Inspiration: Where Does It Come From?

By Kathleen Moody

I desperately gripped the mane of the wild Andalusian fiercely as he wheeled around and reared up on his hind legs. His incredibly long white mane tangled around my arms and hands as he flung his head back into my face. Momentarily I could see nothing but a whirl of hair.  I felt the power in his rippling muscles tense up under my trembling thighs. Then, without warning...beep, beep, beep, beep...

Instinctively reaching over, I slammed down the snooze button of my alarm clock. Rats!! Just when things were getting exciting! Closing my eyes, I tried to grasp the image that was quickly fading into the morning sunlight. What a horse! What an experience!  How I wish I had more than just a few seconds on him!  When I finally got myself together and fully awake, I drew up the image I had seen in my dream.

A sketch of the Andalusian before I began sculpting.

Where do you find inspiration for your creations? I have been asked this many times. Some, like the Andalusian model, come from subconscious experiences of the mind, like the dream above. Some come from images captured by others, some from chasing the actual animal around in a corral. Some others, who knows! The horse is such a part of my life, who can say what wondrous subconscious images lay there?  You must live and breathe horses to see the endless possibilities.

This is the Andalusian in the final stages of the clay sculpture. His evolution started from dream images and went through several stages to reach the galloping pose he was eventually cast and released in.

If you want to create something new and original, try googling "horses playing" or "horses running" and look through the hundreds of images that pop up in the Google image search. Of course, you can't use them as they are; they are not yours after all. But you can get inspiration just from looking at them. Allow yourself to daydream and let your imagination go for a gallop.  Knowing how horses move, and what their character is like, will also allow you to develop a feel for what is possible.

Then again, you can always dream your way to a new creation- that's always much more fun.

The sculpture in resin.