Sudden Insights > Silent Thinking: Creativity flourishes where burgeoning thoughts germinate. And that my friend is what we all imagine happens when we decide to do something creatively. I’m in that foolish ship, always ready with paint, brushes, and canvases in hand, standing by for my maiden voyage of untold and yet-to-be-discovered inspirations from a phantasmic chimera.

Where do you get your inspiration to paint the way you do Rod? “Ah ha… I don’t.” You shouldn’t be surprised, this is not entirely uncommon when it comes to the use of your own imagination. Archimedes may perhaps be the first one to memorialize the word Eureka. It’s an interesting story. Archimedes was sitting in his bathtub trying to solve a problem for the king. I can’t say I have heuristic notions when art ideas pop into my head. It invariably starts when I’m in front of a blank canvas. I step back and let my imagination do the work. Admittedly it’s not always fashionably brilliant, but it does have its own intrigue.

The human imagination and its ability to form mental images that are not visibly present in the natural or unnatural world, borders on mental wizardry. Some people after the fact often referred to it as he or she has a penchant for going deep into their imaginations that we are all gifted with from birth.

Where is your imagination going to take you today? Will you be influenced by what you see and hear on the Internet? Or will you sit quietly by yourself and just listen to the ideas that hopefully bring forth creative outcomes? Thinking can be a blessing and I suppose for some it can be a curse. People like to throw around the word genius but all those people who are given that moniker are, simply put they just take the time to think. When that doesn’t work they kick it back to the universe and wait for the Eureka moment that we have all experienced in our lives.

The map of my painting represented here is held together by spontaneous thoughts in a step-by-step progression. No Eureka moment, and definitely no genius involved. Just plain old rolling along with imaginative thoughts that somehow chose colors and shapes and then organized and unorganized coherence.

“The brass band performing in my conscious imagination added a backdrop to the

spontaneity of my Eureka moment.”

 

Rod Jones Artist-Writer