Where do you get your ideas from?

One of the most common questions I get asked as an artist or creative, is ‘where do you get your ideas from?’

I’m not sure what people expect from this question, as no matter what I say, they always stare blankly at me in response, and I’m never quite sure why. Do my answers seem over simplistic, coming as they do from all the same things that they’ve probably experienced too, as in books, movies, dreams, things I’ve seen, things I’ve done? Or is that they have a moment of realisation, in that yes, my ideas are very simplistic and the same thing they have experienced, so in that case, why haven’t they created art in some form in response to this?

That’s probably a bit harsh, but then as this is always the reaction I get, and I pretty much always say these things, and no one is impressed once I tell the, maybe I should up my game a bit? Perhaps I should invent a story to fit my work, something tragic and near death perhaps, or hopelessly romantic? Should I invent connections to long dead celebrities, or that I was brought in a Hippy commune or religious sect, from which I had to escape when I realised that the great leader was not, as he had lead me to believe, the mouthpiece of God, but a slightly balding, slightly overweight relic from Woodstock, looking for an excuse to sleep with numerous, much younger women?

Maybe the real issue, is that giving my actual backstory to complete strangers as a justification, is far too personal, but telling them to sod off and mind their own business probably wouldn’t be good for sales.

However, I do actually get a lot of my ideas from the things listed above, so I thought I’d talk about the process for me with some of those things, the first of which is ‘Books.’

Not sure why I put inverted commas around books, but anyway.

You may not know this about me, but I am also an author - I’m annoying, aren’t I? - and I’ve had three books published to absolutely no good end, and I have a good few more sitting on my hard drive. I have also rather filled up my time with art-ing in the last four years, but I still write on occasions and aim to try getting another book for adults out one day, as well as my children’s books - but all of this means that I am an avid reader and a picky one.

I am strongly of the opinion that if a book has not engaged me after chapter three, it goes in the metaphorical bin and I move on - though as I have to hold pens and paint brushes in my hands most days, I listen to books now, so the bin is very much a metaphorical bin. A book that was so good that I devoured it like one might a cream bun, and which found its way to inspiring art, was ‘The Change’ by Kirsten Miller

If you are a man or male presenting, and have never lived as a woman, and have ever wondered what it might be like to be a woman, then this book will punch you in the guts with understanding. It is both a thriller and one of the most painfully visceral takedowns of Western Patriarchy I have read in a long time, and one of those books where every word seemed to spark a movie inside my head. I play a long standing game with my Brother, who is in the film industry in a modest way, where I ring him up and demand that he make a TV series or Movie of a book I love, which is so out of his reach to achieve that I might as well be asking him for the moon on a stick, but which is almost inevitably followed by me ringing him up six months later to tell him that someone has done just what I recommend and turned that book into a TV show or Movie, as if I have won some sort of argument. I like to think that I have a great track record at this, though it is probably confirmation bias - but my goodness, this book would make the kind of series which wins awards.

Not all of the books I love spark art within me, some of them just make me wish I had some sort of clout with Netflix, but this one did, and here it is -

I’m not going to tell you how this fits into the book, because I want you to read and/or listen to the book (if you struggle to find time to read, for goodness sake get into audio books) but it was a very proud moment when someone on the internet responded to say as soon as she saw this image, she also thought of the same book and the same character who inspired this, so I’m taking that as a win!

I call this image ‘Morganna’ - because I accept that not everyone has read the book, and I felt it also had a lot of witchy energy, and that’s what this book is so much about - the denial and suppression of female power, knowledge and autonomy, and the twisting of this into something to be feared. If you don’t know who Morganna is, or was, you may know her better by her Victorian title ‘Morgan Le Fey,’ and she was supposedly the older half sister of King Arthur, who was accused of baring a child with him, Mordred, who was responsible for his death - or so they’d have you believe.

If you’ve read ‘The Change’ you can see this as a character in the book, or you can see her as a visual interprestatiom of the message of the book, or the message of many stories, or the voice of man women both now and throughout history - or one woman, or the woman inside you - because what is so wonderful about any art is that one person creates a deeply personal piece of art, and yet it somehow speaks to a thousand more people and in turn, becomes personal to them.

If you are brave enough, you can buy both prints and the original through my website, where you can also read a bit about how I created her.

Happy reading!