September 29, 2011

Getting Unstuck and Inspired

The other morning, my brain was sludge.  The words wouldn't come.  I felt discouraged and frustrated.

I got myself out of the house and to the Cornell Museum of Art & American Culture with friends.

This is what we saw when we entered:


Castle built from Crayola Crayons.

There are two fine art crayon artists in the world -- Don Marco and his son, Jeffrey Robert. 

The first room was filled with Don Marco's art of the American West.  His depiction of American Indians was amazing.  I encourage you to check out his art here.  It's astounding that anyone could produce this art using crayons.

This centerpiece of the second room was created by the people from the Cornell Museum:



Here, we watched a video about how crayons were made.  This isn't the one we saw, but this video is from Sesame Street and is pretty cool.



Then we watched one about how Jeffrey Robert creates his crayon art, which is very different from his father's. 

One of Jeffrey Robert's pieces of art from the Cornell Museum exhibit.

You can view videos about Jeffrey Robert's art here.

The art knocked me right out of my slump. 

The next morning, ideas flowed and I wrote like my pen was on fire.  That evening my S.C.B.W.I. critique group said, "Donna, it looks like you've got the beginning of your next book."  Wahoo!

It isn't only art that inspires.  Check out this wonderful video (below).  Learn more about Kelan Lawson here.


Have an inspired day!

4 comments:

Gail Shepherd said...

This is such a coinkydink! I too was thinking about what unsticks, inspires this morning. For me, a quickie fix is reading poetry. A long term fix (which I am doing next week) is going to New York (or just about any large city) to wander in the museums. This is the Cornell museum in Delray? I've never been there! Must go. Thanks for the nudge.

Wild About Words said...

New York sounds good to me, Gail. Think you can stuff me in your suitcase?

Anonymous said...

It always fascinates me where artists of any sort (writers included of course), gain their inspiration. Reading often does it for me, as does just creating and allowing myself to play. But it does come from many sources.

Thanks for sharing your inspiration experience.

Paul

Wild About Words said...

Thank you, Paul. And, of course, your photographs are inspiring!