/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>Sometimes getting past a creative block simply means pushing through the resistance you're feeling. It's easy to run from a project that's giving you trouble, but sticking with it when you feel uncomfortable takes willpower.

>"There will be one point in every project where I decide that my idea is absolutely stupid," says Kristi Malakoff, a Canadian-based artist who makes large installations using cut paper. "It’s just pure willpower that gets me through these moments."

>Inspiration doesn't just strike. It's cultivated. Waiting around for the perfect moment to launch into a project or tackle a creative challenge will keep you waiting for a long time. Just do the work, advises South African ceramics artist Ruan Hoffmann. "Through work comes new ideas, and the spark to either follow and develop, or develop and then abandon," he says.

> "Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you."