What inspires me? Stories, Heidegger, Nachman
A clearing in the woods
One of the most common questions I’m asked is simply: what inspires you? Of course, the answer is far from being as simple as the question. But having given dozens of different answers, over the years, I narrowed it down to a few.
Stories are what inspires me most. Both my own and others'. Stories, narratives, flows, all just naturally crystallise in everything I experience. I see life through the lens of stories. I think most kids do, as well. People I talk to, things that happen to me, landscapes I see, all turn into stories or at least find their place in the stories I live through. Rather than overwriting or trying to make things fit into a preconceived narrative, I like sensing the own flow things and people have.
Over the last 15 years I have been talking to a lot of Jews about their tattoos. A lot. Well over 2000. In the beginning, people would still come for simple calligraphy, things that can be discussed in a few minutes and/or via email. Soon enough, though, I started talking to each person individually about their tattoo, allowing for more and more artistic process and development.
Tattoos tend to be about identity. A tattoo will normally express who we are - or who we would like to be. They are reminders of what shapes us deeply, or symbols of how we would like to be shaped. Drawing Hebrew calligraphy, the vast majority of people I talk to are Jews. So most of the conversations I have are about Jewish identity.
When people have limited time to make sure I understand them enough to draw something that will stay on their skin forever, they tend to be very open and unusually frank. So I have listened to thousands of people, telling me about how they feel as Jews [and sometimes as Christians]. People have been telling me about their feeling of connectedness and of feelings of collective abandonment, of grief over lost children and parents, of doubts and of roots. People have let me see their anger and their sadness, their despair and their fear.
These stories are what inspires me when drawing for tattoos. Individually, each time. And collectively, all the time. Letting people's feelings run through me and onto my paper feels like an endless stream of inspiration. In 15 years, I never had an artist’s block. Not for one day.
At least not when it comes to work for tattoos.
Of course, things are very different when it comes to work no one commissions. I have lived through harsh years without painting a single canvas. What I need in order to paint my own work is different. It needs inspiration that is a little harder to get.
More than anything else, I’m inspired by small changes in how I experience things. More often than not, this is the result of reading and studying. Since 2020, a lot of that reading has been of Heidegger on one hand and of Rabbi Nachman on the other.
One of Heidegger’s central metaphors is the one of the "clearing in the woods". He uses it to describe the nature of being and our understanding of reality. It refers to a space where things become intelligible and meaningful, where the world reveals itself to us.
Heidegger argues that human existence is characterized by a state of in der Welt sein, of "being-in-the-world." We are not separate observers looking at the world from the outside, but rather we are immersed in it. The clearing in the woods represents a moment of clarity and disclosure where things are revealed to us, and we become aware of their significance.
When reading Nachman [whom I find significantly less approachable], I encounter a similar idea. According to Rabbi Nachman, perceiving God involves a spiritual journey that requires more than just studying scripts. He teaches us that through sincere and wholehearted prayer, we can establish a genuine relationship with God. This involves opening our hearts, expressing our deepest desires and concerns, and seeking a profound connection with the Divine presence. Furthermore, Rabbi Nachman encouraged us to engage in hitbodedut, a practice of secluded personal prayer and conversation with God. In these private and unstructured moments, we can pour out our heart, express our thoughts and emotions, and experience a direct communion with the Divine. These hitbodeduyot are often connected to experiencing nature, the woods, the open fields.
It is needless to say that these two thinkers couldn’t be more different. One was a Hasidic Master born in 1772, a few months before the American Revolution began. The other basically collaborated with the Nazis and died just a few years before I was born. At the same time, I feel a deep connection between both. That common ground has been my main inspiration for a few years.
