FINDING INSPIRATION THROUGH OTHERS

By Laurence Boswell

Creativity seems to come and go. There will be moments where all my creative juices are flowing and an explosion of artwork takes over my social media. On the other hand, there have been dry spells - moments where the creative flow has stopped. I was in one of those moments a few years ago. I needed something to inspire me. A word. An idea. A theme. I decided to reach out to my Instagram audience. I wanted to see what kind of content they wanted me to create. So I asked them to choose one word and submit their responses. I imported them into a random word generator, and out came my new theme: Forgiveness.

I thought for a minute... Forgiveness? That’s a deep word. It can be used in so many ways, and in so many different scenarios. I ran with it. I thought about my life, my situation, my natural tendency to be hard on myself...

I threw a sheet on the floor, set up my lights and camera, and began my journey. A journey of self-discovery. A journey that was empowered by creativity and soul searching. A journey that allowed me to see myself. I took several images that day, trying different poses. I played two roles; The Forgiver, and The Forgiven. I fused the two entities together in Photoshop, creating an unspoken conversation between the two. I saw both sides of me that day: the part of me that is compassionate, loving, forgiving, and the other part that is sad, lonely, scared, and afraid.

A few hours later I posted my image. The image has become one of my favorites, and ultimately inspired me to create a whole series. A series based on self-discovery, self-empathy and compassion. A series that portrayed my journey of finding myself and accepting myself.

And it was all inspired by one simple word: Forgiveness.

Moral of the story: If you are having a hard time being inspired, ask around! Ask a friend, a family member, or even your followers on social media to give you a word, idea, or theme. You never know what you could come up with!