Art Begets Art

Art evokes emotion. Pictures, paintings, sculpture and a myriad other forms can invoke memories and emotions that transcend class and language barriers. Art inspires.

I wrote for years before taking the plunge and self-publishing ORCHIDS ABLAZE. My library contains books from many different genres. I have entire shelves of books I can use for reference. I have fiction and non-fiction, novels and short stories, poetry and song lyrics. Notably absent is horror fiction, but that’s my limitation not a comment on the genre!

As I read and enjoy them, I wonder what had sparked the initial ideas. I grew up reading speculative fiction and eventually realized my favorite authors and stories blended an inner wellspring of imagination with hard-earned, knocked-down, true life experiences with all the pain and wonder they entailed. I wondered if I would ever be able to accomplish the same. I began by writing poetry. I wrote what I called Still Life pieces that attempted to recreate in words a picture that lived behind my eyes. The real question was: would someone else see the same picture from reading my description? Could I create emotional content in someone else?

Then I discovered it didn’t really matter if the reader saw “my”picture. As a matter of fact, it was almost guaranteed they wouldn’t see the SAME picture. They would see THEIR picture, evoked and guided by my words. While perhaps an obvious revelation, it came as a moment of near-satori enlightenment for me.

The Thunder and the Lightning

And what was the stroke of lightning which had such a profound impact on me? A line art picture of a warrior-woman, a motorcycle and a wickedly dangerous blade. It wasn’t even greyscale, much less color. It was barely 3 inches on a side, in one corner of a page of a – wait for it – RPG sourcebook. When I saw that image I knew her name, I knew where she came from, and where she’d been. I knew how she’d ended up with that blade and what she was running away from, and to, on that motorcycle. In other words, I knew her story.

It could not possibly have been the story running through the artist’s mind when they created it. It didn’t matter. That picture conjured something very personal. It told me that the words I put down weren’t going to recreate my vision behind the eyes of my readers. More importantly, it told me that was okay. It told me it it was inevitable as a matter of fact. And it told me that it was a good thing, that it should be that way.

So, to paraphrase Mr. Arlo Guthrie in his classic Motorcycle Song… I just wrote it down. It may never see the light of a published story, but in many ways that was the beginning of my story as an author. I can’t draw, so my art lies in creating word pictures. Perhaps my words will inspire a drawing or a poem, not because of skill on my part, but because all of us have a little ember of inspiration just waiting for a spark.

DDW