{"id":70269,"date":"2026-02-10T14:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T14:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simonfell.co.uk\/?p=70269"},"modified":"2026-03-13T12:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T12:46:10","slug":"do-something-inspired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simonfell.co.uk\/index.php\/do-something-inspired\/","title":{"rendered":"Do something inspired"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=”150619″]<\/p>\n

Inspiration is not magic<\/h2>\n

I want to write about inspiration. The word comes up all the time in media articles and interviews and I want to examine what it means.
\nCambridge English dictionary:
\n<\/strong>Inspiration<\/strong>: Someone or something that gives you <\/em>idea<\/em>s<\/em>\u00a0for doing something<\/em><\/p>\n

So what is inspiration?<\/h2>\n

When I started writing this I thought I knew what this word means and what it means to me, now I am not so sure. The word inspiration in its current usage seems to me to be closely linked to the idea of magic. In this sense Inspiration means brain waves that come to you in dreams or a flash of amazing thought –\u00a0Eureka<\/em>\u00a0moments where everything suddenly falls into place in your mind and the solution to whatever problem you are struggling with is suddenly revealed out of the blue.<\/p>\n

\"AInformation gathering<\/h2>\n

I don\u2019t think inspiration works quite like that, certainly not for me. I think there is a process going on in my brain, all the time, of information gathering. I look at the world and collect anything that interests me in my memory, my camera and my sketchbook. I think I filter things at several stages including this one, where I decide what to look at. I am doing this all day every day including when I watch TV and scroll social media. It\u2019s as if I am collecting a body of visual data. This then is the raw material that I have to work with when I decide what I want to create next. I don\u2019t just regurgitate it all, it has to sit and be considered and develop until it fits in somehow with my current agenda for making artworks.<\/p>\n

Play and juxtaposition<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s as if there is a fermentation procedure where ideas are sampled, mixed at random then blended into something that could be made, I think the word is to\u00a0cogitate<\/em>. Although I do this in my mind I also go through a sketching process where forms are played with and juxtaposed until something coherent emerges. And there is something somewhat magical about this – which I think is the wonder of the human brain. Our minds hold so much information and not just imagery and words there is also our feelings and our whole history and of course the whole unmapped area we know as the unconscious. While the conscious mind is all constantly changing incrementally as we input more and more experiences, the unconscious is a well of intelligence that we simply don\u2019t have direct access to except through our dreams and occasional insights if we are lucky.<\/p>\n

Presumably the unconscious is not constrained by logic or rationality or time or even our own bodies. It can roam wherever it wants and judging by our dreams it combines and assembles ideas that just would not work in our waking world because they would be rejected as absurd or just unacceptable.<\/p>\n

Rich pickings<\/h2>\n

I think this resource is what we are trying to tap into when we seek creative ideas. I now believe that inspiration is a shorthand for how we can access the abundance and\u00a0 <\/span>power of our unconscious minds. Those moments of lucidity are when the richness of the unconscious comes together with ideas that are<\/p>\n