"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to."
— Jim Jarmusch
It's an interesting quote and one I would certainly like to see discussed at length....originality, authenticity, and creativity. .
I'm not sure I agree that nothing is original. Sometimes I see art work that blows me away and wonder.....where in the world did the artist come up with that idea. Were they inspired by something or did the idea just come to them. I once saw Yanni in concert....yes...I saw Yanni. During the concert he stopped and took questions from the audience. Someone asked how he composed his music. His answer stunned me. He said that the music would just come to him....complete. He could play it forwards and backwards in his head. Truely a gift....a gift that 99% of us don't have.
Me....I slog through the creative process and that's where I identify with the quote. There are things that make my little heart go pitty pat....ancient cultures, tribal cultures, iron work, rivets (oh the Eiffel Tower has 2.5 million rivets), industrial salvage ...and the list goes on. So I visit museums, read books, drive through Cleveland looking at old buildings and churches. Inspiration doesn't hit me like a thunderbolt but seeps in. Sometimes I have to take an piece or a technique and work it over and over again before it moves in a new direction. SLOG
So, here is an inspirational piece that I found in the Louvre...for the life of me I can't remember what it is but I liked the shape of it.
and turned it into this.....which I will use as texture for a tribal pendant.
1 comment:
Well so what you are doing with it is transfoming it into something different in a different medium and you've already changed it some by closing the pattern you found. It would be interesting to be able to recall where you saw this but for the purpose of this discussion let's assume it was on paper, wood or a textile and you are going to set the "pattern" in metal. That would make it a transformational work inspired by this thing you saw in the Louvre. I think that is new in the sense that you are not copying the original work but transforming it into something new.
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