I have streamed on my Twitch channel for several years now, with some periods being more productive than others. I would not have a schedule, I would just stream when I felt like it. When I felt like it, meaning , when I was inspired. I’m going to come back to that a few times, so strap in for some self-reflection and assessment of how we, as creative humans, spend our time.

This year, 2024, I have attempted to keep a more regular schedule, streaming Monday nights at 8pm EDT. This has worked fine, I have been incrementally growing my channel and working on some of the best artwork I have ever made. What’s even better is that I have made some artwork that has been impactful: a tribute to a friend who was tragically killed, some transformative drawings of the eclipse that helped me define my personal style, and digital landscape art that I once thought impossible in a digital format. I’ve grown, and looking back at my galleries I think that growth is clear.

With that growth comes the inevitable stall, though. Like cooking a roast on the smoker, at some point the progress stagnates, and it feels like you are just rehashing old ideas. You can sometimes see this explained as ‘stairstep theory’ or the ‘plateau effect’ where you hit a level of competence and stay there for a while before you noticeably improve again. For some artists in a certain part of their life, this would not be such an issue. The goal, you might think, is to be in a place where you are known for a certain style, and you produce works that are in that style that are in demand. You become known for something and you deliver it and the reward is that people are receptive to you and you can make a living off of your artwork, the great Artistic American Dream. But what happens if that stall comes at a time where you are not flooded with demand? Do you move on, or iterate on what you know? Is it your reach, your marketing, your audience cannot find you? Or do you have anything worth saying at all?

When you answer these questions honestly, and look at your work, I think that it is alright to say at that point that you lack inspiration. Not necessarily artistic inspiration, but inspiration on how to proceed.

I remember being a child and making comics and funny drawings for classmates. I was an awkward, geeky child that did not fit in well with physical or social situations, so I leaned heavily on academics and humor to stay afloat. At that time, the artwork that I did was for socialization: it gave me something to show to people, it could make people laugh, and it generally allowed me to pass boring times by entertaining myself in a largely non-destructive way. So my inspiration at that point was simple: defeat boredom, meet people, make them laugh. My inspiration was social acceptance, you might say.

The past few years, I’ve been seeking to improve myself, to close that gap in between my artistic ambition and my artistic abilities. If you’ve ever looked back at something creative you have worked on and cringed, that cringe is proportional the level of ability that you have achieved since then (you’re allowed to like your older work too, as it turns out). I can make artwork that I can look at and be proud of, not as a joke, not as social glue, but as artwork itself standing alone. It took years, hundreds and thousands of hours to get to that point. I am proud of the work I can produce. I have a few storefronts that I have used to sell my art on T-shirts, and I have attempted to be included in some very crowded art print sites, like Displate and INPRNT. My ability to create, I am absolutely fine with. My ability to market and sell that art lags behind, and yet I do not credit this with my loss of inspiration since I never really expected artwork to be my ‘job’.

So what then, inspires me? It’s partially that social aspect, hearing people talk about art as it is created, having opinions, talking though specific problems and solving them in real-time. It’s partially the path of improvement, where I feel I owe it to myself to get better at what I do. A big part of it is that I have wrapped my identity in what I make and what I do, so artistic success feels like I am reinforcing my own personality. Part of it is the discipline involved, keeping a schedule and doing the work week after week. And, lets be real here, it’s partially a desire to be seen, to have enough success that my work will be recognized, and in turn inspire others.

I know well what it feels like to not have that spark, to not want to make anything for a time. I have heard that you need some times of artistic input in order to make good artistic output, but after writing all this I think it is much deeper than that. I don’t think the issue is that I am consuming to little content in a society that has an excess of it. I think the issue is that you need to sometimes dig a little deeper than that simple thought of inspiration as a single source of energy that can be tapped. Sometimes you need to circle back to the big questions, ask yourself why you are doing creative work at all, and get back in the saddle.

If you stopped writing a book 10 years ago, look at it again and start writing. If you are worried that someone will not like what you have made, it’s fine, some people won’t, and it doesn’t matter, at all. If I can take one thing away from this self-reflection, it’s that inspiration sometimes needs to be actively harvested to suit your needs. If you find yourself waiting for it to strike, you may be waiting for a long time. Don’t wait. Pick something based off of how meaningful it is to you, and run with it. You only get one life, leave behind as much of yourself as you possibly can.