In my art-making practice, inspiration comes in many ways, but rarely out of thin air. It can be a potential still life object that finds its way into my life. Like the time my children visited a farm and came home with some pears. Often it is a simple scene with beautiful light waiting for me to put my frame around it.  

The trouble begins when the inspiration comes from something some other person has already made. In this, photography is particularly vulnerable as a medium. The drawing the line part comes into play as we think about incorporating this idea or even an object into our work.  While walking around Europe, I often find myself making pictures of the bridges and buildings I see. I wonder about how my placing a camera frame around said bridge, one designed by architects, constructed by craftspersons sometimes over the course of decades, can be my art. 

I am currently learning to draw. I love it. It challenges me and forces me to make my own lines.  Still, I find myself looking at drawings and photographs as inspirations for the drawings I make. It helps with getting things like scale and perspective sorted out.  The question becomes when does inspiration become a copy? If I look at a drawing or photograph and make a drawing, is that okay? How about if I trace it? What if I trace my own photograph? 

I think we all have our fence, or line that we choose not to cross. I would never, for example, put a bell pepper in the bottom of a tin funnel and take a photograph, or make portraits in a narrow corner made of studio flats. But I have made lots of pictures of subjects other artists have worked with or, in the case of architecture, designed and built. 

I understand that for most of us, these things are covered by a set of vague, unwritten rules. For instance, if I make a drawing while looking at a book of Egon Schiele drawings, will mine look different enough, and the printmaking method I use be unique enough from the original to make it valid work of mine, or is that just a rationalization? 

I would enjoy reading your thoughts on navigating these ideas, by joining the conversation you help this community thrive and I am grateful for this. 

Be well,

Ray