by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: August 12, 2010   Last Updated: August 13, 2010

Artist's block comes when we cannot see our visions anymore, especially after exhausting a a theme or when our exploration of certain subject matter, technique or style has come to an end.

It is a form of depression that comes when an artistic road ends and there is no more inspiration from a source. This means that we have to find something new to inspire us, but inspiration simply will not show up on its own, driving us into more sadness, anxiety or feelings that we have lost our mojo.

One way to get over the exhaustion of inspiration, vision or imagery is to go on a visual safari!  A visual safari can simply mean going to somewhere different. On the broadeast and most effective scale, going from one surrounding environment to spend time in a completely different environment jars the senses and gets us out of the doldrums.

Leaving behind a green environment that is surrounded by freshwater or seashores to the true desert of New Mexico or Arizona can cause a host of new visions and inspirations to come. When the local history, facts, mystery, current events or dubious tales are explored, there comes a wave of ideas that are from other places, other climes and other times.

But the visual safari does not require an expensive move or even that an artist has to travel a great distance. A day trip to a place that has something special, different or interesting may be enough. By doing a little research on line or at the local newspaper morgue, an artist can get the stories and history of places that are right next door.

Getting stories, facts, tall tales and histories is an important aspect of a visual safari. Just looking at things, no matter how stunning, visually important or beautiful, is not enough to effectively stir the mind. A person who goes to the creek at Sabino Canyon, Arizona, for example, will find it beautiful at sunset, but will never see it in the same way when they find out the interned Japanese citizens of WWII laid the surrounding rocks as part of their forced labor.

Finally, when grabbing new images and meanings of life, it is important to look at things in the morning or afternoon light. Just as with photography, it is amazing how a place can look quite boring in the noonday sun, but can be exquisite at other times of day.

The visual safari can be at, or in, so many places an so many ways that it is not funny. A trek through a designer fabric store or salvage yard; an afternoon spent looking through the parts of the world that we have ignored; a budding fascination with the texture of peeling paint or the ancient photos of someone's trek through Europe...these are all visual safaris.

Sometimes, the senses can be crossed and the sensory impressions of a meal, a concert or any kind of experience that is based on a non visual sense might trigger a journey through the translation of other senses into visual themes.

These ideas might be right brain, left brain or hind brain in nature. But the final idea is to spend a little time in exercising the side of the brain that has gotten the least exercise lately. That alone could trigger something that turns out to be pure genius in more ways than one!

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