People claim that Michaelangelo said that his great sculptures were already inside the marble he carved, that he just got the extra stone out of the way. There is genius in that statement. Every work of art is a fusion of materials, subject matter, artistic inspiration and even random experience in the artist's life.
The purpose of art is to communicate...an emotion, an idea, whatever. Creative works are not static. They are changed by the interaction of the viewer. The audience brings their own interpretation of the work.
Though I do not presume to say that what I do is high art, it is influenced by works that I have seen, heard and experienced. I often seal out the noise of the real world by a set of ear buds and my favorites on my MP3. What I listen to often influences my work, and I gear the music toward the project at hand.
Sometimes a photo catches my fancy and spins my site construction in a whole new direction. Recently my impulsive inclinations turned my format of a personal blogsite into a Southern Gothic nightmare. In my defense, I had 6 hours sleep and nothing to eat for13 hours.
People I know and respect tried to give their advice in a gentle way. They used the calm, quiet voice usually reserved for a rabid animal. It was then that I had an "out of body" moment, seeing the careful impassivity of their faces which were glistening ever so slightly, I realized that I was turning into the crazy aunt in a Southern Gothic novel, and it was time to return to sanity. I scrapped the florid graphics and jungle-wild format for something closer to conformity. After all, the content was shocking enough.
