Waiting for Inspiration

Wikipedia defines artistic inspiration as sudden creativity in artistic production.

Where does inspiration come from?

Today I was hoping inspiration would show up if I went into my studio. I did not know what to paint? I sat at my drafting table where I create my watercolor paintings and waited. Do I create a collage or a more traditional watercolor painting? What is the subject?

My discipline is to paint at least twenty minutes a day. I felt frustrated, yet compelled to put paint to paper. Many times when I am emotional or wanting to make some connection with Self, I paint a mandala; a Sanskrit word meaning holy or magical circle. Basically, I paint inside a circle which becomes a meditation. Maybe if my mind were quiet, inspiration would find me.

Being an art therapist, I am always asking myself the significance of the images which appear. Today it was a duck with something, figurative-like, on its back. I painted playfully and wondered.

I am beginning to believe that there is a process to spark the creativity whereby inspiration visits. It comes from engaging in art. As the saying goes, "just do it!"

World View of Mandalas

What is a Mandala?

The word "Mandala" is from Sanskrit, a classical Indian language developed over 2,300years ago. Loosely translated to mean "circle," a mandala is far more than a simple shape. It represents wholeness, and can be seen as a model of the organizational structure of life itself-a cosmic diagram that reminds us of our relation to the infinite, the world that extends both beyond and within our bodies and minds.

Describing both material and non-material realities, the mandala appears in all aspects of life: the celestial circles we call earth, sun, and moon, as well as conceptual circles of friends, family, and community. Tibetan Buddhist believe that the mandala is "a matrix or model of a perfected universe," says noted Buddhist scholar, Professor Robert A.F. Thurman. "Every being is a mandala.... We are our environment as much as we are the entity in the environment."

The integrated view of the world represented by the mandala, while long embraced by some Eastern religions, has now begun to emerge in Western religious and secular cultures. Awareness of the mandala may have the potential of changing how we see ourselves, our planet, and perhaps even our own life purpose.