Whatever it takes, let it bring out the artist in you

[caption id="attachment_66036" align="alignright" width="300"] SURREAL: Bay artist Usen Obot is inspired by Salva- dor Dali's art. This is 'The Persistence of Memory' -[/caption]

Tomorrow is Inspire Your Heart With Art Day – a day to connect with the various facets of art and to discover what inspires you.

For some Nelson Mandela Bay residents this is nothing new, as their livelihoods rely on art and most say that it does not take all that much to be artistically inspired.

From comic books to xenophobic attacks, inspiration seems to come from a variety of different sources.

Amanda Snyman, an NMMU lecturer in stained glass, said artists were sensitive to the world and found magic in everyday life.

“Inspiration is all around you, if you only look,” she said, adding that a work by the early Netherlands painter Jan van Eyck, entitled The Arnolfini Marriage, was the most inspiring in her opinion.

“I have a print on my wall and looking up at it definitely inspires,” she said.

Jeffreys Bay architect Ian van der Westhuizen said he looked for pure, simple aesthetics when he designed.

- Eleanor Douglas-Meyers