Where does inspiration come from?

The spark of energy and excitement of inspiration drives a painter to a blank surface. The word inspiration means God within and it often feels like the creator, a separate being, is working inside driving the creation forward.

There is a kind of work in acquiring wood, sanding, applying coats of gesso, making the initial drawings and so on. there must a spark of energy that glows, leading to the attempt to communicate in visual symbols, what was once purely emotion.

While prowling through the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California, the 1879 Portrait of Madame Paul Duchesne-Fournet by Jean-Jacques Heiner, a work in oils and over six feet in height and about four and half feet wide yelled at me. I struggled to move on. My companions, not being daily painters, were only vaguely interested while I had difficulty processing the flood that engulfed me. It is everything I find coming out of myself, it is big, done in oils, a portrait, idealized feminine beauty.

At first I thought I might paint her just to have her around the studio for companionship. As time passed, the cell phone image deleted, eventually, she became my own. Edges were lost, browns reddened and her jaw narrowed. When finally the original painting was located again it was good to see the similarities and the differences between my vision and his. I hope my painting is able to speak to the emotions of those who see her, the way Jacques painting called out to me.

It would be heavenly to share an 1870s Parisienne afternoon with her and her artist friend. She might have arrived in a horse drawn carraige. What did their voices sound like? Was she a good model? Did he make her feel safe and comfortable? Her peaceful face and his delicate handling of her rich browns and blacks seems to say it was a quiet, gentle meeting.

I long to have known them both, to have been invited to set up my easel next to his and to have recorded her beautiful face with the light glowing off her skin. He might have welcomed me, he is famous for starting a studio to teach women, as the Beaux Arts did not allow them in at that time.

Inspiration arrives where it will, and cannot be forced or manufactured. Expectation and longing are the only keys to finding its hidden mysteries and radiant joys.

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