Creativity or inspiration

Posted on September 19, 2007

Has it ever happened to you, when doing some carving, painting , even writing, that things flow just naturally in your mind or that your fingers do really what your mind wanted them to create.? I mean like the perfect brush stroke on a painting ? And it leaves you with awe at what you have just done so perfectly. It makes oneself very happy, extremely proud and somewhat amazed.

This happened to me a few days ago when carving an identical pair of what I call the funny faces of a Salomon Islands canoe, better known as nguzu-nguzu. I drew their profile onto the wood and cut them out to shape and sand. Wow..perfect. I was amazed.

Now, 2 days later I wanted to replicate those same funny faces and how come I could not do this anymore  ? I had to start 3 times until I got it more or less identical to the previous ones. It frustrated me and reminded me of something I read one day about the work of an artist painter “Its those first strokes that are the most inspiring”