Image of Dine Bahane

When in class our teacher mentioned that a created work of art to illustrate our creation myths I was initially excited. I have for many years considered myself an artist and look forward to creating some art to illustrate the creation myth. But as many artists or other creators are sure to know sometimes it is hard to find inspiration. To use an appropriate expression my muse was not with me. I had looked at many of the creation myth images depicted on the useful internet, and liked the unusual styles depicted in what must be the art styles of the Navajo Native Americans (or first peoples).

A very nice image from http://www.navajolegends.org/navajo-creation-story/

 I decided that such a stile may be interesting to try, (I have a great fondness of experimentation with new techniques and or art styles). Yet did not seem to make progress towards creating.... anything. I just seemed stuck until sometime later when I found another image. I have noticed that forcing creativity doesn't necessarily work for me. I tend to do best when I let it flow at its own pace. I think several things changed when I saw that image. I was struck by its creativity and its great talent. But also I was surprised by its uniqueness. it was very unlike any of the images I had seen before. I think I needed that inspiration to jump start my own creativity. I may have become too attached to replication of a unfamiliar style and just got into thinking to much on the mechanics of the project.

 I feel much more free no when I realized I can use this as an opportunity to create something of my own style pulling things from any source of inspiration. Yet I must make sure that my own creation is in some way drawn from myself.  From my own inner being I need to pull part of my creation. I find it hard to put into words these contemplations, this experience may be unique to me, but I suspect that others artists feel the same about creation. When you create its using a bit of oneself in the creation. One's self is not used up by the creation more like channeled, or maybe made permanent. The expression that comes to mind is " a candle loses none of its light by lighting another candle". I have started to sketch out possible designs for some sort of project, maybe a painting. All this rambling is because this image helped me to understand something. My art can be influenced by other artwork but for it to mean anything to me I need to pull some of the art from myself.
But these are just my thoughts.

Image from http://dgeiu3fz282x5.cloudfront.net/g/l/lgwiz01546+navajo-creation-myth-john-stephens-poster.jpg With great thanks