So, here I am sitting, at what counts as my desk in my house, chilled tunes flowing forth, while the steady stream of twitter stimulates my peripheral vision. I asked a few days ago for help, and some responded. I asked for inspiration, for ideas. What it has led me to is this, I have an idea forming sparked from these ideas, pieces art by others, and my own fevered imaginations. This post will be that idea taking form, an experiment in some ways also, as I form this idea as I type.

So where did the idea germinate, well there were three main sources, “The forgetting of the message” from afront, the reminder from Juanito about surrounding myself with inspirational stuff, and then there was this image on deviantArt (LINK).

These got me thinking of some works I have done before and then an image came to me. A figure, on their knees, their hands outstretched above them clinging to prison bars, but the bars are floating in mid-air, the figure is in a busy street with people walking by. Then my mind jumps to the phrase, “invisible prisons”, the idea of being alone in a crowd, of being distant while people are close.

So here is where I am, the theme is that of “invisible prisons”. Could cover groups, individuals, mental, physical, spiritual, cultural, anything that divides us from others, illness, pain, suffering, all these things can separate us, wither by our own action/inaction, or by others. These metaphysical walls, prisons, pits, voids, all serve to disconnect us from each other. We need to be connected, we need to be part of something more than ourselves, community, be that religious or not, its doesn’t matter, we are social creatures. These ties, these connections can be too easily severed because of difference, indifference, prejudice, hatred, misunderstanding, lack of empathy. They are reunited in hope, reforged in love, reconnected in peace.

“Invisible Prisions”, a collection of works exploring the disconnected, the disenfranchised, the disheartened, and the hope, peace, and love of true community.

There we go, that’s roughly how my mind came to this, almost as it developed, now the tough work begins. Reseraching the ideas and thoughts above, and developing them into a series of works.

Well now that I have my little studio space, although I am still getting used to it and comfortable in it, I have found myself lacking ideas. This is because I have been going through a bit of a creative dry season, just finding it difficult to come up with interesting, challenging, and worthwhile images at the drop of the hat without some external influence. I decided that what I should do to help focus my mind is start a series of works based around a common theme or subject, much like I would do if doing an exhibit at a gallery. Of course this is when I hit my mental wall, so I thought I would throw it open to the web and see what comes in.

So, dear reader, what theme/subject/whatever should I explore in a series of works? Or can you point me to something you think would spark the creative juices?

I kinda made a mistake, and have lost my posts, well I say lost they are stuck in a massive SQL backup, oh well, fresh start it is then

I will add a few older posts that I know how to find, but in general I think this will be a fresh start for the blog and thats probably a good thing.