of course everybody is inspired by everything they experience; inspiration comes out of the blue only on rare instances, if ever. how could we be sure thisorthat will look/read/sound good without experiences?
the best inspiration is life, of course. but I had ideas while reading a comic or book, too. or some funky shadow cast by the windowcloth, and oddly shaped plant...

a while ago there was this one artist who set up a journal for discussion. he claimed there, that inspiration be overrated, that it is indeed, unnecessary. that there is no creative process, either. just... putting pen to tablet and good.
between all those who say yes for whatever reason (I shall not go and assume stuff, though I miiight be right) I was the one who said otherwise. poked him that even looking online for some photo to put to use triggers the creative process by inspiration, if not the vague idea of "what to do next? oh, I can try this..." is already a spark of inspiration.
the artist talked back, saying stuff like that looking for references is nothing, inspiration is worthless, and so on. maybe they were in a bad mood that day, maybe they had a bad self-esteem; who knows. but I felt the circle forming that makes a discussion turning around in circles endlessly, turning it into a debate (as someone once put it, a discussion is made to learn new viewpoints, a debate is there to be won by somebody). so I replied, "This discussion leads nowhere. we can end it here."
they answered back that I shouldn't go that lane, but I barely read it. what was the point of the journal then?

a wee bit later I foudn the gallery deleted completely, with naught but a goodbye-journal.
*shrugs*
I hope they can still find inspiration somewhere.

Ouch, sounds like a touchy type. I agree what they were saying didn't make a whole lot of sense... inspiration has to come from somewhere even if we don't know where.

I agree that ending that conversation was the best thing to do... it was clear they were not interested in listening to you. It's a shame they closed their gallery after that, and I also hope they can get the inspiration they need. It's something we artists REALLY need - art blocks feel awful, but I'm sure I don't need to tell you that :P

absolutely. even if he was right... where did all the inventions come from, then? inspiration, and creativity. coming down from the trees was the first grand idea, walking upright so the hands were free to use tools with, another. many animals have an idea how to use this or that twig for a tool, and how. not only apes, but relatively small birds, too. and the list goes on.
without inspiration and creativity we would still be nothign but bacterias wondering what this "building an organism" is all about.

oh yeah, art blocks. not sure if I have one, or just the precondition named lack of motivation... but, yes.

Creative works are not just the result of the creator's efforts/talent, but also the combined result of all the creative power of all of mankind stretching all the way into the past.

So if, for example, a person would've not come in contact with certain creative works then maybe that person would've not become inspired to create a certain work of his/her own. And more creative works people get exposed to the more creative power will be inspired in them.

But this goes against comercial interest (and thus today's society). Comercial entities are only interested in people being exposed to THEIR creative works (which they OWN because of contracts with the artists). Creative works from other sources are competition and thus should be eliminated.

Today's society values the "few creators providing the masses" scheme. Businesses want to sell lots of copies of the same works, because that's very efficient cost-wise (pay one artist, sell millions of copies). But more copies of the same works mean less creative works overall, because there's less demand for creative works and thus the remainin artists are left out of the market.

Anyway, I'm not sure if there's anything that can be done about it (artists gotta eat too), it just feels wrong sometimes.

I know what you mean. Capitalistic society did really create the idea of the starving artist. Well, perhaps not create, but it certainly made it prominent. I agree that there might not be anything that can be done about it - but the good news is that there are certain facets of capitalism that need artists of all types. They just frequently aren't thought about; web site designers, publication builders, video game asset artists, musicians of every conceivable type - at least the world hasn't crushed this sort of thing entirely. Hopefully it never will.

The thing is that the small website owners, indie video game companies, etc might themselves be in the same situation: can't compete with the industry giants.

If lucky, an artist can get a big company to pay for his/her works. But in that case the big company is the one calling the shots, and the artist just has to accept what is being payed (as he/she could be replaced by a different "starving artist").

The only way out of this mess that I see is cooperation. Take FA for example, the site's success is due to the submissions from artists. No submissions = no FA. But artists benefit from submitting to FA because they can get traffic for their galleries which would be harder to get if they ran their own site.