Would you like to be inspired? Here’s what you should do:→

Bang on a computer until you hear just the right drum sound. Write a 50-page short story, then throw it out. Sit in a boring room under fluorescent lights on a saggy, secondhand sofa, in the stale air of hours of futility. Break up your band. Have the worst date of your life. Imagine you’re a matador. Watch Nina Simone. Watch Benny Goodman. Watch Al Pacino, meet Al Pacino, be Al Pacino. Get insulted by Shelley Winters. Round up a marathon of the bleakest, most violent spaghetti westerns you can find. Realize you just might be a racist. Endure your mother’s illness. Most of all, try again, repeatedly.

Don’t trust us — these are tips from the experts. If you’ve ever seen a painting, or watched a movie, or read a novel, or enjoyed a performance, or followed a television show that moved you on some essential level, you probably wondered: What inspired that? We’ve wondered that, too. So we asked. What follows are the answers, in all their varied glory, to that question. In part it’s an investigation into the enigmatic nature of creative inspiration. (Which, it turns out, is often not so enigmatic. Step 1: Work. Step 2: Be frustrated. Step 3: Repeat.) In part, it’s an attempt to figure out just where creative culture comes from. (Sometimes, from the last Kleenex in the box.) And in part, it’s an excuse to celebrate the best music, books, plays, movies, TV and art on the horizon. We hope you enjoy it. Who knows? You might even be inspired.

A great introduction to The New York Times Magazine Inspiration Issue. Great profiles, some with video, with the stories behind some recent creative works. From Alicia Keys, to Anthony Bourdain, and many others. Very much worth the read. ​

Simon Schama: Why I write

Orwell’s four motives for writing still seem to me the most honest account of why long-form non-fiction writers do what they do, with “sheer egoism” at the top; next, “aesthetic enthusiasm” – the pleasure principle or sheer relish of sonority (“pleasure in the impact of one sound on another”); third, the “historical impulse” (the “desire to see things as they are”), and, finally, “political purpose”: the urge to persuade, a communiqué from our convictions.

To that list I would add that writing has always seemed to me a fight against loss, an instinct for replay; a resistance to the attrition of memory. To translate lived experience into a pattern of words that preserves its vitality without fixing it in literary embalming fluid; that for me has been the main thing.

Simon Schama, writing for the Financial Times, delves into what inspired him to become a writer and discusses some of his favorite writers and passages. Despite his love for words and writing, my favorite work produced by Schama is his documentary series The Power of Art. It features eight artists -- Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Rothko -- and each portrait of the artist weaves biography and historical context to help explain the true power of his works.​

Made by Hand: The Cigar Shop

In 1974, Dominican immigrant Don Antonio Martinez started a small shop in New York City selling hand rolled cigars. Thirty-eight years later his son, Jesus, carries on the tradition. The shop combines craftsmanship with community, mixing equal parts work and play.

A project from Bureau of Common Goods, Made by Hand is a new short film series celebrating the people who make things by hand—sustainably, locally, and with a love for their craft.

Previously on Made by Hand:
​The Beekeeper
​​​The Knife Maker
​The Distiller

A year inside The Australian Ballet: Episode 6 - Dressing the ballet

Episode #6 of our behind-the-scenes series takes you inside the wardrobe department, giving you a close-up look at the loving construction of Swan Lake costumes. Senior Artist Amy Harris chats to designer Hugh Colman, gets a fitting and tries out her new tutu in the studio, while our painstaking costumiers fashion sequins, pearls, brocade, and tulle into stunning creations.

For a year The Australian Ballet has opened their doors in this behind-the-scenes series. This episode takes you inside the wardrobe department, giving you a close-up look at the loving construction of Swan Lake costumes. Senior Artist Amy Harris chats to designer Hugh Colman, gets a fitting and tries out her new tutu in the studio, while costumiers fashion sequins, pearls, brocade, and tulle into stunning creations.

​Previously:
​A year inside The Australian Ballet: Episode 5 Music of the Classics
​A year inside The Australian Ballet: Boys' Day, Episode 4
​A Year Inside The Australian Ballet: On The Road, Episode 3​
​A Year Inside The Australian Ballet, Episode 2
​The Secret Life Of Dancers

Paula Scher: Once you know what you're doing, it's not as good

Sometimes you have to ignore the brief, says renowned designer and artist Paula Scher. With a dry wit, Scher takes us behind-the-scenes on four landmark projects -- from revamping MoMA's identity to reinvigorating a Pittsburgh neighborhood through design -- to illustrate how asking questions, pushing into uncharted territory, and doing something you've never done before leads to great work.

​I love the work of Paula Scher. She has created some of my favorite arts marketing identities, including this poster that actually made me stop my hustled walk towards the subway so I could stare at it for a little while:

In this talk, from this year's 99u conference, ​she continues to explore themes she's shared before. In the talk, as in the past, she discusses failure, demonstrates those things that they don't teach you in design school and displays her love for typography. For more check out her TED Talk on serious play and how her career took off because she hated Helvetica.