Inspiration: a functional approach to creative practice.

10.4 Summary of chapter 10

Carl Jung (1972: 21–23) asserts that there are unconscious aspects to the perception of reality through the senses. The senses perceive, Jung explains, and then translate reality to the realm of the mind, into a psychic event. Psychic events, Jung (1982: 19) explains, come from experiences that are governed by emotions and the irrational. Likewise, the experience of being inspired artistically involves first being aware of the inner emotional and outer environment.

Constructivist Gabo has discussed the unity of the inner world and the outer, asserting they merge one into the other. The merger of the inner and the outer is noticed or sensed by the artist, in the forms of opening up to an inner voice and becoming sensitive to the faculty of listening. The artist then senses a collectible unconscious experience. Once noticed, feelings then rise within the artist by which the artist experiences himself or herself as part of the creative flow of the environment. In my view the artist feels an expansion of the self, or a deflation, and an urge to create. This urge is acknowledged through an emotiovisual response producing an initial impression of words and images within the artist’s mind, as a first step in creating meanings.

This indicates that the artist follows a process of understanding what he or she is going through; of what is the creative force that heightens their senses and emotions, and inspires them to share the inner and outer realities through art. The process of understanding involves internalisation of images and words into artistic forms, as discussed in the next chapter.