Where do ideas come from, anyway?

So, where do ideas come from anyway? How do you know when one is good? Which comes first, the artist or the art? Maybe you’re all under a constant barrage of imperceptible information, and only artists can pluck an idea out of thin air. Tiny, divine ideas. Seeds from which a forest can grow, or sparks with which to burn it down. Diana couldn’t say which came first, the seeds or the sparks, just that both were there, and so she rarely questioned her ideas or how they bloomed in the first place. Until now. Perfectionism kills, but everything dies in the end. The recognition of one’s own mortality is at the root of any great work of art. Without death looming overhead, time would become meaningless, and so would ideas. If you asked Diana Cloutier why she began painting in the first place, she’d probably say, “Why not?” If you asked her boyfriend, Tom Van Vorst, why he became a musician, he'd probably say, “No one is listening, so I’m not a musician.” And if you ask me, I’d tell you that out of Tom and Diana’s many talents, their greatest skill lies in the art of cultivating ideas and accidentally bringing them to life. They couldn’t help but create because they were aware of their own mortality, and they knew, at least on a subconscious level, that ideas don’t rot like everything else. And so, it seems that ideas are seeds. And death is a spark, which over time, births an inferno, but art? Well, art is what happens if you sow your seeds in spite of the flames.

Excerpt from SIRENS > EPISODE 01: DODPOP