The Map to Ideas

People who are not actively creative always seem to treat creative types like they are some kind of mutant creating army. “Where do you get your ideas?” , they ask, sometimes a little snarkily or they will say, plaintively, “I’m just not artistic”. They’ll say, sometimes belligerently, “Where do you find the time?”, implying that if only they had a few extra minutes a day, they too would be doing artwork, but they are too busy and very important, thankyouverymuch, not lazy and lolling about paintingsewingcookingdreaminslacking like the somewhat suspect artistic types.

I used to actually try to explain where I got my ideas when asked, until I realized that this was a rhetorical question: they did not really want to know. Very rarely in those pre-internet days did I meet a kindred spirit who were really and truly interested. ( It’s no fun feeling like a mutant; in self-defense I’d say “From Target” or a museum, as if ideas weren’t everywhere available to everyone, if they would only look.)

One Sunday  I was looking at Karen’s blog and she had a link to this skirt.

It was Jean-Paul Gaultier's Spring 2013 Collection, and it was the Most Beautiful Skirt I had ever seen. I loved the colors the patchwork, the fabrics...I thought, "I could do something like that." That’s where ideas  come from. They come from other ideas. It’s like a chain reaction. That’s why you shouldn't hoard ideas, you should try them out, use them, do them, set them free. I realized that I could do something like this skirt, but it wouldn't be like his skirt, it would be mine, my view and my art, because my ideas would grow from his ideas and interpret them into my art language..

I totally love this jacket:

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After studying it, I realized that is is a simple jacket and I could totally re-create a version of it.
And now you'll know where I got my idea.

P.S. I confessed previously to loving reader comments. I also love bad reviews. If you like them too, read this one. My favorite lines:


Maybe the overwrought Real Housewives "vibrancy" of this presentation was the latest manifestation of that impulse. Or maybe it was a canny acknowledgement of the fact that, right now, there is a couture client somewhere in the world who lives for a gold python trenchcoat.

I would like to note that I see  the python trench coat is a "statement " about Veblenesque goods, Mr. Cranky Reviewer. It's Art.