The Zebra Monochrome Magazine Issue #1 The Zebra Monochrome Magazine Issue #1 | Page 142

Q: How do these abstract ideas come to
you? Where do you get your inspirations?
There are several answers to this. The first
is that I get my ideas from exactly the same
place that you and everyone else get their
ideas. The differences between my ideas
and your ideas are what make you and I
individual human beings. John Cleese of
Monty Python was once asked this same
question and he had a fantastic answer.
He said that he got his ideas from a little
man in Swindon but that he had no idea
where he got his ideas from. So, to answer
your question, I would tell you that I get my
ideas from a little man in Swindon.
On a more serious note, I get my ideas
from all over the place. Someone recently
described my work as hypnagogic and
as I had never come across this word
before I looked it up and I found, along
with its meaning, an interesting reference
to Salvador Dali. Apparently, hypnagogic
sleep is something that Dali used to good
effect in his work. It’s a scientific term
which is applied to either the first or second
phases of sleep when we are not really
quite out, and it’s also one of the stages
before we wake up. Dali claimed that a
monk taught him the art of hypnagogic
sleep and a lot of his ideas came to him
when he was in this trance-like state.
It doesn’t happen so much now but years
ago, I used to wake up with an idea for an
image fully formed in my mind. It wasn’t
really a dream; I couldn’t say I had been
dreaming but there I was, wide awake
with an idea knocking on my forehead
demanding to be made. So, I would
immediately grab the sketchpad which I
kept next to the bed and make some notes.

As I have gotten older that hasn’t happened
so much but luckily I’ve kept all my notes
and sketch pads so I’m not short of ideas.
It is at this time, when you’re half awake
and half asleep, when the imagination is
apparently at its most fertile. I often try
to get a siesta in the afternoon (it’s pretty
warm here in Thailand). It’s a good creative
practice and I thoroughly recommend it.
Dali also claimed to have taught other
artists to use this form of sleep. I have no
idea how you teach others to sleep like this.
I imagine it to be a natural phenomenon of
the mind. It’s a kind of lullaby time and it’s
very soothing.
But apart from that, a lot of my ideas come
from what I read. I also write aphorisms
and they too arrive fully formed in my mind
for no apparent reason – usually when I’m
wide awake. I would describe my images
as a companion to my thoughts. It is very
interesting, when I look at my images
and read my recorded thoughts, to see
an obvious relationship between them
which is, of course, how it should be. But
when I am making an image, relationship
between a particular thought and the idea
for an image isn’t so obvious - the idea
is just there and it’s something I want to
do photographically. But after I’ve made
it, I can see its relationship to what I was
thinking literally in terms of words. I can
produce a relevant quote for most of my
images, either one of my own or from
somebody else. (Nietzsche is particularly
fertile ground – I find his work mindblowing, to say the least.) So often a word,
a few words of prose, or a piece of poetry
can be the springboard to an image.

© Dominic Rouse http://www.dominicrouse.com/