Anything can be inspiring. A tree, a house, the people you know, people you have never seen before. Inspiration is one thing, you have got the idea which is great for a start but you have to go deeper. You have to explore the subject. That is how you get to know more and more about it and the range of possibilities and ideas will get wider and wider.
Many things inspire me, to be honest it is hard to tell what exactly the source in most cases is, sometimes you might not even realize where the idea came from. I love to go to those proper old English pubs, just sit there and watch the people; I think the whole atmosphere of those places is fantastic, how the past and present meets together and it works. Other places I love to go and really miss them, is the underground clubs in my home city, Budapest. What they do there is, they take an abandoned building, what no one wants to use and they just let it go to rack a ruin. They decorate those places with old furniture that people donate, old lamps, pictures and other bits and bobs. The walls are covered with the works of artists from all around the country and from abroad. The best thing is that the people create these places together, that is why they are so eclectic.
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| Instant - one of the newest ones right in the city centre |
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| Szimpla-kert - this place has been there since I can remember, I think they have the biggest collection of antique furniture and anything else you can think of |
These clubs not only do concerts and parties but they organize a lot of art events as well as charity ones, you can go to a yoga lesson and lot of other things.
For the magazine project, the only criteria we had is, that is has to be about Birmingham. It could be anything that has any connections to the city. We decided with my group that we are going to write about the visual culture of the city which gave us a lot of possibilities. One topic that I am involved in is about the architecture in the city. Birmingham can be proud of its various types of buildings. I was always more interested in the older buildings, so I am doing that part. First I thought I am going to go around the city and just take photos of anything I like, and then I went into it a bit deeper. I chose a few of them and looked into their history. Why were they built? What is the use of it today or if they don’t use it what are they planning to do with it? In Birmingham there are a lot of beautiful, old buildings that are just standing there alone, being forgotten.
The other topic I am doing is about J.R.R. Tolkien. Though he was born in South Africa he grew up in Birmingham. The reason I wanted to write about him is because he got a lot inspiration from the city for his stories. Many buildings and landscapes inspired the images for things like the dark towers or “Hobbition” in “The Hobbit”. I am trying to develop my drawing skills, so I am not using a photograph for this topic.
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| Perrott's Folly as some say has inspired the images of the dark towers. I draw the tower and tried to illustrate what he might have imagined while writing that scene in his book |
It is a good thing to use the internet, magazines, and books for research but you have to get out there! I came to live in England only a few months ago so I have to find places to go. At the moment nature is probably my biggest source of inspiration because I don’t live in the big city, I live close to the country side which is a big change for me but I like it. Wherever you are you have to make the best out of it, have a look around and you will be surprised of the amount of things that can give you great ideas.
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