Motivation and inspiration

Yesterday I got an email from my best friend and the topic was motivation.
She wanted to know if I had trouble staying motivated.

I remember at my studio in the UK that people would stand in my doorway and say-
'I feel really unmotivated.'
But I don't think that was the real issue.
They WERE motivated because they too were in their studios but they were confusing motivation and inspiration.
Motivation is when you perform an act to fulfill a desire or need.
Like you're hungry, so you are motivated to find food.
After you eat, you need to poo, so you are motivated to find a toilet.
Later on, you're tired so you are motivated to find somewhere to lay down and go to sleep.
You wake up the next day, you draw a picture which makes you feel hungry so you are motivated to sell said drawing so you can eat and start the eat/poo/sleep/draw cycle again.

Inspiration is something entirely different.
I see inspiration as falling through a hole in the top of the head and landing in the feet.
Inspiration comes from how I am wired up, how I was brought up, what I have seen in my life thus far, how I receive information through my senses.
How I react to situations and how sensitive I am to my surroundings.
The root of the word inspire is to breath and by paying attention to everything and everyone I encounter in my day, I am in some way inspired.
I breath in and I am breathed into and whatever I produce is like an exhale.

I am inspired by many things-
I am inspired by family disputes.
I am inspired by people who do things selflessly for others, like my friends Denise and Bob who foster children.
I am inspired by the homeless people who walk around the streets of San Diego at night with shopping trolleys collecting rubbish for recycling.
I am inspired by light falling on yellow houses.
And most of these will end up in a drawing in one way or another at some time.

Motivation and inspiration are in league.
I am motivated by hunger to find food.
I am motivated by the need to poo to find a toilet.
I am motivated by weariness to find a bed.
And I am motivated by inspiration to make art.


The above image is a hand coloured photographic print of Your Essential Guide Good.
I colour it with felt pens which shine on photographic paper.
It leaves a stained glass like quality to the image.
You can buy the print here and colour it in yourself.

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