Challenge #17: October 18 Challenge

Integrating our Inspiration:

Martha's symbol via Matisse as inspiration.
KEEP THIS EXAMPLE IN MIND FOR TODAY'S CHALLENGE

Taking Inspiration, Adapting to a Visual Medium

One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest. 

 T. S. Eliot  “The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism"

The thought that good artists copy and that great artists steal is often attributed to Picasso, most famously by Steve Jobs.  The debate about the origins of this quote or thought or truism (as it has become) are fun to follow. Just google it, and see where it might take you.

Follow the link below to see one way to map the progression of the history of the quote:

The Quote Investigator

 

Nevertheless, in the words of T.S. Eliot, we are about to steal from our inspirations with the humble hope that we can turn our symbols into "at least something different."

Emily's collage.

For today's activity, I want you to channel one of your inspirations -- whether it is a type of music, a philosophical thought, an actual artist, etc.

This may not be one of the easier challenges, but what I am asking you to think about doing is not just an imitation of an inspiration, but a theft that is transformed into a gift: a new something born from the inspiration of artists or ideas that have inspired you. A new creation that was born out of your "theft."

Here's what to do:

• Look at your chosen inspirations from the previous activity.
• Choose one you want to spend some time thinking about--an artist, musician, theorist, book, song, idea, etc. It is probably easier (though not required) to work with an actual artist or musician, whose work you know well.
• Use that inspiration/inspirer to reconfigure your symbol. What would the musician you have chosen do with your symbol? What colors might s/he work with, shapes, ideas? This might get a lot harder if you work with a concept: How would this challenge work if your inspiration were a concept--like justice?  or freedom? What would "justice" do with your symbol? 
• Taking this idea--think as complexly as you can about your symbols--from shapes to lines, from value (black&white) to color, from abstractness to representational, from constructed to deconstructed. Which version(s) of your symbol would speak to the aesthetic (style/manner) of your inspiration?
• Think a lot about placement on the page for this one. Where would the elements of your symbol happen to fall?
• The goal is not to create something that someone would look at and immediately say--Oh yeah, that's got Van Gogh all over it, though that is not a bad thing. So remember you are not solely IMITATING, but TAKING, and creating something different.
• For an example of what this might look like in actuality, take a look at Martha's at the top of the page. Henri Matisse becomes the inspiration for her cut-outs. What would Matisse have done with the olive branch? Martha suggests a possibility with her piece. 

A word (or two of advice) if you happen to be working with more abstract inspirations: 

How would justice revise your symbol? Huh? This is probably weird to think about, but what better way to stretch our creativity and our thinking than taking something from one system and translating it to another. We do this all the time (almost naturally). Think about the sounds we might associate with an elephant. If we put an elephant in a film and needed our background music (nondiegetic sound) to be commiserate with the elephant, we would likely use a deep sounding instrument, like a tuba. We would not likely use a flute or piccolo--that is unless we were trying to make it funny. 

In film-making this idea is especially important because the sound director would more often than not search for commiserate sounds or elements to convey something to the audience. We think loud and heavy equals elephant. Not soft and sweet.  Film theorists such as Dudley Andrew and Brian McFarlane talk about these adaptations that happen across genres--when a written word has to be transposed into a picture. Or when a visual picture needs sound to accompany the image.  Film is one of the artistic mediums that spends a lot of time thinking about these questions of adaptation and transformation.

If you are working abstractly, you may have to think in an adaptive manner--what would justice want my symbol to look like?

Remember this is a sketchbook, so your response does not have to be a mini-masterpiece!!!!!!! It just has to be sketched out to convey a possibility.

More inspiration:

Krystin's mandala.

Christine's key symbol integrated into her mandala.

Michael's deconstructed symbol.

Dan's deconstructed symbol.

Sandra's transformed rainbow.

Megi's mandala.

Joe's mandala.

Sarah's mandala.

Nick's symbols.