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Remember to Feed the Muse!

LisaB

HW3D Vice President & Queen Bee
Staff member
Co-Founder
What is a Muse? When I was very young I was introduced to the word muse with the concept being something that inspires a singer to sing, a poet to write or an artist to paint. It's something I've related to myself on many occasions when I've been happily working at creating something new. I also call it "being in the zone" because it's there where things just seem to flow together.

There's an entry here that describes the origin of the word in great detail, with my personal interpretation of a muse being best described as this portion;

"Some authors invoke Muses when writing poetry, hymns or epic history. The invocation typically occurs at or near the beginning, and calls for help or inspiration, or simply invites the Muse to sing through the author. Some prose authors also call on the aid of Muses, who are called as the true speaker for whom an author is merely a mouthpiece."

Feeding the muse is something that I find essential when it comes to creating. When I'm exhausted, stressed or feeling overworked the negative feelings can and often do steal the joy from creating; transforming the process into something that can be likened to working on a factory assembly line. Feeling of overwhelm or burn out is a huge clue for me that I've been starving my muse.

So what do muses eat? Muse food is unique to everyone and can be found anywhere and everywhere. The simplest way to give your muse what he/she/it requires to fuel your creativity is to do something YOU love to do. Make time to play, listen to your favorite music, take a long walk in the woods, volunteer your time, cook or bake delicious food, read a good book, get your hands dirty in the garden, spend time with loved ones ... you get the idea. Feeding your muse happens automatically when you're doing something that makes YOU feel good!

Do you think of yourself as having a muse? What's your favorite flavor of muse food?
 

Janet

Dances with Bees
Contributing Artist
I'm so uninspired the last couple weeks I need to know what to feed my muse. It might be the time of year, things seem to pick up after Easter for me usually.
 

Janet

Dances with Bees
Contributing Artist
Thank you Lisa! Makes good sense. Usually I'm full of ideas and relatively happy. It could be the time of year. I worked with a psychologist when I did Social Work. She said the year was like a life cycle. Easter is the birth, and we grow through summer, start to decay in Autumn, then die right after Christmas and go back into the womb. I don't think she thought this up herself but I don't know where she got that idea. She said the worst time of year for most people is right after Christmas to Easter. I've watched since then and she's right. This time of year always gets to me. I can't wait till Easter!

I'm just not used to not having a ton of ideas and motivation to be creative. Maybe I'll work on a render tonight instead of animation.
 

LisaB

HW3D Vice President & Queen Bee
Staff member
Co-Founder
Yes, what she said sounds very much like what I believe to be true as well. We are part of this earth and therefore are also subjected to the seasons of the year. That we do best when following the cues of the seasons for birth, growth, death, introspection and birth again.

Maybe you could do something totally unrelated to the computer and 3D at all and see what happens. Hang in there! :)
 

Janet

Dances with Bees
Contributing Artist
I will!

Oh I'll work on my gardens as long as it's not raining. Get them ready for the plants!
 

McGyver

Energetic
I backed up my car up over my muse years ago...
Tiny alcoholic pixie she was... Used to sleep under the car.
Afterwards, I taped cellophane "wings" onto a squirrel... That worked okay for a short while until he ran out in front of a pickup truck... Wasn't much use then... flat as he was.
Since then I tried a hamster (suffered from PTSD as he was a former kindergarten pet hamster)... Also not much use.
A surly chipmunk (didn't last long... Cat ate him)...
And finally just a potato with a small wig.
So far the potato has been the best... Not so much in inspiration, but as in it's been the cheapest and least messy.

If you go the squirrel route... Try feeding it acorns or chocolate covered espresso beans.
 

Rae134

Renowned
CV-BEE
Contributing Artist
I'm not much of a coffee drinker, I like it milky and a less bitter as possible, but I do like Choc coated coffee beans yum!

And if I'm ever really stuck for something to do I'm going to ask McGyver since he never seems to run out of crazy stories! LOL.

At the moment, if I get "artists block", I go to FB and look at one of the DS Artist groups "Render a day" themes (which is actually a week I think) and I try and give that a go since they do leave it fairly open to interpretation, so gives me an idea of something to try while also letting my imagination juices to start to flow (hopefully) :)
 

CWRW

Extraordinary
HW3D Exclusive Artist
This is how I feed my muse. She is very greedy:)
Muse.jpg
 

Janet

Dances with Bees
Contributing Artist
That looks like so much fun! I rode horses as a teenager. I grew up in a rural area and the people down the street had horses. In exchange for taking care of them after school every day we got to ride. What a deal!

No more horses but lots of plants. Here are my sunflowers before moving here 2 years ago. They didn't do well last year but I know now where to plant them. Who knew potting soil in planters stunts sunflowers? They only grew to a few inches last year! Oh the biggest sunflower we got was 15' high. There was a planter that ran along the fence and it was full of sunflowers. As they started to grow the traffic on that street actually picked up. People got out of their cars even and took pictures! I lost all those pictures though :(

Here are a few from the front of my house.



Oh sunflowers start off real pretty but then they start to look like muppets. They bulge out and their heads droop.

 

Janet

Dances with Bees
Contributing Artist
That's some tree! It has a story to tell I bet. I've never seen plants like those before.
 
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