a-boo window.” Here, take a piece of white paper and cut a 1” square or circle in the middle. Place it over your reference photo in the area you’re sculpting. Now study that area closely, looking for all manner of things to inform your sculpting or painting down to the tiniest detail. This removal of distraction can really make things pop out a lot more that would have otherwise been more invisible. You can make this window as big as you want really to take in larger areas, something needed perhaps more for sculpting. Another method is to really understand proportional relationships, scale relationships, structural relationships, and pattern relationships to identify landmarks or sound reference points — and more importantly, to develop reliable methods to measure them, then use them religiously throughout the process. And employing regular exercises such as these is pretty important because if our blindspots go unchallenged and unattended, it’s through them we’ll plateau, so let’s get to…

Plateaus

A plateau that’s an accumulation of blindspots that have become so entrenched, they’re now our comfort zone and so we stay there, content, comfortable, and complacent with the familiar, routine, habitual, and what “looks right” to us. It’s our stasis zone, our default, our status quo, our constellation of habits and predilections that define our work. A plateau then isn’t necessarily a bad thing — we’re all going to plateau at some point, in some ways permanently. It’s simply a function of being a human creating art. I mean, each of our portfolios is distinct, right? What creates that distinction is essentially a kind of plateau — the fingerprint created by the amalgam of all our artistic qualities. Put another way, “plateau” is just another way of saying “artistic style.” But sometimes a plateau can be problematic when it holds us back rather than supporting our uniqueness — and that can happen a lot faster than we know. This is a rut in our interpretation, development, scope, or focus that actually causes us to fall behind the overall progress the rest of the genre is making. And it’s alarmingly easy to get stuck on a plateau and stay there…for years. I’ve seen many artists in many fields get trapped on one and so their work literally is the same for decades with no growth or progress. You can’t even tell which one was created twenty years ago or today. I know one artist who has painted the same ocean scene for 30 years, exactly the same way with no tangible evolution in technique or scope! Now this is perfectly fine if we’re okay with that — don’t get me wrong. Art must first be about enjoyment and pleasure, and if this pleases us — right on! But if this is something we’d rather blast through, we have our work cut out for us because we’ll literally be working against ourselves.

“It isn't where you came from; it's where you're going that counts.” 

― Ella Fitzgerald

But don’t feel too bad— all of us will hit plateaus at some point thanks to our blindspots, formulas, routines, techniques, and habits, and despite our natural talents, earnest efforts, attentive mentors, spanning experience, or enthusiastic goals. So the trick is to identify more of them out so we can make conscious decisions about them. That’s the goal — becoming aware enough to make informed choices about where we want to take our work.

But plateaus aren’t all bad either! Think about it…can’t they also be the end of the road for what's working for us? A bottleneck of our abilities? Or maybe even a staging point, a pause before a new stage of growth? A springboard then? The only tricky part is that plateaus are comfortable. They’re easy and familiar, safe and predictable. We like our habits, our routine way of doing things, and that includes the familiar ways we interpret reality. And if our plateaued stage has earned us kudos and good fortune, daring to leap off into the unknown may seem almost like lunacy. So it’s very easy to get stuck up there. But becoming too comfortable in this niche art form can be riskier than we know. Slipping into the trap of complacency, of believing that our strengths can continue to compensate for our hiccups, to remain satisfied with “that’s good enough” is a dangerous game. Because the truth is — our strengths can’t compensate forever, especially in an ever-evolving art form. Our strengths simply coexist with our hiccups, that's all. That means the more hiccups we leave unattended, the more our strengths must carry the weight as everyone else evolves forwards, heaping more weight onto our strengths — and that strategy will fail at some point. So we’ll be left behind, wondering why everyone else seems to be excelling but we’ve stalled, and there’s only one place to go with that — frustration, envy, and resentment. Don’t get stuck there — that’s another plateau! We must evolve. It doesn’t always have to be in ginormous leaps either as little steps here and there are just fine. Because the more hiccups we jettison — no matter how we do it — we actually give ourselves the opportunity to forge new strengths, don’t we? Growth. Evolution. Improvement. Transition. Metamorphosis. Progress. Call it whatever you want — it must happen or we risk getting stuck on a plateau.

“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” 

— Harry S. Truman

So learning how to identify a plateau in our work is critical, but how do we know when we’ve plateaued? Well, to ring it all up, it’s when when our STEM relaxes and stagnates and so we fall into a rut in our understanding and interpretations. Truly, if we ever come to believe, “I know enough to be proficient,” that’s the surefire indication of a plateau mentality. But STEM must always remain in high gear! Never neglect pro-active education, skills development, and expanding artistic horizons. Stay curious! Keep evolving in those directions that ignite it and chase that relentlessly — plummet down rabbit holes! Because knowing how to leap from a plateau is even more important! But how do we do this? Well, first, again, by attending to our perception of reality — we have to put our Sight to the test. So here artistic exercises are again critical as is the use of protractors, mirrors, calipers, and other techniques, both digital and analog, that help our Sight push us off that plateau. For instance, compare your present work to that of 2-5-10-20 years ago. Can you see some strong differences? If you can, you’re doing just fine. But if things are fundamentally the same — especially if identical — we have a problem, particularly the further back we go in our portfolio. Now this doesn’t mean that using the same media and process is the wrong thing to do. Hey — if it works, it works, right? Rather, it’s to say that we must evolve within our media, art form, scope, interpretations, and processes or switch or integrate new ones if our habitual ones hold our evolution back. One trick is to do transparent overlays of your past work onto your present work. For example, compare your heads, legs, and ears, in particular. If you’re staying off plateaus, those portions are the key indicators, like canaries in a cage, because if they’re evolving, you can be sure you’re making significant improvements elsewhere. Another trick is to compare your past work to your present work backwards in a mirror again or in photos, which objectifies both. How are they different? How are they similar? How did this change happen? Can we duplicate those conditions? What things did you do that initiated a leap from your current manifestation of work? Can you do them again? Another highly effective way way leap from a plateau is to dive into completely different types or styles of work. For example, work in abstracts, stylized caricatures or illustrations, or a completely different type of artwork like flatwork or fabric sculpture. For example, my Cave Ponies, Dancing Horses, and Imperial Unicorns have greatly bounced my paradigm around lately. Or heck — try a completely different media, tools, or technique! Like if you work in acrylics, try pastels or oils. If you use epoxy clay, try oil clay or Sculpey. If you have a favorite sculpting tools, try others to get the job done. Expand your toolbox because often that simple switch can really cause a significant enough challenge to our status quo to jostle it loose. There’s this too — why not study the work of others to see how they tackled the same creative challenges? How did they interpret structure, color, or effect? Are we able to determine — or more importantly, can we admit — if it was better than ours and what can we learn from that? Remember, everyone interprets reality differently and studying the unique reality expressions created by others can be incredibly illuminating and instructive! And absolutely, workshops and classes are a brilliant way to rattle our plateau cage. Talk about adding data to our STEM! And they don’t even have to be in our art form as even one in basketweaving or glassblowing can have hidden benefits.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” 

— Alvin Toffler

At the foundation of being motivated to jump off a plateau in the first place though is the understanding that a recognizable horse and an actual horse are two different things when it comes to our art form. Put another way, a “good convince” is different from a more technically accurate rendering. Neither is better than the other as it all depends on our ambitions, goals, choices, styles, and skill levels — they’re just different. But if we want to achieve more realism, we must first determine if our plateau has compelled us to create good convinces, or in other words, has what’s so comfortable for us blinded us to what is truly actual? Because if we’ve plateaued early, chances are we’ve been stuck creating good convinces as the rest of the art form has been progressing towards more actuality.

“It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.” 

— Claude Bernard

Awareness

Because our blindspots and plateaus have more power in our work than our strengths, this realization does put us on the path to Awareness. What the heck is that? Well, Awareness can mean many different things. For one, it can be that mind state that allows us to bring our unconscious habits into our consciousness so we can make deliberate decisions about them based on our goals and motivations. Awareness can also mean constantly being vigilant as we work, understanding that blindspots are operating right under our noses all the time and so we use our tools, tricks, and techniques religiously to help dampen them. And Awareness can ultimately mean that we understand we’re fallible human beings and so we’ll make mistakes — and that’s okay. When we can reconcile this we open the door to not only a lot more objectivity, but also ton more inflected kindness, something critically important in this relentless taskmaster of an art form. Because — gosh — it sure is easy to beat ourselves up for making mistakes born of our blindspots and plateaus, isn’t it? But mash it altogether, and perhaps Awareness is best described as simply the ability to root out our unwanted habits and obsolete approaches with increasing accuracy to then make informed decisions about whether to keep, modify, or jettison them. Absolutely, there’s an enormous difference between an unconscious skew and a deliberate decision since we gain the power to take our work anywhere we want, and that’s always the better option. It’s all about empowerment!

So because Awareness lets us "self–educate" ourselves in a continued and unafraid way with greater precision and effectiveness, to brass tacks it then, it’s really this ability that’s the hallmark of an advanced artist. It’s not necessarily the quality of work that's the giveaway then, but the ability to consciously evolve, create, and troubleshoot that demonstrates true mastery. It’s more about expert control gifted by deliberate decisions rather than running ramshot, totally unaware.

Your chances of creating deeply hinge on the quality of your awareness state.

— Eric Maisel

So perhaps the biggest favor we can do ourselves is learning how to remain a "damp sponge” because a damp one absorbs more than a dry one, right? So why is this important? Well, remaining as a damp sponge keeps us learners which fuels more proactive and self–sustaining progress which is highly effective for flushing out our blindspots and breaking through plateaus. A plus though, we also come to free ourselves from the baggage of criticism, public opinion, misinformation, and even our own doubts and insecurities as we gain more confidence and more defensible positions for our work. Likewise, we become less grasping of conventional ideas, habits, and formulas as we morph into something more adaptive and pliable in our skills and interpretations. Ultimately, we gain the autonomous means to See with greater scope and depth, exactly what’s needed to dredge up blindspots and bust through plateaus all on our own at any time.

Reorienting our Values

When we experience the changes inherent in the journey of purging blindspots and jumping off plateaus, we're changed, too. When we open ourselves up to other potentialities, we actually help to stave off more blindspots and plateaus, and may even find ourselves rethinking what motivates us — and that's rather important. Why?

Well, for one, realism has such a high standard, one weighable against the living example—and that's a hard act to follow! And despite all our work, none of us are going to attain 100% objective reality in our clay or pigment or prints…and maybe that's a good thing. Think about it. Because how we handle this Don Quixote dilemma can be framed as a measure of ourselves if we find that meaningful, offering us a never-ending challenge and brass ring to stretch for. Now this also isn’t to say that our individuality expressed in our work excuses technical errors — nope! It’s to suggest that we acknowledge and value the stylistic touches and creative decisions unique to each artist which make their work distinct and special. Indeed, there are many different ways to express realism accurately. There is no One Right Way.

Second, traps are set for us — the trap of frustration, the trap of envy, the trap of resentment, the trap of rivalry, just to name a few. But when we've truly learned the lesson of purging unwanted obsolete concepts, we cease to compete against each other to instead turn our attention onto ourselves and our own goals, working to establish our own standards and ambitions, and setting out to reach them. Because giving 100% to any piece is all we can ask of ourselves, right? So if we stretch, reconsider, scrutinize, and practice to the very edge of our abilities — and that includes challenging our blindspots and plateaus — that will keep our work dynamic, evolving, and engaging and our portfolio diverse and interesting. In doing so, we also become less inclined to compare our work and successes with others, better preserving our joy and enthusiasm in what we’re doing. Absolutely, there are few things that can kill off our motivation more efficiently than comparing ourselves to others. Stay on target and value your work without apology. Stake your claim and be proud of it — it’s uniquely yours! Other artists’ magic isn’t yours — and you don’t need it. Your magic is wholly unique to you in all the Universe — embrace it, cultivate it, exalt in it!

Comparison is the death of joy.

— Mark Twain

Third, given the nature of realism, we're going to get stuck on a plateau at some point and we'll have to somehow scramble our way off. Indeed, if we're approaching our work in a proactive way, each piece will be underscored by a drive to understand more than before, if even just a little bit. Our same ol' modus operandi isn’t going to help us move forward, will it? How could it? We need something new that would boot us out of our self–made status quo. This quote comes to mind, “Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Never forget that this art form is constantly evolving forwards so unless we keep pace, we’re going to get left behind. To dodge this, periodically kicking our own status quo to the curb to stretch, explore, challenge, and confront our own conventions is critical. It’s so darned easy to lean too much on familiar formulas and comfortable ways of interpretation, isn’t it? But with all that also comes our habitual blindspots and plateaus, and so we’ll just keep making the same ol’ mistakes over and over again. We gotta rock our own boat! So think about ways to reinterpret our subject such as exploring new ways to express musculature, pose, hair, expression, or use new media or new artistic styles. Actively and deliberately reach out for possibilities rather than fall back on what’s familiar, and often the more radical the change, the greater the benefit.

Fourth, know that perception is a one–way circuit in that change happens first in our perception to then flow into our work, not the other way 'round. So if we want to fix anything in the way we See, i.e. the type of work we create, we have to target our perception first. Change that and we change our work. Even more though, this also means that our magic wand lies within us! And we each have one — one unique just to us! So if we can accept that we always have a lot more to learn — a lot more opportunities to See differently — we gain a lot more responsiveness and traction in our growth. Hard talk here — it doesn't matter if we believe our methods have worked for us in the past to bring us fame, fortune, and a place in the pantheon of our art form. That may be so! But a plateau is always waiting for those who get too comfortable. The real measure of success, I think, is our ability to continue evolving no matter how long we’ve at at this.

Human beings, by change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Fifth, to accept fallibility and to therefore stay open to possibility helps us to continually challenge our own conventional thinking to feed a drive for discovery so critical for growth. Keep our mind open then, especially about our own potential, and our work will always remain fresh and innovative. Stay curious and always question, especially when it comes to what we’re doing and creating! Because if we don’t, a remote plateau populated by a horde of blindspots waits for us, stuck up there without some radical shift in our paradigm.

But know that you aren’t alone. We’ve all been there. It’s all just a natural byproduct of learning to then unlearn to then relearn, repeat. And we all have to start somewhere right? Or in the truest sense, we have to constantly restart somewhere. And the platform we jump from each and every time is our habitual way of doing things, our momentary plateaus. So if we can ensure they stay temporary, they become springboards that launch us to the next stage rather than mesas we get stuck on, frustrated and confused. Never underestimate the power of rethinking, reimagining, reevaluating, or the moxie to introduce the unfamiliar, maybe even the radical, into our work. Be bold! Be brave! Believe in yourself! If our blindspots and plateaus live inside us, aren’t we then our greatest obstacle? But then we’re also our greatest ally? A most brilliant ally! Lean into that aspect and we got this!

Skill is less important than awareness. 

— Graham Collier

Whackin’ That Piñata

Learning to develop our artistic STEM isn’t just a basic step forwards, it’s the foundation for all our steps forwards, one that will always sustain our growth and support our every direction we choose. Learning to See more effectively, to Translate with greater accuracy, to Evaluate with more acuity, and to drawn from a Memory with more scope and depth will never steer us wrong! And the more we develop them, the greater their benefits, including keeping blindspots and plateaus in their place — in our consciousness for management. In turn, we can become more fearless and more boldly rethink what we believe to be self–evident with our work. Now we won’t ever get all our blindspots or avoid all plateaus, but we can certainly find value in striving to root out more of them because that journey is full of fascination, exploration, potential, and personal fulfillment. And that’s really a sideways gift of our blindspots and plateaus, isn’t it? Always dangling that carrot, we can find purpose and self-generating inspiration as we leap to each challenge with zest and curiosity. But perhaps most wonderful is the gift of graciousness with ourselves and others. Understanding our own struggle helps us embrace those of others, and so we may find more appreciation for their efforts and art, even finding a kind of kinship that can foster relationships and connections. Hey, we’re all in the same boat!

Either which way, our blindspots and plateaus may be a double-edged sword, but they’re a part of creating art all the same. Once we learn to accept and reconcile with them, we’ll find a lot more freedom and relaxation in our efforts and that means only one thing — more joy, enthusiasm, and boldness in our work. And that’s one heckuva great plateau to get stuck on!

“You learn something valuable from all of the significant events and people, but you never touch your true potential until you challenge yourself to go beyond imposed limitations.” 

― Roy T. Bennett

Taking Off The Blindfold

The Enigma Drive

 

It’s a curious thing. There’s this essential nucleus to arting, something so intrinsic we can think of it as the actual genesis of each new piece. It’s so fundamental, in fact, we just assume it's always there at full fire throughout the entire creative process and so we can take it for granted more times than not. It’s just a given, right? Yet this critical component is, well…an enigma. With such a critical ignition point though, one would think we’d have a firmer grasp of it yet, instead, it remains a fickle compulsion that just lives by its own rules, unfathomable, untouchable, and untamable. That being so, it tends to meet with an almost hands-off reverence in the belief it’s better left to its own devices so we put this thing on a pedestal but with no real idea of what it is or how it functions. And, well…to be fair, all that’s pretty much spot on. Since the beginning of arting, this has been so for a reason because it is a mystery and sometimes mysteries need to stay mysteries that operate by their own rules. Sometimes magic is just impenetrable.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mystery.” 

– Albert Einstein

Yet there’s this whole ‘nuther side to the story that holds some useful insights. Really, if we just grab the tail tip of this curious conundrum and peer at it just a little bit, we won’t dispel its magic but will gain some glimmers that can be helpful for all sorts of artistic challenges from dry spells to battling creative fatigue. Pay attention to this other side then and we access a toolbox of psychological tricks that can make our arting easier, more fun, more adaptive, and even better.

So what’s this enigma drive that generates our art? What is it that every artist actually draws from to create? What’s this magical elixir that has created every art piece yet still remains just outside of our periphery? Why, it’s our inspiration, of course! That initial spark, that mobilizing idea, that exalted compulsion that just pops into us from seemingly nowhere like a gift from the Universe which we chase like a bouncing ball, sometimes with a mania so crazed it can consume us. Honestly, I have to say that even after a lifetime of creating art, I’m still completely baffled by mine. I’ve given it a good think or two and still have come up zilch. Sure, I can say I love equines and list out the reasons why. And I can say I love creating art and know truly it was what I was meant to do. And I can even pinpoint specific concepts or visuals that have inspired specific pieces…I can point right at those things. But as to the how, why, and what of it all — the essence of it — I’m still at a loss. Really, dig as deep as you can, and you’ll still end up in a baffling space that defies intrusion and analysis. 

Even so though, it’s not a bad idea to ruminate on the nature of our inspiration. When does it strike us? Can it be energized into more productivity? Can it be refined into more potency? What’s its Truth? Where does it come from? What triggers it? What’s its nature? What patterns does it reveal? Has it evolved? How does it unfold during the process or does it remain unchanged? Why does it cause us to make the creative decisions we make? How is our style influenced by it? And perhaps at the core, why is it fixated on equines? None of these need hard answers or even answers at all. It’s the cogitating that’s the valuable part. Because don’t be surprised if overthinking gets us nowhere! Heck — actually, don’t every worry about overthinking these things because the curious thing about inspiration is that it resists that in rather uncanny ways. It’s weird. It’s just one of those riddles that can’t be cracked, not really. Sure, we can cobble together some basic hard facts, but try to really dig down and, well…chances are we’ll come up empty handed. That mystery again. And that’s not a bad thing! It’s actually pretty neat! And I think what drives us to art is better left unknown for the most part. Gift horse in the mouth and all. Nevertheless though, it still won’t hurt to cogitate our inspiration a little bit so let’s talk about it…

“Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you’re passionate about something, then you’re more willing to take risks.”

– Yo-Yo Ma

For starters, just what is our inspiration? Oh gosh, there’s a question! One dictionary defines it as, “The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative,” and also, “a sudden brilliant, creative, or timely idea.” Okay. Another defines it as “…a breathing in or infusion of some idea, purpose, in the mind: the suggestion, awakening or creation of some feeling or impulse, especially of an exalted kind.” Still rather general, but it’s a start. Now with a spin, the Greeks thought of inspiration as the Muses, entities that visit us with gifts of enlightened compulsions that drive us to creative or intellectual new heights. Likewise, if we’re religious, we tend to think of it as God’s grace flowing through us. Indeed, the word “inspiration” itself derives from the Greek language for “divinely breathed into” or “God-breathed.” Or if we’re secular, there are many interpretations for inspiration from the concept of the numinous to genius to “fancy” to “poetic frenzy” to even “mystical winds” to loads more. And inspiration is intrinsic — very much its own reward, it exists for its own sake whether we act on it or not. 

But think about all that…none of it actually pins down its root essence, does it? It’s like we can only describe it by what it does and what it feels like. So curious! So maybe we can frame it this way…inspiration as the ecstatic input and creativity as the driven output — it’s the same incentivized energy. One gives us the intense idea and the other makes it real with zeal. And it happens every day all around the world, millions of times over! So strange that this oh-so-common phenomenon can still be so elusive! And — wow — what a truly powerful phenomenon it can be, can’t it? A tenacious compulsion, an ecstatic urgency, a manic drive, even a devouring obsession. It’s driven people to extremes, even madness, and has changed lives forever, for better or worse. Why is inspiration so important though? Well, as we see around us every day, it whisks us forwards with fresh new ideas that give us new trains of thought, innovations, great depth to the arts, and any number of other advancements throughout human history. In many ways, we can even think of it as the engine of progress and the root of conceptual diversity. Perhaps even more intimate, it has the power to suspend our ego as we surrender to its profundity, filling us with awe and humility to change us forever. And the more receptive we are to it, somehow the more inspiration gifts us with even fresher notions. All in all then, our inspiration simply opens up new possibilities by allowing us to see beyond the ordinary and the limitations we’re accustomed to, letting us realize more of our potential and the potential around us. It somehow blissfully gives us a glimpse into what could be rather than just what is. But as to where it comes from and how it’s generated and why it cooks up what it does, there ya go…still nowhere.

“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.”

– Georgia O’Keeffe  

Perhaps the most obvious feature of our inspiration is that it’s mostly beyond our control. It just strikes when it wants to, right out of the blue and often at the most random times. Sure there are things we can do to tickle it out, but it very much operates according to its own whims. It’s almost like a subroutine working in the background that’s processing things under our conscious radar and then when it comes up with something — how ever that happens — that process jumps into our consciousness with a force like no other, overriding pretty much everything else. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been suddenly seized by some wild idea and had to immediately stop what I was doing to madly jot it down on a receipt or napkin! Or my Hippicorn illustration — after my ratty Rascal passed away, I had a long, hard cry and fell asleep into a nap. Then I woke up a couple of hours later from a dreamless sleep with that Hippicorn absolutely fully formed — in full detail — in total colorized completion in my head and a tremendous compulsion to create it. I spent three straight days of absolute focus bringing him to life and that’s how the Hippicorn got born. He’s Rascal’s creation I think sometimes, not mine. I wonder if Rascal gave him to me as a gift to help me get through the following days adjusting to his loss. Rascal was such a heart rat and I miss him terribly even now, but every time I gaze on that Hippicorn, I smile. Thanks, Rascal!

“You can’t use up creativity. The more the you use, the more you have.”

– Maya Angelou

Oddly enough though, it seems that the more we tap into our inspiration and allow ourselves to be whisked away by it, the more prolific it becomes and the stronger the notions it generates. Inspired arting is just one of those things that gets better the more you use it because once it gets going, it fuels itself like a perpetual motion machine. This is because ideas chaotically cross-pollinate, ping-ponging off each other to spawn novel new ones and every so often a winner pops out. I wonder if this how inspiration comes up with what it does — it’s just a manifestation of conceptual chaos that occasionally burps out something useable. Hmmm. It’s just a creative blender and our brain simply hits “frappé” and off we go. Double hmmm.

Nonetheless, here’s an important thing to know: Our inspiration isn’t invincible, it’s not impervious. It’s really quite vulnerable so if left unprotected or untended, it can crumble apart, fizzle out, even get stuck in a rut. And that’s where a lot of artists get into trouble — they don’t cultivate their inspiration, maybe don’t even consider it at all. Never take your inspiration for granted! Because — hey — it doesn’t have to be there. It can elude us, it can chose not to show up. Many of us know artist block, right? Well, that’s our creativity bereft of its inspiration and so we just sit there, unmotivated and unmoved to create in any direction. But we gotta art, right? So keeping our inspiration energized and engaged — keeping it happy — needs to be a priority if we want our creative cup to filleth over.

“I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.” 

― Edgar Allan Poe

Complicating this though is the fact that inspiration is unpredictable. While one day it can elude us, the next this wild, crazy, wonderful idea will pop into our head out of the blue, complete and perfect, right? It’s like lightening striking on a sunny day. Sometimes, too, these ideas come in clusters — bang bang bang — shot out in rapid fire. That’s when nearby sketchbooks come in handy to capture them — don’t want to miss a single one! Because that’s another thing about it…sometimes our inspiration cooks up fleeting little appetizers, almost like amusing little fancies it concocts just to play. Or it mulls things over — considering, experimenting, analyzing — enticed to futz around with variations on a theme or different options. Some inspirations just need time to percolate, too, and can cook on the back burner even for years. But every once and awhile, it’ll bang out a real mind-sticker, an idea that, for some inexplicable reason, just sticks hard in your head. It just won’t fade away and may even gets stronger with each passing day…month…year. Persistent. Insistent. Overriding. Some inspirations just have real staying power and when they’re ready, they’ll get so loud we just have to stop what we’re doing to make way. At times, too, an idea may be so complete and fully formed, it’s just a matter of directly translating it into reality while others may be just generalized impressions and so need a bit more fleshing out. Truly, when it comes to our inspiration, there’s no wrong way for it to strike! But why is that the right moment for that particular idea? Who knows! Any which way, an inspiration ready for reality can truly take total control and turn into a blissful obsession, carrying us away on a creative journey like no other. It can be true magic.

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”

– Vincent van Gogh

Even so, inspiration can be fickle and persnickety, even disdainful of compromises and shortcuts. It truly hates pruning and will live its Truth to the fullest whether we like it or not. If that means we create outside our comfort zone, so be it. If that means we create aspects that take us by surprise, that we even question, there you go. If we create pieces for reasons that escape us, well…that’s inspiration for ya. But while it might feel a bit odd at times, just surrender to it because — as you know — our inspiration is highly adept at fighting us every step of the way if we don’t. But even more, if we do surrender to its lead…oh, the a-mazing things that can happen! 

If that wasn’t enough though, it can be rather demanding, can’t it? It requires us to step up to the plate and give a good effort, sometimes our very best effort. It wants its Truth to be honest, the product of our good faith. Truly, honoring our inspiration takes hard work, but that’s the trade off. If we want that prize, we betta werk! In this way though, our inspiration is critical for our progress by becoming an important mechanism for skills advancement and rethinking old paradigms. In a very real sense then, great artists aren’t just a product of their great talents, they’re also a product of their great inspirations. So while it’s going to take a lot of hard work to do right by our inspiration, it’s beautiful hard work!

I’m a firm believer in Joseph Campbell’s notion of “follow your bliss,” of discovering that thing that drives you from your core and fills you most with joy then throwing your full self into it. Call it Destiny, call it Fate, but I believe it’s what we were meant to do, even if no one gets it yet. Sometimes the rest of the world just has to catch up. But believe me when I tell you, “Build it and build it well, and they will come.” That being the case, I think our inspiration is closely tied to our Bliss, in fact, they may be the same thing. It’s hard to ignore the fact that our inspiration tends to crank out notions most aligned with our Bliss and can even become so fixated, it naturally churns out countless variations without even a nudge. Even when fed radically different scraps, it refocuses everything within the lens of our Bliss. All the more reason to listen closely to our inspiration, right? It’s telling us important insights that can enrich our experience and perhaps even open up new avenues of creativity — it wants us to flourish and to live in Bliss. So pay close attention!

“I make art to show my soul that I am listening.”

– Pat Wiederspan Jones

Altogether then, inspiration does best with freedom and respect so it can take on a life of its own to grow bolder and more confident, flowing unfettered. Truly, with just a bit of care, our inspiration will grow wild and lush and gigantic, with deep, extensive roots and an enormous, ever-growing canopy to shelter our creativity with ever-sprouting, infinite ideas. When it’s happy like this, the more it’s tapped then the more flows out, and usually so reliably that we can lean on it whenever times get creatively stretched thin. That’s to say, we don’t have to have a hands-off, wait-and-see policy with it anymore but can actively scoop stuff out whenever we want like an ever-filling glistening pool of ideas. It’s no longer a passive relationship, but active teamwork. So how do we do this? Because honestly, some artists really seem to wrestle with their inspiration, wondering why it peters out, limps along, or doesn’t even strike at all. How do we avoid this?

“Inhale possibility, exhale creativity.”

– Laura Jaworski

Well, for starters, it’s important to know that our inspiration is directly tied to our emotions. In some sense, we can think of it as our emotions manifested as art which is why we can learn a lot about an artist simply by studying what inspires them. But it’s also why when we’re stressed out or depressed, our inspiration just seems to dry up, doesn’t it? That’s not because we’re incapable, it’s because the fuel has been disconnected from the engine. The point being then: Get out there and get your emotions riled up! Get them fired up and all over the place! Honestly, more times than not, a single strong emotion or even a cocktail of them can spark a blaze of inspired notions and so when it does, let it burn out of control. No, seriously — let it burn like wildfire! Feed it to make it grow bigger and more uncontrolled. Throw proverbial gasoline on it! And — yes — even if that idea seems nutty, even stupid, just let it burn. Because here’s the thing, once our inspiration is blazing away, it naturally sparks new fires because one idea will spark another and then another, growing into an uncontrolled, exponential creative firestorm. And we don’t even have to like that first idea at all…that’s not the point! Rather, that idea will spawn others and somewhere in there will be those that will trip our trigger and off we go. This is actually the ideal state for an artist, to be euphorically driven by an unending stream of self-generating inspirations — and we don’t have to wait around for this to happen. It can be engineered!

“Amateurs look for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

– Chuck Close

Because too many artists make the mistake of waiting for inspiration to strike. Sure, firing from out of the blue can happen, but that’s only one aspect of its life cycle. So why wait? Yes — it’s a romantic notion, but hey — we have art to create! Because here’s another truth about our inspiration: It loves enticement, of being energized into action, it prefers engagement. We’re a team, right? So gotta prime that pump! Stoke that fire! Grease those gears! How do we do that? Well, go out there and throw food at it. Any kind of food — it’s not discriminating. Look at equine photos, go to horse shows, take riding lessons, hang out with real equines, watch YouTube videos or movies with equines, study the work of other artists, dive into some equine research of some kind…whatever! Or just play around with some loose sketches, learn a new art technique or style, or take up a whole new medium for kicks. Visit museums and art shows, go to craft fairs. Artist retreats, workshops, and classes are also amazing injections, and they don’t even have to have anything to do with equine art. Think about joining groups of other creatives on social media or locally, too, because placing ourselves with inspired and inspiring people can really jiggle loose our novel thinking. Journaling, especially visual journaling is another fantastic way to incite our inspiration and — heck — that’s a whole amazing art form in itself! Or chuck some really esoteric grub at it like poetry slams, music, or theater because these things move us and so are highly effective at boiling up our inspiration. Or more still, get outside with nature. Taking a walk, bike rides, camping, hiking, horseback riding, fishing, canoeing, surfing, anything like that can also be effective in generating moments that move us to kindle new inspirations. Heck, I remember the inspiration for the Surangi series jolted into my head while on a walk around the block! Or go to natural places that ease you like the forests, the beach, the desert, or whatever to get your mind in a more receptive, relaxed state. Oddly enough, too, doing something mundane like folding laundry, doing dishes, or sorting your junk drawer can even trigger inspirations by clearing the mind of “life clutter.” Or deeper, maybe inspiration can come by simply wanting to brighten peoples’ day and to pump beauty into the world. Making people happy can be a wonderful spark, one that we can find especially fulfilling and meaningful. Indeed, the joy of creativity is often amplified when shared!

“Creativity is contagious, pass it on.”

– Albert Einstein

The point is, don’t just sit back and wait for things to happen — make them happen. Never stay safe in a holding pattern waiting for your inspiration to strike — just auger in! Even if you make a huge crater from a faceplant impact, you’ll still have fed your inspiration which — chances are — will have generated new ideas for other work. See how that works? Creative shrapnel! And that’s the real goal with these triggering exercises — generating that shrapnel. And we may not even like any of these triggered notions, and that’s perfectly okay! There’s no law that says we have to act on any of it. The real gist is to get those inspired shells exploding because once they do, at some point they’re going to pop out a winner. So what are other ways we can do that?

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.” 

― Neil Gaiman

Well, one thing that inspiration really responds to well is being open to experiences and possibility. Rigid thinking tends to shut it down. So think about trying to be comfortable with the unfamiliar and look for a variety and novelty of experiences, visuals, and ideas — seek to be surprised, awed, even humbled. And break your routine — do something out of left field. Inspiration also seems to love information and knowledge so think about delving into research, curiosities, and hurdling down rabbit holes. And perhaps rather interesting, inspiration favors pressure-free thinking so consider easing up on competition with others and shift instead to competition with yourself, of challenging yourself. See, competition with others is founded on comparing ourselves to their achievements and that can lead to more narrow lines of work that dampens, even denies, our own uniquely inspired moments. Really, all comparison does is yoke our inspiration with expectation. Now granted, every so often another person’s work will trigger our inspiration, and that’s fantastic! But if we want more self-generating inspirations on our own, consider pressure-free freedom, too. Most of all though, “a damp sponge absorbs more than a dry one.” That’s to say inspiration flourishes in the mind primed and prepared for it so stay open and flexible in your thinking and expectations, and be quick to think “that’s interesting” and slow to assume “that’s stupid.” So — yes — inspiration is out of our control, but it can be nudged along as well. We can prepare fertile soil, place a lightening rod, or coax it forwards with carrots with all these techniques.

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will.”

– George Bernard Shaw

So overall, it’s about giving it something work with — ideally with a strong emotional component — and letting it cook up what it wants with those ingredients. No pressure. No expectations. No presumption. Just let it do what it wants to do no matter how much it takes you by surprise. Because when it does start churning stuff out from the kitchen, it doesn’t matter what it is…just eat it! Trust me on this. Even if it’s stylized, green striped, lemur-horses with eight eyes — keep eating! No matter how out of left field it is — just keep eating! Because that’s the thing with inspiration — there’s no making sense of it, really. It just concocts what it concocts, and that’s what we’re meant to be bouncing around. I truly believe that every one of our inspirations is a gift from the Universe, an idea that’s meant only for us so no matter how cockamamie it may seem, it’s meaningful. What a grand task! So then, get to artin’ — seriously, just start doing something creative that follows that inspiration. Anything, no matter how random it is. We’ve already given it the raw materials, the ingredients, right? So now let’s give it the means to mash it all together — it needs kitchen gear! Now, yes, this is a very chaotic way to approach things and there are no guarantees other than a surprise or two. But here’s the thing: Inspiration is a child of chaos, it’s creative chaos, so the more we can mimic its natural tendencies, the more prone it’ll be to show up and deliver. Order, formula, regimentation, habit, predictability — all those things that exist opposite to chaos — can be great tools in their own right, but not so much with inspiration all the time. Really, more times than not, the more haphazardly we creatively think — even willfully haphazardly — the more inspiration can insinuate itself into the process. In a sense, inspiration is drawn to chaos like a lure so think about how to inject uncontrolled thinking into your process. For example, I knew one artist who used mix n’ match flash cards to randomly generate subject matter for his paintings. He didn’t always use those correlations, but what he did find useful were the satellite ideas generated from them that could be turned into new work. Remember — creative shrapnel! When she got in a creative lull, another artist I knew would take a pencil and close her eyes and just draw whatever on a sheet of paper. Just — whatever. Scribbles even. Then almost always when she saw that result, something would be triggered in her inspiration that led her down a path to her next illustration. Creative shrapnel again. And a cook I knew loved to experiment with crazy cultural fusions like using Indian curry with enchiladas or menudo with udon, so think about slamming the unexpected together — you might surprise yourself with how awesome it could be! Silver dapple tobiano draft type with an upright mane itching his hinder? Why not? Ranch horse with a ram-head in red roan sabino twisting in an angry pivot? But of course! Bucking sooty palomino pony with braids unraveling in her mane and a red tail bow flying off? Sure! Okapi-colored Unicorn with a blue horn and hooves with green eyes leaping over a stream full of koi? Gotta do it! Don’t be afraid of novel ideas, even if you think they’ll meet with raised eyebrows, even misunderstanding. You got this.

So make a habit of this proactive approach, of regularly feeding — of literally inspiring your inspiration — and you’re set for life. So always auger in! Fostering inspiration also has other benefits like amplifying our zest for creativity and even our purpose within it. It also intensifies our gratitude and humility, and smooths the conduit between our knowledge base and what we newly absorb. Inspiration deepens our appreciation for the work of our peers, too, by acknowledging and respecting their wells of passion. Likewise, inspiration can keep us in a constant state of awe in the appreciation of that mystery that keeps us creative so wonderfully. Feeling “small” in the face of that great, beautiful unknown can truly be a beautiful state of mind. Perhaps most of all though, inspiration intensifies our love for this exquisite, soulful creature, helping us to celebrate all the wonderful possibilities offered to us.

“Go to your studio and make stuff.” 

– Fred Babb

Now granted though, sometimes our inspirations aren’t these creative storms that come barreling in to spectacularly flood us. Sometimes they’re just a mere flicker, a waft of a wisp. But that’s legit, too! There’s no such thing as an inspiration too small or insignificant. We’ll take it! So fan it! Feed it! See what happens! Because it’s perfectly okay for something to start as a mere sliver of a notion. Honestly, loads of great works have been born with just a slight inclination. On that note, it’s often best to follow our inspiration rather than trying to lead it. It already knows what it needs, what it wants to be, so let it make the decisions even if it evolves along the way, which is perfectly normal. The thing is, if we try to force it into a predetermined direction with rigid expectations, we’ll can run into problems as it tries to right us back onto its own course. So stay adaptive and flexible to how it wants flesh itself out. In a very real sense, I think we exist as vessels, the means to an end for our inspirations to make themselves real. Honor that.

“The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.”

– Julia Cameron

Also understand this, too — our inspiration can ebb and flow, even when working on a single piece. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a constant sploosh. Sure, it’s awesome to have that strong compulsion constantly at our back throughout our process, but it’s perfectly normal for that to ease up to come roaring back later. Heck, maybe sometimes our inspiration for a piece just seems to fizzle out completely so we put it aside only to find some time later that it’s found new life to carry that piece to completion — days, weeks, months, even years later. Or perhaps not at all. It happens. It’s just that mysterious quality again so go with the flow. Maybe its “birth” was premature and our skills had to catch up. Maybe another inspiration demanded our attention more strongly. Any number of reasons, but it’s all normal. It just does what it does.

“Art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take risks.” 

– Mark Rothko

Yet even so, there are artists who can create art in the absence of inspiration. Graphic art with its world of deadlines and client demands is a classic example of this phenomenon. Commissions can entail this as well. So yes — there may come a time when we have to dip our toes into that reality to meet a deadline or customer expectation, too. Or maybe our inspiration for a piece will change and we aren’t so hip on that specific itineration anymore, but we’re stuck with it. It happens. Now I’m going to suggest that creating the particular kind of work we do without even a flicker of inspiration is a strange prospect, but it can happen. And we do learn one thing here: Just art. That’s the magic answer all the time: Just continue to make art. Why? Because always remember, inspiration has that funny way of self-propagation as one notion generates others, and often in completely unpredictable ways. But we have to keep making art in order for that to happen. We have to give it the raw materials to work with and the means to become real. When we habitually do that then, chances are we can build a highly-geared inspiration machine that can churn out so many ideas, we’ll get to pick and choose. What a great state of mind for an artist, right?

“You were born to make art.”

– Anonymous

Nonetheless, there is such a thing as creative fatigue. We need to pace ourselves even when our inspiration machine has been cranked up to eleven. When we’re so dang inspired we can barely sit still, that’s a gorgeous feeling for sure, but just understand that while our inspiration runs hot, we don’t. We need downtime. We need breaks. We need time to catch up. We may even run out of creative breath. Again, this is where sketchbooks are so handy because they can capture what our little machine is spitting out quickly, providing us with a creative reservoir for later work. And this will be especially important if we’ve been driven to complete exhaustion and so need to take an art hiatus. Because trust me — take that hiatus if you need it! Our inspiration doesn’t understand that we’re human and so have our limitations and unless we work within them, we’re going to collapse. It’s important then to view our inspiration as a team mate, not a slave driver, as our creative partner, not our taskmaster. We’re things that go better together given that each knows the boundaries. And the great thing about having a healthy relationship with your inspiration is that it’ll fully respect your need to step back and so may morph its fixation onto other things for awhile then when we feel the desire to return, it’s got our back and switches gears again. Curiously too, often it’ll even come roaring back with new life, a new energy, a spin that makes it feel fresh and new again— it’s lovely. And if it needs a little spark, just thumb through your sketchbooks if even to remember that heady energy which can be all that’s needed to ignite a full inspiration bonfire.

“Creative work is a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”

– Steven Pressfield

Yet sometimes our inspiration can get tired, too. When it does, we’ll find that it still cranks out ideas, but they lack that heady potency, that addictive oomphf. They seem more “meh” rather than “OMG, right now!” We can come to mistakenly believe then that we’ve lost our zest for our work, that maybe even our Muse has left us, and it’s easy to get trapped by this misleading deduction. But the truth is all that’s happened is that our enigma drive just needs bit of maintenance and fresh fuel. So first off, give it a break. Let it regroup. Let the gears cool. Even let it find curiosity in other things. So try something else creative, and really, the more different, the better. Like when my inspiration needs a bit of a vacation, I’ll write, or play with beading or mosaics, or make Hammies. I’ll research and study, even clean creative spaces up. I'll sketch more and also like to create more highly stylized illustrations I can turn into stickers, pins, and whatnot. Indeed, the Cave Ponies were born of a realism hiatus. I like to play D&D, Jenga, and board games and mess with puzzles, too. I love to go for bike rides and let my mind wander in its imagination. And I know an artist who gardens and another who dives into bread making and yet another who makes toys for his cats when their inspiration needs a breather. The point is, stay creatively engaged, just in a different, low-pressure way. And secondly, don’t have a timeline if you can help it. Let your inspiration take as much time as it needs since the moment if feels pressure, it tends to recoil again. Let it rest and tease out in its own time — let it lead the way because trust me, it’ll spark when the moment is right. Thirdly then, avoid heaping expectations onto your inspiration when it's taking a break. It’s okay to put yourself in situations that could re-inspire it, but just don’t presume it’ll respond the way you want it to, and especially with a preconceived demand. Relax. Trust that when it’s ready, it’ll step up to the plate, until that happens though, just let it be. No one likes to be harried on their vacation, right?

Sometimes though, we can just get stuck, just spin in a loop. It’s a strange thing, isn’t it? To find that our inspiration seems jammed. Maybe we can’t seem to create beyond a rather specific concept, chronically recreating essentially the same piece over and over. Maybe we have so many inspirations, we get overwhelmed and implode without starting a single one. Perhaps we feel boredom in our art form or just feel like we’re constantly waiting for something to happen. But what’s important to understand is that this isn’t indicative of anything more than an inspiration clog. We’ve simply fallen into a cycle, a syndrome, and it’s not an indictor of our skills or core motivations. Truly, we’re more than fully capable and we still have that passion, it’s just a bit bottlenecked. Our enigma drive just needs a restart! The strategies we’ve already explored work well for this, but also consider this approach: Choose to create a breed, color, pose or something way outside your comfort zone. Like completely opposite what you’d typical do. Go nuts! It’s really hard to be bored when you’re intently focused on something unusual and challenging. And it’s not so easy to be uninspired when you’re surprising yourself in wonderful ways. You really do have so much potential and it’s through your inspiration that you explore it.

“It’s only after you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.” 

― Roy T. Bennett

That said, self-doubt can develop when our inspiration begins to question itself, when it starts to falter as intimidation and trepidation creep into its purity. Really though, this is perfectly normal at times especially if we inadvertently pick something a little beyond our skillset or knowledge base. But that’s okay! Given the alternative — of taking the safe route — putting that carrot way out in front of ourselves ultimately has bigger pay offs, right? So the solution is this: Lean harder on your inspiration, asking it to fly you higher and bolder since it really can carry you through your fears. Trust me — it has enormous, powerful wings! And it can pile on a lot more weight behind our effort to bust through our hesitation. And if we’ve fallen in love with the piece we’re creating, that can really help us charge through our worries, too. Because the other thing to know is that if inspiration is tied to any emotion most, it’s love. Inspiration is essentially our love manifested as a creative drive. Love what you’re creating and you got this! And if you don’t, lean more on your inspiration to find something else about it that continues to keep it engaged. Absolutely, every piece has something wonderful to offer us if even as just a distraction or amusement. 

So overall, what’s the solution to being uninspired? Just make art. Worried we’ve lost our Muse? Just make art. Bored of the same ol’, same ol’? Just make art. We think we’ve lost our touch? Just make art. Don’t think we’re talented enough? Just make art. Worried we’ll fail miserably? Just make art. Worried our masterpiece will never appear? Just make art. Don’t wait around. Just make art. Making art is the solution any creative problem, the means and the end and the purpose and the passion of what we do. Yes, it may be the problem at times but it’s also the fix! We have to give our inspiration something to work with in order to make magic happen; it has to have the energy and the tools to manifest itself. Beautifully, our inspiration needs us as much as we need it. This is a symbiosis, a synergy, and one that will lead to such spectacular things if we support each other. So be inspired to be inspired and art on!

"Creativity doesn't wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones." 

— Bruce Garrabrandt

The Enigma Drive