Turning ideas into words and words into art

Inception (2010) is a great film. Full of fine direction, acting and special FX. Plus it has a concept which shakes the foundations. Pardon the pun (if that was one). What is an original idea? And how does that relate to the subconscious? What does happen at the beginning of a project? Where do your ideas come from? Where do my ideas come from?

All I know is that I will suddenly have a brain wave. A moment of clarity where an idea has literally sprung to mind, as if out of nowhere. But why? How did this idea surface? Well, I agree with the concept presented by Inception. It's all about the subconscious. We are always picking up information, be it consciously or not. We gather information from our peripheral, as well as our direct interactions. From this, our subconscious mind will work out if it's a good enough idea to bring to our conscious mind. It will relate it to interior (mind) and exterior (life) elements of our existence to gauge wether or not the idea should be considered.

Well, I think this is what happens... to me anyway.

Once I have an idea, and it's a good one, there's no stopping it. It grows into a fully blown thought process! I rate thinking very highly. Not enough of us do it properly, and that's why mistakes are made. I will think about that idea to then determine if it should be realised. This process may take a few seconds or it could take a few years. It all depends on it's relevance at the time. Whatever the timescale, I will then take the idea (and its thought process) into the arena of words.

Turning ideas into words is a fantastic experience. It makes the idea real. Just be aware of what words you use, and in what tone... as this will help establish a theme for the idea, and you don't want to get this wrong! It shouldn't go wrong as long as you are true to the idea. That little voice in your head talking to you? Listen to it and write it down. Word for word. I employ a very straight forward technique... write what comes to mind. Like writing this blog... it's just happening.

Another technique I enjoy is 'automatic writing' which relates back to the Dada and Surrealist movements of the early 20^th century. I will be talking about automatic writing more in the future, but for the moment I will explain its basic premise. You have to allow words to 'free-flow' out of your mind, down your arm, through you hand and into the pen. The connection you make with the paper in completely undetermined. Anything can happen! What you will normally get is a collection of random words. Therefore it can be quite a surreal experience and a very creative one, opening your mind to countless possibilities. The idea is, that you are allowing your subconscious mind to write... not your conscious mind.

Finally, once I have made the connection between the 'idea' and 'words', I then have the task of representing this visually. It has to become 'art'. I grab my sketch book and begin exploring the concept established in the idea and words. From there my sketches evolve, and soon enough this leads me into creating my final piece.

So is there such a thing as an original idea? Well, that's up to your subconscious.