Inspiration

There is a group of three plants just outside my kitchen door, on top of the shoe cupboard. They take quite a hammering from wind and sun and my neglect when I forget to water them, but they forgive me because they are succulents. Their turgid forms simple and strong.

I have walked past them hundreds of times and thought, "I really must do something about those plants", that is to say, to paint or draw them, get them down on paper, or card, or canvas, or photograph them - anything to reproduce and reinvent them. There is just something about the interplay of shapes, texture and colour. They inspire me.

To be be inspired to create a work of art, be it visual, literary or musical is, I think, a very basic need in many of us. I know that if I haven't been able to do enough work I can sink into a very depressive mood because to create is the very essence of life. I remember listening to a talk at BBC Radio Three's Free Thinking Festival; I believe it was Bill Drummond and he was talking about music, he said, "Art, like religion, exists to give life meaning".

I couldn't agree more.