where do your ideas come from?

What a huge question

The first thing that comes to mind is that my ideas come from MY LIFE.

It is the most obvious answer.  But our lives are so immense aren't they?  

answer:  Place
a)   the environment I currently live in and experience is a source of ideas.  It is awesome to live in Northern Ontario.  Driving to Manitoulin from any direction places me between rock cuts and close to clear lakes.
And Manitoulin Island is full of spirit.  I seek solitude here.  It is quiet with water horizon views.  
Also the SKY is a source of ideas.  Moon, sun, stars, clouds, blue-ness, hugeness, above-ness.

b)
where I grew up, a farm in North Western Ontario, with big fields and a spectacular lone elm tree.
I always felt isolated there.
My parents and siblings had a big impact on me, and still do.  

c)
I study art every day.
I look at reproductions in books and read about artists and their ideas and lives.
I write about these things in my journal, sometimes inspired to try something immediately. 
Art study is a passion of mine.

d)
My journals. 
I gather thoughts in them every day.
I re-read them.  I find and develop my own ideas in these journals.
There is true-ness in the journals

e)
My mothering.
It is ongoing, and continues to give me more than you can imagine.

f)
Strong emotions such as great sadness, furious anger, or physical fraility may be where I start a piece.
However, although these pieces may begin with vehement negativity, as I work into them with my hands, those emotions are displaced, replaced with a glowing serenity.
I feel serene after so much time with the work in my lap, and the completed works are calm.

What is an idea really?  So often it begins as just a glance - a speck
something off to the side.
after so many years at this art-game, now I recognize the feeling of that speck
I grab it from the air and write about it or sketch it into my current journal
and move on with my day.  
It usually takes me a few days of sleeping and moving before I feel it as an IDEA, not just a glance.

I have inner dialogue with my self.  
I imagine that all humans do to some extent.

My heart responds to stimulation so quickly and generously, 
and I want to make art that will allow my open heart to speak.
I want to make work that is as true to how I understand my life as possible. 
So that when another human encounters my work, that person will know me. .

And also, even more
I hope that person's heart and inner self will recognize something in my work
that resonates deep within them. 

And they know something more about them selves.

But I am side-tracked away from the question about where ideas come from.

I guess the short answer is that
I don't know.

To live an absolutely original life one only has to be oneself.  Agnes Martin

All images in this post are of a new large scale work in progress.