Recently ive decided I need new inspiration to bring some new life into things. I have been drawing a blank and soon resort back to comfortable things. I have always had a hard time drawing the line between inspiration and copying. It can be a fine line to negotiate, unless your inspiration takes you to an extreme away from the point of inspiration. Any inspired landing leaving me close to the point of departure seems like a poorly traveled experience; although sometimes there can be quite a trip taken; a journey in nuance and refinement. So success is not always a black and white distance race, it can be largely judged in the quality of the journey.
Sometimes the harder you consciously try the less you get accomplished. I am all for failure as a teaching tool; however if the quality of the failure is no more then common contrivances then there is little to learn save, stop trying so hard and let it flow more naturally; less consciously that is.
I want new shapes. In regards to style writing, its all about the shapes, abstracting the commonly accepted and universally recognized letter form into a new, or re-refined shape echoing the established while seeking to be its own thing. Just as a child is a recognized human they grow up with the hopes of becoming their own individual, complimenting the hole while expanding on its definition.
As part of trying to find new shapes i found myself looking at the photos of a good friend Saul Metnick of Blandscape.org. I haven’t spoken to him about his work for a while, other then to know hes in the mix and trying ti keep himself moving. From the outset i will say, i dont get photography, i can spot a ragingly good photo, but i miss a lot of the nuance that may make one photo stand out from others. My sense of framing can be hap-hazard at best and accidentally genius once in a blue moon. Saul has always brought a sense of whit and irony to his photos; which i always appreciated but was never convinced was the sole basis for him taking good photos. In looking at many the other day i started to look beyond the subject and just see the shapes, created by the interplay of forms and shadows (which have always been there but took me time to come too, im an idiot with a decent vocabulary). SO in an attempt to distill the shapes and things i found interesting I took some screen shots and did some illustrator mock ups. Surely nothing groundbreaking but a good place to start.
