Inspiration

G2 in today's Guardian has an excellent feature with various artists giving their thoughts on how to find inspiration. Of course there is no concensus, because inspiration is individual, but these are the ideas which connected with my own experiences of inspiration:

• Spending time in your own head is important ... I'm often scribbling down fragments that later act like trigger-points for lyrics.
• A blank canvas can be very intimidating, so set yourself limitations.
• Just start scribbling. The first draft is never your last draft. Nothing you write is by accident.
• The best songs often take two disparate ideas and make them fit together.
• Don't be scared of failure

Guy Garvey, Elbow

• I seek inspiration in film, theatre, music, art – and in watching other ballet companies, other dancers, and other types of dance.
• An idea never comes to me suddenly; it sits inside me for a while, and then emerges.

Tamara Rojo, ballet dancer

• Be as collaborative as possible ... Other creative people are a resource that needs to be exploited

Anthony Neilson, playwright and director

• I always try to reshape my ideas in other forms ... anything that will keep turning them for possibilities.
• An idea is just a map. The ultimate landscape is only discovered when it's under foot, so don't get too bogged down in its validity.

Rupert Goold, director

• I have a magpie attitude to inspiration: I seek it from all sorts of sources; anything that allows me to think about how culture comes together. I'm always on the lookout – I observe people in the street; I watch films, I read, I think about the conversations that I have. I consider the gestures people use, or the colours they're wearing. It's about taking all the little everyday things and observing them with a critical eye; building up a scrapbook which you can draw on.

Isaac Julien, artist

Here is my take on some of these sources of inspiration in a poem called 'The Mark':

Begin, begin,
let something be.
Make a blot,
a dash, a stroke.
Make your mark.
Obliterate the anonymity
of the white-blank page.
Intervene
in the seeming
infinite abyss
of nothingness.
From nothing
to something
by means of
mark-making.
Creation waits
to be discovered,
uncovered,
never fully conceived,
growing through
relating.
Follow the trail,
the sign,
one mark
at a time
to a novel,
a poem,
a painting.
Begin, begin,
in the beginning
is the word,
the mark,
the world.

In a similar vein and also in today's Guardian is an article on research led by Deniz Ucbasaran, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Warwick Business School, into the lessons that Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Art Blakey can offer to entrepreneurs. Ucbasaran suggests each one has lessons to offer on how to inspire creativity and innovation within an established structure. Entrepreneurs are like jazz band leaders, Ucbasaran argues, insofar as they have to "build creative tension and give individuals their heads" while working within the framework of a collective. They have to harness the "disparate egos of highly talented people" and somehow keep them working towards the same goal:

"A recurring theme in stories about Ellington, it seems, was his talent for motivation and inspiration. But it was coupled with what the authors call "a laissez-faire attitude towards the behaviour of his musicians". He saw their foibles as the price to be paid for having access to their talents. For Ucbasaran that raises questions for entrepreneurs. "If you have a creative process, you have to have talented employees. But talent is not always easy to manage. To what extent do you accommodate wayward behaviour? You have to give them freedom and space, but direct them in subtle ways so that the end result comes together harmoniously."

Ellington's laid-back approach meant that he kept a cadre of long-serving core musicians together over several decades. Davis, however, rarely chose musicians who knew each other. As the paper puts it, "he felt that prior relationships might lead to the development of routines which hampered innovation and improvisation". So creative tension was his over-riding priority? Lockett nods. "He was less concerned about stability than the other leaders. If it worked, it would be brilliant. If not, he'd disband the team and start again."

Blakey was much more of a father figure, he says. "His speciality was bringing on young musicians. And he was much more concerned about the decorum and behaviour of his team than the other two." Which of the three offers the best guidance to the entrepreneurs of today? "It's impossible to say. All three offer lessons that can be taken on board.""

This research would seem to have clear synergies with the jazz theologies of Robert Gelinas and Carl Ellis.

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Miles Davis - Human Nature.