What inspires us to create? Is it a person? An idea? An emotion? An event? A desire to make sense of the world without us? I’m sure I could explore each of these ideas in a truly pretentious and self-indulgent manner that would bore you to tears by saying, “See, he did this.” or “She did that for this reason.” Instead, I’d rather keep the light of this particular sun on me. What inspires ME to create, and what I’ve learned about this particular sense of “inspiration” within myself over the years. Don’t worry; hopefully I’ll keep it relatively indulgent-less. It’s a topic I’ve considered a lot over the years, and I continue to wrestle with what it means, and how best to accomplish such artistic endeavors.
For much of my late 20s I was in a rut creatively. From the time I graduated college in 2001 until 2006-07 I still worked on music and began writing and making movies, and even composed and released my third album, but my drive to write music was sporadic at best. I didn’t feel like I had lost interest in composing, but I did start to question my passion and drive to do so. What did it mean that I went virtually art-less from my graduation in 2001 to 2004, when I began work on “Sonic Visions of a New Old West”? Was my heart still in it? Why was I still trying to compose anyway when I’ll be lucky to get people outside of my circle of friends and family to listen anyway?
Eventually, these questions stopped bothering me. As I was beginning to examine myself in deeper terms, starting to take an offensive on battling my anxieties and stresses that plagued me and made me feel like I was less capable and deserving than I was, I began to look at my creative outlook (and the act of creating itself) with clearer eyes. I’ve done a lot of reading over the years that have helped focus me, and help me understand better the nature of artistic expression. Whether it was a book like Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, which delves deep into the nature of challenging our emotional outlook; The Last Lecture, which is an inspirational story of putting a life in perspective as we come to the end of it; Sculpting in Time (written by Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky) or Rebel Without a Crew (by Austin wunderkind Robert Rodriguez), which take very different but equally-passionate looks at the filmmaking process; or Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity, which goes at the idea of creativity from the analytic mind of an economics professor, each book not only helped me discover more about the subject at its heart, but also put my own experiences, my own life and what I wish to accomplish in it, in greater perspective. The great realization was this: creativity operates on its own schedule. For some people, they never stop creating, whether it’s because the ideas are always flowing or whether outside opportunities (such as commissions) present themselves. For others, the inspiration to create is less-driven and will more-typically arrive when the moment is right; in other words, when the creator is presented with a situation that cries for artistic release.
I look at myself as belonging more to the latter category. While I always have ideas bouncing around in my head, that typically has more to do with the backlog of creative endeavors I’ve left incomplete over the years. Pieces in need of recording. Films in need of finishing. Projects I have on the brain as “half-ideas.” Yes, procrastination is a dangerous slope for a person with artistic ambitions. But when it comes to the inspiration to create in the first place, I’ve learned to not stress the quiet between artistic ideas. The ideas will come when I’m ready to receive them. I may have started my piece “Sonic Contemplation” in 2001, but I wasn’t ready (artistically or emotionally) to finish it until 2006. My first compositions for my fourth album, “Beyond the Infinite: A Musical Odyssey” may have been written in college, but it wasn’t until I was in possession of a new home studio setup, and capable of new musical possibilities, in 2008 when I would be ready to finish work on it. In June 2001, my artistic mind shut down as life presented stress after stress; in October 2002, I finally put pencil to manuscript paper again to compose two trombone quartets. As I’ve begun to wind down work on one project (whether it’s an individual piece or an entire album), another project comes to mind. My filmmaking and writing endeavors have had similar origins, although in many cases, a longer gestation period from original conception to final project. With my short stories, most have been finished quickly while one in particular (a collaboration with my friend Dawn) is still in a holding pattern while we try to make time to write together. As for my films, well, I think you can tell from my blogs on my projects that those are still “works in progress,” and there are a few more on the brain. I’m sure I’ll finished them sometime.
For now, there’s not much for me to say on my creative mind. Each project is a different artistic and emotional journey, and as each journey comes to an end, I’ll continue to look at what drove the process and what inspired my art. Hopefully, it’ll be a compelling journey not just for me but for my loyal readers.
Thanks for listening,
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
