go to town
Really loved the art in this article about Ghanaian artist Michael Blebo (I love colourful, abstract art).
My favourite part of the article however is when he talks about finding inspiration and all the research, travel and fieldwork that goes into his art, in particular his mantra:
Blebo’s mantra is “go to town”, inspired by his time at university when his professor would encourage students to go to the marketplace to find inspiration.
Artists, in his view, are more or less like investigative journalists. “We go, we have findings, we come back to the studio, we experiment with our ideas. And over the years, I’ve travelled to all the regions in Ghana through this idea, ‘go to town’, and I’ve learned to appreciate life.”
I love this idea, and particularly as I've started carrying around a film camera have found so many things to look at and photograph just walking around.