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Quote:Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master. That is to say, most artists are converted to art by art itself. Finding one's voice isn't just an emptying and purifying oneself of the words of others but an adopting and embracing of filiations, communities, and discourses. Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos. Any artist knows these truths, no matter how deeply he or she submerges that knowing...

full article: http://www.harpers.org/TheEcstasyOfInfluence.html

Interesting argument. As a writer I have to acknowledge that there is a lot of truth to what he says.

Most of my inspiration comes from my dreams but where do my dreams come from? In many cases they are very much related to something that I have read or that I saw on TV.

As a programmer I have to agree with him.  Every new creation is built on a foundation of bits and pieces of past work.

Art, literature, etc., do not ever stand alone. Each new work is influenced by previous works, by the artist's or writer's memories and experiences. "New" is really a misnomer in this arena. In reality, new in art only occurs when a new medium is introduced and the first person to use it creates the first work in this medium.

Art is always all that has gone before.

JMHO.