Design. Mark McGinnis

      This chapter’s title is a barrage of lofty terms, words that have long been at the heart of the artistic experience in theory but sometimes on the perimeters in study, practice, and product.

      INSPIRATION

      Inspiration is by and large the result of observation. I return to the wisdom of Rachel Carson:

       A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength. (42-43)

      I believe that the sense of wonder that Rachel Carson is describing and lamenting its loss is never completely lost to anyone. I believe the seeds of this joyous perceptual awareness lie buried in everyone — deeper in some and shallower in others. As a student of art and design you are probably already on your way to rediscovering this awareness. It can be done and its rediscovery is critical to any person wishing to live fully. While this sense of wonder is crucial to everyone’s enjoyment of daily experience, for the artist or designer it is also the foundation of inspiration and creativity.

      The mind needs to function as a sponge, absorbing information and sensations to be stored and later put together forming the inspired idea. The gathering of information to form the basis of inspiration can take many forms. Observing, reading, traveling, eating, watching films, viewing art, contemplating nature, making love, sleeping and much more can all be inspiring experiences in different ways. While there is no magic involved in this process, sometimes new associations of inspired thought seem to crystallize at unusual times; long distance driving, soaking in the tub or taking a shower. Psychologist George Pransky believes that these times of inspiration are no accident. He believes that they occur because the mind is at rest and open during these times. He calls this receptive thinking in opposition to analytical thinking, in which we are consciously trying to solve problems or dwelling on information from the past or worrying about the future. Pransky holds that in analytical thinking we tie ourselves to current knowledge are not truly open to new association our minds are capable of making. When we relax our minds and are receptive to whatever is happening in moment, the mind is then capable of jumping beyond the known and putting together experience to form inspired, truly creative ideas (Pransky). While this may at first seem a bit strange, many artists describe this or very similar experiences as being their optimum working states of mind.

      ORIGINALITY

      It has been said that the only truly original works of art were done on a cave wall and artists have been stealing from one another ever since. In some ways the statement is basically true, but I would substitute the word “learning” for “stealing.”

      Students often have a distorted idea of originality as something that strikes an artist like a lightning bolt - a divine kind of experience. Such is usually not the case. Original ideas are worked for; they are the results of a mind capable of making new associations from existing materials and stimuli. As suggested by the cave wall example, artists learn a great deal from each other and from past artists. This is especially true in methods and techniques, the mechanics of making art. There is no shame in this process of learning from other artists. In many cultures the only way of learning to become an artist was years of patiently copying the works of master artists. In Western (European/American) culture this learning procedure fell into disregard during much of the 20th century, but I believe master study can still be a very useful learning experience.

      As mentioned in the last chapter, in the past few decades the art world has been showing a great deal of eclectic art that has borrowed heavily from the past. These revivals of past style have produced some very enjoyable and interesting works, but the work has been short on what some people would consider originality. In some ways this is a strange twist from the first seven decades of the century when individuality was the supreme goal of art making. The extreme stress on individuality was a logical reaction against the growing conformity, mechanization, and sameness that was engulfing so much of modern life. The artist became the symbol of non-conformity, of originality. This stereotyping had its origins in the Renaissance with artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo, but it wasn’t until the late 19th century that the modern model was formed with extreme individualists like Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Toulouse-Lautrec. In the 20th century Picasso took the role of individualist supreme and played the part flawlessly and cruelly for over six decades.

      It is often thought that the originality of some of artists, and some of those just mentioned, developed due to mental illnesses of various kinds. In limited cases there may be some truth in this, but in most cases I believe it is not true. In so much as the illness was a part of their total personalities and did influence their perceptions, the illness did impact their work. But in most cases I believe artists who have suffered with mental illnesses have achieved greatness in spite of their illness rather than because of it. The problems that the illness inflicts on the artist are far greater than any benefit to be gained from it. One type of mental illness that occurs in artists more often than the general public is manic-depressive illness. This tendency for dramatic mood swings can range from mild to life threatening. It is not known why there is a heavier occurrence in artists. It may be that people with these tendencies gravitate to the arts because the arts are known to be more accepting of people with abnormal behavior, or there may be something within the profession of being an artist that may help to simulate the inclination toward mood swings already within the individual.

      The writer Wendell Berry gives this somewhat heretical view of originality:

       We must see that no art begins in itself; it begins in other arts, in attitudes and ideas antecedent to any art, in nature and in inspiration. If we look at the great artistic traditions, as it is necessary to do, we will see that they have never been divorced either from religion or from economy. The possibility of an entirely secular art and of works that are spiritless or ugly or useless is not a possibility that has been among us for very long. Traditionally, the arts have been ways of making that have placed a just value on their materials or subjects, in the uses and the users of the things made by art, and on the artists themselves…. The great artistic traditions have had nothing to do with what we call “self-expression.” They have not been destructive of privacy or exploitive of private life. Though they have certainly originated things and employed genius, they have no affinity with the modern cults of originality and genius. (112)

      The heretical aspect of this statement is, of course, the demeaning of “self-expression” and the “modern cults of originality and genius.” The 20^th century has seen these very qualities as the highest goals of art. Berry looks at this deification of originality and says the results have been in many cases the degradation of not only art but also of people.

      Rabindranath Tagore offers a differing viewpoint and calls for the preservation of the uniqueness of the individual:

       If this individuality be demolished, then though no materials be lost, not