To Look or To Jump

My high school art teacher told us we needed to work from what was in front of us, so we used photos to paint from. I remember him also saying to me that I couldn't be an artist and that I didn't have it in me to live the struggle that is being an artist.
Then in college, my design professor told me that my costumes had to be taken from research. This was when I was working on a show called The Stepmother and the lead character was a fashion designer in the 1920's. She was my mentor on it and we didn't see eye to eye on what exactly the character should be wearing.
Today I was watching a program on PBS called "Crafts in America" or something like that. The episode I watched was about people who used textiles as their medium of choice. The artists in the program varied as to whether they had a definite inspiration to the work or if their work was inspired by something.
Lately I have been thinking about birds, all sorts of birds, birds from the Great Lakes, birds from here. The birds from home, I haven't seen around here, but they are inspiring me to knit. Okay, I'm not knitting them yet, as I have more projects going right now than I want to think about, but the Blue Jay is singing it's song to me and telling me to cast on in his likeness. The pigeons across the street are cooing me into starting yet another project. So, do I need to look at the Blue Jay more to tell me what kind of stitch I should do after I cast on? Or to the Bald Eagle how far I should Increase his wing span?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Sometimes you got to feel things. In art, you never know what's going to speak to you. Something as subtle as a line, or a color, or a ray of light, can completely change you next movement or the finished product. I feel like, with all the directions in the world, that people are afraid to do things beyond the directions. But here's the fact, someone had to make them up the first time it was done. So, open some brain passages, try something new. I still wouldn't put metal in the microwave, but in your art, listen to anything, just not the instructions, and see where it takes you. If you don't get anywhere good, at least you can say, "I'm not doing that again"...Until you forget and do it again.