How to Be Your Own Muse: A Contemporary Approach

graphic by Maria Tapia

When the average person closes their eyes and pictures a muse, they might imagine a pretty woman posing naked in front of a pensive male artist. In basic terminology, a muse is a person who engages an artist on an intellectual, creative, and artistic level. They’re there to encourage the artists to explore the depths of their creativity and to establish an environment where no discussion is off-limits. 

If you were to dissect the word, you’d discover that it derives from Greek and Roman mythology, used to describe goddesses who preside over artistic disciplines and were embodiments of inspiration. You may also discover the problematic essence of the word. Historically when people think of muses, they imagine a female aiding a man’s creative ambitions at the disposal of her own. 

There’s an upheld notion of the complex relationships between the female muses and their male counterparts that leaves many women anonymous and underestimated in their work. Through this intense artistic collaboration, the muse typically encounters a blurring in their success, which is dwarfed by the male’s ascending fame. The female muse becomes the femininity in many male heteronormative visual arts, facing a rootlessness in their creative paths. In contemporary culture, it appears that we either idealize women as muses or denounce a female artist to the role. Therefore, in an attempt to devalue this notion, we need to advance it from the cusp of escaping the contemporary and slip it into the historical.

In an era of individualism, the common notion of the female muse should be conquered and replaced with the concept of being your own muse. However, to regain and shift the notion to a side more contemporary, we must first understand how that’s epitomized. The first step to being your own muse is understanding the cruciality of what it means to think versus create. Thinking is for work, taxes, assignments. Being creative is a whole different plane. Creativity is being possessed simultaneously by the subconscious and the conscious, which fluidly work together to create a tangible expression of the deep and innermost thoughts of the mind. It’s about honing the sensation in your gut, rather than listening to the noise inside your head.

Second, you simply must inspire yourself. Like abstract art – which deliberately avoids representing external reality- you must focus on what’s within you, without reflecting the world you see in front of you. In this age where comparison and self-doubt seem ever prevalent, it may appear a burden to truly embrace yourself to your fullest potential. It may take time, as every good thing does, but it’s all part of the journey. You need to connect the beauty within yourself to the conscious and become passionate about your uniqueness. In the now previous understanding, the muse would simply inhabit the role by spending time with the artist, which should therefore carry over to this new notion. Spend time with yourself and eliminate social settings at times. For some, this may be easy, whereas for others it could be daunting. If so, you should learn to be alone and to embrace the unaccompanied stage of brief detachment. 

During your desolation, whether it's two hours or two days, you should learn to understand who you are when you are not cast in the shadows of others and when no one is watching. Embrace the idea of the in-dissolvable union between the person you are alone versus in the company of others. Hone these two Siamese beings and create a unique form of attachment. Depending on how you keep track of thought, jot things down on paper or write them on the note’s app in your phone as ideas and inspiration springs to mind. All the little things you write down from inspiration should, in turn, become a creative idea or figurative space tailored from the self. Then when the time is right, days, weeks, months, or even years later, borrow from yourself, go back to the reservoir of scribbles on the page, and rebuild those thoughts into bigger and more complex ideas.

Third, be uninhibited and open to criticism of yourself. Although it can be good to not be confined to rules and societal norms, to be your own muse, you should follow the unintentional and embrace every idea as meaningful, whilst being open to criticism. Even though you must learn to trust in yourself, it doesn’t hurt to also be critical. With constructive criticism, you can open doors to something even better than before, allowing your mind to expand into an even greater depth of mastery. Ideas should also be treated with complete democracy, looked at through every angle to get the most in-depth perspective.

 All in all, everyone’s creative journey is their own. One may find they can only create at night, while others perform better in the morning. Art is relative, as are most things in life. Take the above content with a grain of salt and mold it into your own. It would be redundant to say one must perfectly follow these steps, while coincidingly saying not to conform to social norms. However, take inspiration from this and pave a road best suited to becoming your own muse. The gift of the muse has been exploited, but now it should be mined from within the self, rather than another.