Artistic Inspiration (or lack thereof)

I wish I didn’t care so much what other people thought of me. I wish I could feel like a ✨real artist✨ regardless of the reactions my work gets.

What qualifies something as art? Recognition? Creativity? How do you even measure the latter? One thing I know for sure: sitting here waiting for a great idea is not going to lead to a masterpiece. Artist Chuck Close said, “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get the work done. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you're not going to make an awful lot of work.” The issue then lies for those of us whose art somewhat depends on the work of others. Actors who aren’t script writers — what do we do? How do we practice our art once we’ve worn out every monologue in our collection?

I’ve been trying to answer that lately. I don’t consider myself much of a writer, and when I do get my thoughts out, this format feels much more natural to me than a script. Though I enjoy trying out some other art forms, the only one that I’m truly passionate about is acting, and it feels so difficult to remain in touch with that side of myself when the opportunities are few and far between. I tried TikTok, thinking a few seconds of content everyday would be easy and a cute way to stay creative and build my online presence. Of course as soon as I turned on the camera, my mind went completely blank. I ended up posting a singing video, just to get something out there, and found myself paralyzed with embarrassment when I discovered how many close friends and supporters of mine had seen the video and not responded. Am I that bad?

The answer is no, I’m sure I’m not that bad, and there are a million reasons why people may not have responded. There also were several people who did respond. But the whole thing — and an emotional conversation with my better half — made me realize how unhealthy it was to be putting art out there (yes, ART, damn it) with expectations of a particular reaction. Here’s another quote for you from Kapil Gupta: “The Achilles heel of an artist lies in the hope that his art is good.” Oof, right? How can one not have that hope? I suspect that for many of us, this remains the main obstacle in our art.

I’m not quite sure what I’m hoping to accomplish with this post. I guess to remind any other uninspired artists out there that you aren’t alone. It’s always nice to be reminded that the inspiration will only come if I continue creating, rather than sitting here waiting for it. I mean, I wrote this whole post to get my thoughts out there, and…nope. Nothing yet. Guess I’ll try again tomorrow.