Given my penchant for squirrels, I found this card incredibly humorous:

You know what's annoying? Annoying things.

You know, I find it odd that as an artist, the one thing I never really considered having was a muse. I was deeply in love once, and it inspired me to write poetry. Poetry that was good enough to be published. That's probably the closest I've ever been to having a "muse". Other artists complain that their muse isn't being good to them, or ride a high note saying their muse is being exceptionally generous to them.

Huh?

I just feel inspired sometimes. And uninspired at other times (lately, the latter). Still, I find it rather amusing that many artists seek to personify their inspiration, as if it were an elusive creature to be caught and um... fondled... Okay, not the best term, but you get my drift. Please the muse, ride the creative wind. Piss her off, and watch the blank canvas ridicule you to no end.

Any other artistic/creative types out there who consider such a concept as a "muse" (ie an external, ever tempermental source of inspiration, or the great taker-away of such inspiration) to be... well, odd?
That's not to say that there aren't things out there that inspire me. I love just about all music (except rap and most country music), and each inspires me (I'm very visually minded, so everything translates into imagery for me, and since music doesn't have "built in imagery" like movies and TV do, my imagination takes over and the sky's the limit) in different ways.

Television wise, anime is my biggest inspiration. Particularly Dragonball Z. It is so my style. I love dynamicism in my artwork, and DBZ is practically dynamics animated (when they fight anyway). It's the extreme: Speed, power, magnitude. They don't just punch and kick, the blow up mountains when they fight! It tickles my creative bone.

Movies inspire me as well. Many times I'll be watching a movie and go, "it'd be cool if they did this..." or even re-write it in my head adding characters and whatnot. If it gets my creative juices flowing, then I consider it inspirational.

Granted, many people would consider those "muses", but I don't feel the need to personify my inspirations (of course, if my inspiration is an actual person, all the better :)

So what's your mu... source of inspiration?

There once was a man from Nantucket.


No, really. Nantucket is a decent sized place, I'm sure there's been at least ONE man to come from there...


Quick squirrel story (no really, I'm not obsessed, honest. I just tend to notice them more):

I was walking to work yesterday, and passing one of the older, less "kept" houses (there's a few along the way that are rented by college students, so the upkeep isn't very passable). The sides of the house are pretty nasty, and the doorway has an eaves/overhang. Well, apparently a squirrel was on there, because he either fell off, or tried to scamper down the side of the house and failed miserably. He landed next to the stairs, and quickly sat up and grabbed the tall weed in front of him as if to hide behind it in embarassment. I thought it was rather humorous. The squirrel didn't seem to be hurt physically, only his pride.