Hidden Worlds

Art is hard to think about, let alone talk about.

What is inspiration? What does it look like? Smell like? How does it feel and taste and sound? I spend more time chasing inspiration than I do anything else, but I can’t answer any one of those questions except in the very moment when it strikes me rather than the other way around. Inspiration is ephemeral. Elusive. Occult. Seeking it, finding it, using it … they’re all magic.

The name “Hidden Worlds” is, of course, a call back to the name I gave the setting of my novel and novellas — Mundus Occultus — a Latin phrase which renders literally as “hidden world” but which also, inevitably and deliberately, implies the magical and pagan nature of the stories set therein.

Hidden Worlds are also the best words I can conjure to describe the interiority, the experience, of being an artist. I want this blog to be a place where I can explore my own “hidden worlds” — not art for the sake of magic, or in the pursuit of mystery (I have another blog for that) — but for the sake of art, itself.

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to be an artist? I do. I write, I draw, I make jewelry, and shoot photos. But I wonder constantly what it feels like to be a musician, to have music in your head like I have stories. I wonder what it feels like to be a painter and think in color. I wonder if other writers’ stories feel like mine, if they feel relief or emptiness when the words spill out of them and onto the page.

The blog, and the podcast it will host, are a place to talk about how the art I’m making, the art I’ve made, and the art I want to make all makes me feel. Even more, Hidden Worlds will be a place for me to share my conversations with other artists about their art, their inspiration, and how those things make them feel. I will be asking similar questions of mystics, magicians, and free-thinkers.

I’ve been thinking about this, and talking about it with my close circle of friends, for months. I think the time is finally right for me to get it off the ground.

The goal — the dream — is two posts and two podcasts a month. One each of me talking about my own work, and one of me talking with someone else about theirs. It may take me some time to get there. I hope you find the ride as exciting as I do.

—JSG

Tuesday 21 May 2019