In my many, many years of schooling I found the best way to get myself to concentrate was to put on some music. Quite honestly, if I didn't have that music going in my head, I'd be distracted by the many other things I could be doing instead of say, writing a paper or reading that last 300 pages or whatever. I'd procrastinate like crazy. I'd even ~gasp~ clean the house to keep from sitting down to get the studying done. Music definitely provided the distraction that became the focus.
It seems the more complex the subject, the more complex the music needed to be. Just as most art has many layers, so does music. And the best music will inspire art. I suppose that's also true vice versa!
In recent years, the artist I tend to go to for inspiration is
Imogen Heap. She layers her music like an watercolor artist layers color. Sometimes it's delicate, wispy even. Other times it's slapstick fun. Sometimes it has a biblical reference complete with samples of locusts. Other times it reminds us of a cause. And there are not many of her pieces I would not listen to every day of the
week over and over again. She just doesn't get old for me.
Her newest CD starts with
First Train Home, which she says is about being at a party but wanting to be home:
Temporal deadzone where clocks are barely breathing, Yet no one cares to notice for all the yelling, All night clamor to hold it together. I want to play - don't wait - forms in the hideaway. I want to get on with getting on with things. I 
want to run in fields, paint the kitchen, love someone. And I can't do any of that here, can I?Her words paint pictures in my mind - what creativity to describe clocks as
barely breathing! What about
Hide and Seek's,
the dust has only just begun to form crop circles in the carpet?
Glittering Cloud gives locusts who are about to obliterate more vegetation a voice of reason:
Save me, oh save me, save me from myself, Before I hurt somebody else again. And
The Walk comes to mind many times in my life (usually when shopping):
I feel a weakness coming on.In recent days, I've been thinking about the "Upcycled Movement" and how we use things others discard to create art. "Immi" has an
interesting take on our treatment of this
Earth - and it's from the point of view of a mother:
The cold shoulder, folded arms, the looking up. You've never listened and carry on, careless, regardless. This is not a fire drill and if we hold any hope, It's harmonic connection, in stereo symbiosis. These Legoland empires choking out mine, Now you're everywhere, everywhere multiplying around me child. A strain on my heart, This rock can't tolerate anymore. Stop this right away. Put that down and clean this mess up. End of conversation. Put your back in it and make it up to me now.This really does remind me we've got to be stewards of the resources we've been given and need to be careful to clean up our messes - and I mean that in a purely NON-political way. I love seeing artists who are taking that concept and making art with that in mind. The other day I saw an Anthropologie store window decorated with cut up, spray painted 2-liter bottles that had been shaped into flowers and strung together with old bicycle wheels. From far away, it looked like flowers. Up close, you could see the bottles. How clever!
For me, it's taking buttons that have been pulled off of clothing for generations and making them into wearable art. It's finding the textures and designs that will create a new whole. It's finding colors that are striking and appealing. And I love it. But I digress....
Inspiration can be found in many ways. Music is a wonderful way to find inspiration. Imogen Heap is an amazing artist who often inspires me. And let's face it, who doesn't love someone with the chutzpah to show up at the Grammys with a lily pad and
Gary the Grammy Frog? Oh yeah, she's THAT girl!
