And Now For My Inspiration...

This image is so powerful, it's a promo shot for Lady Gaga's new album - The Fame Monster - shot by the genius that is Hedi Slimane... It kind of reminds me of an image i came across when I was looking into Native Americans as a source of inspiration.

The darkness of the raven and it's feathers, along with the sinister make up and the morbid posing of Lady Gaga shouted out "Gothic" to me - But lets be honest, no matter how much i LOVE Gothic as a theme and the use of black feathers to symbolise the dark nature of it - It's been done, over and over again... So I took that into retrospect and thought; What else do feathers remind me of?

- Birds Of Paradise (Too Summery)

- Birds Of Prey (Too Obvious)

- Rio De Janeiro Carnival (Too Camp)

- Sky Gods/Air as an element (Too Perfect!)

So I have these 4 things as a starting point - I felt stuck for inspiration so I Googled "What Does A Feather Symbolise?" and this is what I got:

'A feather symbolises a new beginning! It means a new life ahead. A feather symbolize hope and it means that the feather in the indian tribes means good luck!'

(Taken From www.Wikianswers.com)

Interesting, No?

Extremely. With this answer and thinking about Sky Gods and Air as an element - Would Angels work as a concept? Lets see...

I think yes.

There are some really strong images here which hit me with loads of inspiration. But this is just a starting point - I started to mind map what other elements I could bring into this to broaden my sense of inspiration a bit more:

Catholic Art. Beautiful.

So much passion goes into these paintings because of the strong faith of the painter - They are almost like homages to their creator - which is admirable.

It's funny because I'm not a religious person at all but i find it so interesting - Both the composition of the paintings and the imagination of the painters... Painting something that they've never seen with their own eyes; Only the stories and other images they've been shown is amazing, especially if you see how perfect they are.

Another thing that came into mind straight away were Valkyries.

"In Norse mythology, a valkyrie (from Old Norse valkyrja "chooser of the slain") is one of a host of female figures who decide who will die in battle. The valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin, where the deceased warriors become einherjar. There, when the einherjar are not preparing for the events of Ragnarök, the valkyries bear them mead. Valkyries also appear as lovers of heroes and other mortals, where they are sometimes described as the daughters of royalty, sometimes accompanied by ravens, and sometimes connected to swans."

I like the idea of creating something with a theme of armor. For my learning contract, I'll be learning how to use metals and plastics to create garments - I could put these skills into practice in this module too. It all kinda fits into place nicely really.

So far, so good! Now - Hit me harder inspiration... God knows I'll need it if I want to blow this project out of the water...