I’ve mentioned before that I am often inspired by music; one of my ‘day’ jobs is an indie yarn dyer and I run a sock yarn club that is based on musical inspiration. I pick a band or a song each month and create a unique color way that comes directly from that artist. Most of the time I follow a pretty normal pathway to picking the colors for the yarns; I find an album cover or music video that I think would translate well into yarn and then draw the colors out from there. It’s a pretty literal translation most of the time. I admit this still technically counts as being ‘inspired’ by the music but when I think about ‘new pathways to inspiration’ I think of pushing outside of the box.

So I’m proposing a challenge to you this week (and to myself), in whatever medium you choose, find a song that inspires you and instead of just taking colors directly from the album, video or other visual media take a moment to close your eyes while listening to the song and try to visualize for yourself what colors the song brings to mind for you. If one song doesn’t do it for you, take out a favorite album and listen to the entire thing start to finish with your eyes closed and see if the entirety of the album evokes a color palette for you. If you don’t see colors than maybe you get a sense of shapes, or textures. Try to bring that into your crafting this week. 

Music is visceral; it can grab you and shake you or softly caress you. Keep those things in mind when you’re listening to your album or songs; does this music make you want to sway back and forth or get up and jump around? How can you turn that into a painting? A piece of jewelry? A pot, a garment, a hank of yarn? Take a moment after each song or album to jot down how it make you feel and what it made you visualize in your mind’s eye. I’m betting after listening to a few of your favorite albums with new ears you’ll have a whole litany of new ideas.
 

"Shadow Dance" image courtesey of http://www.artfire.com/users/geeminycrickets