Thoughts from Tim Miles
Monday, October 28, 2013
After learning his son is autistic, award-winning communicator Tim Miles changes his path.
charm inspiration and idea generation
In almost every artist statement I've written, I try to answer "where do my ideas come from?" And the answer seems almost a bit trite, something like "from nature, my experiences, my daughter and many talented people in the artist community I'm lucky to know," and even though this sounds a bit broad, it is true. It was evident in my creation of the charm I'm creating for the EMC team charm swap. I thought it would be fun to share with you my inspiration.
I'm the type of creator that gathers, gathers, gathers and then finally it all comes together. So here are some of my random gatherings...
An istockphoto image—a marquee-like image while searching and trying to develop designs for a website:
A stamp by Tim Holtz and a curvy hinge from a scrapbook/altered arts convention I visited last weekend:
Reading a book (that my Mom read to me as a child) to my daughter—The Story of Ping by Majorie Flack:
A brief glimpse of some interesting mixed-media techniques at the Collage Sisthars meeting this weekend and another technique a few months back.
And with all this gathering and the wonderful online resources of the internet, I'm very in tune with the concerns of copying and plagiarism. In fact I was just reading Pikaland's issue #7 of their Good to Know e-zine on plagiarism. You can get your copy here or read it online on issuu.
Ideas are viral and completely unique ideas are hard to come by. So here are a few things I do to try to make sure my work is a bit different and actually mine.
~ when in doubt, give credit
~ I keep a journal (several in fact) and draw, write, doodle in them all the time. There is something with free form doodling that seems to be the subconscious trying to talk to me. I try to find patterns and purpose in my sketches which often don't reveal themselves long after I've made my entry.
~ I take classes from amazing artists, trying to learn their technique. Then I let go for a bit and try again a few days or weeks later. I'll do the technique in different ways trying to incorporate my style with new understanding.~ and I keep on creating, even if it's not turning out.
This reminds me of a quote I've read: "The enemy of the great is often the good."But the actual original quote is "Better is the enemy of good." -Voltaire
Which would suggest you always are looking for more. Most of the time I have to get the "ugly" out of my head, before I even get to the good, let alone the elusive great.
These techniques inspired the charm and here is the end result:
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Sharon is the President/Creative Director of Bending Design, a strategic design firm that partners with associations and financial services companies.
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