Influences and Inspirations - I got to think about something while waiting for a workspace

I am sort of stuck for a studio right now. I need to wait until the end of June to get one, and it's making me sort of crazy.

I make art because I have a need to express my ideas in a visual manner and also because I have a love of beautiful things and know I can make beautiful things (you are not supposed to say that -beauty is unpopular in art right now). But the main reason I make art is that it is the most effective means of keeping me sane.

I am starting to feel a bit unhinged now that it's been 2 months since I've had a studio in which to really work. I've been drawing a bit, but not as much as I need to be. Also jetlag tends to leave me with a death-like sort of inertia for a couple of weeks which makes it hard for me to force myself to do anything.

So I'm starting a list of the inspirations and influences that are lurking below the surface of the work. At least I'm thinking about working.


1. Depression and anxiety - it seems crazy that this would be the #1 influence on my art, but it is. My needing to make art to fight these off is a large part of it, and my experiences in low mental health are a huge part of the subjects I explore in my work.

2. Yoko Ono

3. Poetry & Music

4. Urban Industrial Areas

5. Adventure stories from when I was a kid - both fiction and real life stuff like Jacques Cousteau

6. Insomniac thoughts and nightmares

7. Leonardo Da Vinci - his inventions, not his painting.

8. Islamic Art

9. Birds

10. Car rides through desolate areas

11. Star Trek

12. Cages and traps

13. Eva Hesse

14. Louise Bourgeois