to muse about the muse

i am taking art history (prehistoric - medieval), and right now we are studying Ancient Greek in lecture. i love most art periods, however there is something about ancient times that makes it even more interesting. it might have to do something with the fact that everything is speculation. we will never know for sure. we basically learn that 'this could have been used for this' or 'this could have symbolized this'. it's never definate. which although is a bit frustrating, it seems to give me more interest in what could have been. the possibilities are endless and for the most part, every claim is valid. i have a strange admiration for the creation of logic in Ancient Greece. everything was orderly and they tried to make sense of the world around them. there was a god for each specific purpose and for every time in your life. i like the idea of a muse, or nine muses, if you were in later Ancient Greek times. they were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (goddess of memory), and i believe the Greaks began with three muses and ended up with nine. the painting above is Nine Muses dancing with Apollo by Baldassare Peruzzi from the Italian Renaissance. 

most artists or writers now don't consider the nine muses as their inspiration, but are inspired by a certain muse. that's what lead to the question of what is my muse. what inspires me? even if i am not an artist or a writer, i still crave to create. i don't think i can attribute one thing to being my muse. i also considered the idea that it's constantly changing. many artists' muses were their lovers at the certain time of the work or children or other artists or even nature. but that breathe or whisper in the ear came from somewhere. many people might argue that it is from themselves, that they weren't inspired from anywhere else. but i don't know if that could be completely true. maybe it's a combination of the two. maybe it is a combination of something from the person's life and from their own imagination and creativity. i think this holds true for me. i am mostly inspired by the world around me, but there's something inside. sometimes ideas just pop into my head. sometimes things just occur to me and i feel the need to put them on paper. either way, i think muses are something interesting to learn about. i'm always curious as to how an artist or writer created something. if it was just pure chance that it occured to them or if they had something in their world that led them to create what they created. i shall now leave you and let you muse about this...

p.s. i would like to thank my friend for creating and drawing the sweet logo at the bottom of the page. i love it and couldn't have asked for a more perfect logo. thank you!

-Genevieve