INSPIRATION INSPIRING INSPIRATION

I left the Dick Institute, sat in my car, and pressed "Play". A young David Bowie sang a song about Andy Warhol, then he sang about Bob Dylan. It seemed quite synchronous. Here was a musician making music/art about an artist and a musician.

I had just been to see the Paula Rego display. Rego is described as "one of the most extraordinary artists, print-makers, and story-tellers of our time". The works on display all had their roots in English literature. They depicted scenes from Peter Pan, Jane Eyre, and various nursery rhymes. An artist inspired by writers.

It's no surprise that the arts cross-pollinate. And it's probably to be encouraged. Any time I hear about someone having writers block, I suggest they visit a gallery and write about what they see there, whether hung on the wall or walking the halls.

Perhaps the best example of that cross pollination I have come across ends with Leonard Cohen's Alexandra Leaving. It's a beautiful song about a woman dying, about the people she is leaving behind, and about how she is, ultimately, saved by her faith. But it is freely adapted from The God Abandons Antony, a poem by Constantine Cavafy, about the fall of the city of Alexandria. Cavafy himself took inspiration from the historian Plutarch and his Life of Mark Anthony. and the ultimate inspiration for this chain of creativity was, of course, the Roman general Mark Anthony.

Nothing of the original ended up in the finale. But a man inspired a historian, who inspired a poet, who inspired a poet/song-writer.

I read somewhere that Andy Warhol didn't much like the song Bowie wrote about him. But it was too late to complain. A work of art, that hadn't existed before, now existed. Inspiration had inspired inspiration.

If you find you - temporarily - can't create, surround yourself by the creations of other. And see what comes up.

Current Exhibits | East Ayrshire Leisure Trust