As a newbie to FilmStackers I thought about the prompt: What inspires me as an artist? I must admit to my Lynchian tendencies as I grab fish (ideas) when I have the luck or energy. These fish are swimming in that pool of infinite possibility in which all creatives are invited to immerse themselves. This is a mysterious and delectable world of opportunity. The Zeitgeist. The Spiritus Mundi.

Recently, I went to the movies with my daughter and we watched Hamnet. I actually did not know anything about it (which is optimum for me) so I was profoundly inspired by what I saw as reflective of my own work in my current self-produced feature film, Dry Moon, (excerpted above). The scenes featuring the crimson wardrobe, as well as the forest birth scene, are cousins to the fish that I caught in my own film net!

When I was younger there was a fear that pervaded filmmakers which involved people “stealing” one’s ideas. And of course it did happen, but I now understand that ideas are amorphous and transitory. The inspiration that guides me is part of those ideas, but until that idea becomes something tangible —like a filmed sequence or painting or poem— it remains illusive and open for interpretation.

This shared vat of influences and concepts are truly available for everyone. The schools of fish, perhaps all related in any given era, are constantly spawning and renewing the realm of possibilities. This does not mean artists must not act quickly and decisively to catch and carry inspired ideas to the completion that such great art is made.

I am always inspired by work that feels like my family, whether from a big budget film, or smaller work that might have less of an audience, but still resonates as true and therefore meaningful. Who is to say what influences the mysterious spiritus mundi, the zeitgeist.

Every work of art is both reflective and emblematic of the spirit our times— and must be so treasured and elevated.