The joy and frustration of the creative effort full of questions about the world of art that surrounds them unable to give answers unwilling to accept the nonexistence of answers often embrace the seemingly easier solution which is to entrench themselves and overestimate their work. They consider that the undeniable for them independence of their work is capable of compensating both them and others for all its imperfections and weaknesses. But they forget that we are all a set of influences and the only important thing we can do is choices. Choices and these influences. What gives our lives quality specificity personality and above all freedom it is the possibility of choices and not our staying in an airtight space away from influences. Otherwise it would be like and our feelings. Influences can be indirect and direct unintended or intended.
The first indirect and involuntary are the strongest the most e-commerce photo editing fruitful but also the most dangerous. The cultivation of our inner world is what will contribute to the distinction between them which will allow the fertile ones to settle in and neutralize through various resistance mechanisms the most negative ones. However the latter direct and intentional are both easy to deal with and useful to exploit. I want to dwell on them a little more since they are directly related to the creative exercises I mentioned above. These influences have three origins. The works of art we admire or loathe the artists friends or teachers who judge our work and finally the people we value and love and advise us. Today I cannot imagine the existence of an artist a creator who does not begin his work through admiration for the works of others. His contact with the art he practices is born and fed through works that inspire him.
Often along with these works that repel him come together. Walker Evans’ phrase is well known I photograph against Alfred Stieglitz. And this of course does not mean condemning Stieglitz but that the latter’s position creates the opposition of Evans. And that thus Stieglitz’s work becomes a creative influence for Evans. Enthusiasm for the work of another creator will almost inevitably lead to a new work which will claim ties of kinship with the previous one. Perhaps again kinship is sought since we have the not rare for art element of imitation which of course has nothing to do with copying since the latter lacks the spirit of the artist. Both the new and the old. And this imitation can also be a tribute a practical acknowledgment of artistic debt and a declaration of a choice.
