What of inspiration and creative expression …
 

I’ve been thinking about visual interpretation and inspiration. Is there such a thing as an original creative thought … or is every piece of art ie material, literary or theatrical expression merely an interpretation?

I recently spent some time examining old cartography. Where did the highly stylized visual interpretation of the sea monster come from? Is the visual interpretation, otherwise called an illustration, a phantom of the creative subconscious? Has this phantom haunted generation after generation substantiated by descriptive spoken and written language until it tickled the creative psyche of a skilled hand? Or, is the illustration an amalgamation of a water snake captured in childhood, the bats in the barn, fish at the market and the artists’ twisted imagination –fueled by descriptive language of animated story telling?

Such extrapolation is unfathomable on many levels –at least to me; an artist, illustrator and expresser … is it not logic to assume that the illustration is the fruition of a forbearer’s creative expression, inspired by stories of exotic creatures seen while in transit from land to land, and enhanced by the aforementioned amalgamation?

And what of those story tellers, their journeying, and their creative expression. Who was the traveler that did not merely describe the exotic but illustrated it –the first sea monster! Did he/she see the creature first-hand. Was it a real sea monster in terms of scale and structure? Was the experience so profound that he/she was compelled to express it with pigment on substrate? Did it inspire beyond nightmare and sleepless night?

At some point in time I wonder if humans did not cross paths with sea monsters; not merely whales, dolphins, sea lions or sharks etc., rather, giant serpent-like beasts that are now extinct. Is this a cryptozoolical issue; purveyed on the fringes of sacred cannon?

Yet, how old is man, and how old is creative expression. Are the two answers synonymous? How could they not be? Does a burst of inspiration that produces creative expression represent evolution … or creation?

“God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them ... Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy."

What is joy … if it is not creative expression?

Dish soap? ;)

Sorry. I hope I didn't ruin your thread.

so long as you see shapes in the bubbles, like pony's in white fluffy clouds :)