Inspiration

There is no doubt that when I am happiest is when I am most inspired.

If I reflect on what inspires me the most it's when people have complete enthusiasm for life. It's so easy to get stuck in fear, or to start to trudge through life as if it were a grim obligation. There are times when life tastes sour. Things can seem difficult and heavy. I'm inspired by people who have the awareness that they make their own reality, the people who laugh at any inhibitions and make the life they want to live appear before them with unwavering confidence. These people know the secret, that reality is a collective dream, and we have a hand in it.

The artists that inspire me the most are not necessarily the best artists, but the ones who on top of creating great objects of beauty lived to their fullest and explored all interests as deeply as they dared, unburdened by fear.

And the most inspired periods of my life have been when I've been able to taste some of this freedom for my own, in which I spent every moment eager for the next, and when all things felt possible. Through some stroke of luck I HAVE been able to break through the barriers that inevitably possess us, and to dance with the infinite in all its possibilities. But they reemerge...

The Ink's Run Dry

The Ink's Run Dry
By Jake Kobrin. August 2012

The ink’s run dry,
I fear.
And all the lead’s been shattered
in their dusty boxes.
Even the colored tubes,
my wasted fortunes,
have gone belly up
in their smelly coffins.

She just won’t come out to play anymore.
She left me blank,
left me in a staring contest,
with begrugged, neglected canvases.

Sometimes they shout at me,
taunting me,
trying to provoke me,
make me lose my cool.
Sometimes they give me the silent treatment,
turn their gessoed faces to the wall,
pretend they don’t see me.

Some day she’ll be back.
Sneak up on me in the middle of the night,
give me a good little jolt.
And before you know it,
the paint’ll run slick on their bald woven faces,
just like before.