The fire of necessity

I love making lists. And often artists are advised to make a list of all the ideas they get. When I started painting, I jotted down every idea for a new collection, portrait, theme,… all of it. The thinking behind that is that you can return to that list whenever you want to start something new and don’t know what to create.

I don’t do that anymore, despite my love for lists. I have an overflow of ideas. More than I could ever execute in this lifetime. Picking a random idea from a list feels wrong. I can’t just create something because I wrote it down one day. I need fire. I need to feel like if I don’t create a certain piece or collection, I’m going to explode.

So I listen to all the ideas that cross my mind. I give them a thought, but not too much attention. Because the ideas that I really, really need to execute, they’ll come back. Again and again they will invade my thinking, until I can not ignore them anymore. That’s when I’ll know there’s enough fire inside me to drive me to start, execute and finish the painting or collection.

I need that feeling of necessity. Because that is the foundation of my best work.