Art Inspires: the contenders

Challenge now closed and the winners announced. Please see the link at the end of the page for all winners and runners up.

If you haven't already done so, please take a look at the challenge page for all details:

Art inspires challenge and full entry details

The challenge is to look at a picture (Night Jasmine 2 by Eileen Cooper RA) and write a story, poem or critique about what you can see or feel when you view the image. You don't have to know anything about art to write a story or poem inspired by painting or print. All you need to do is to spend a few minutes looking deep into the picture, to see what interest and emotions it may excite. Even if you don't like the picture your feelings can be distilled into a great story to publish on Vocal.

If you are still not sure where to start, first take a look at the obvious imagery. In the picture above there is a large, dark-coloured cat in the forground, with a sketch of a bird that may be under the watch of the cat. Floating above the scene, and a little behind, is a figurative image of a nude woman, apparently levitating and looking super chilled. She appears against a blue sky and what could be blue-grey waves. Already we have images of a bird, a cat, a nude female figure, sky, sand and sea. You met get the feeling of a kind of dream-like scenario, a world of pure imagination. A great starting point for your story or poem?

The entries encompass each of the suggested formats: short story, flash fiction, poetry and critique. Now with some music added for good measure. Some are a direct and literal interpretation of the artwork, others are more indirect and figurative or allegorical. All are original and entertaining pieces on the given art theme. And so, without further ado, here are all the entries to date, in order of being submitted to the challenge.

The entries

Woman and Cat by Mark Graham

Here I lie naked beside my cat. The cat is my protector of all things including myself. The cat never sleeps while I sleep. Sometimes I think what does that cat think about during the night

Continue reading: Woman and Cat

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Cat, Woman, Bird by Sarah Parker

The cat guards the woman

she hasn't even heard him

The cat stares at the bird

the bird hasn't even heard

Continue reading: Cat, Woman, Bird

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A Scent of Jasmine in the Evening Air by John Cox

I have a problem. A problem with art.

It's not that I don't like it, or do not understand it, because I do. It's what happens to me when I view it.

Continue reading: A Scent of Jasmine in the Evening Air

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Feline In A Dream by 🌟 Mike Singleton 🌟 Mikeydred 🌟

Am I awake or am I dreaming I really don't know. I am naked on a bed but everything around me is melting into a metaphysical swirl, a whirlpool of cloud and I am at the centre on an eiderdown, reflecting sleep warmth.

Continue reading: Feline In A Dream

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Crux of the Night by Cindy Calder

The edge of sheer vulnerability yawns, slowly spreads

Stretching over the bed, it proliferates, seeping into each thread

Whilst lingering, always observant gold eyes peer and ignite

Over sleek, smooth blackness of fur found in the crux of night.

Continue reading: Crux of the Night

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One of Us is Dreaming by Dana Crandell

You there! Voyeur! How do you think this ends?

As you stand there, pretentious, on your ugly feet?

My mistress lies bare for your leering eyes,

Dreaming her rough human hide, feels as sleek as me.

Continue reading: One of Us is Dreaming

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The Honesty of EileenCooper by Shirley Belk

• There you are my cute and cuddly, ever so accepting...
• I feel so comfortable baring my very soul to you.
• You never judge me just as I do not judge you...our very nature
• is what we both expose. My insecurities and your proclivities to murder.

Continue reading: The Honesty of Eileen Cooper

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Art Beyond Permission—Understanding by Paul Stuart

For many years. Years that proceeded my forays into different mediums of art.

oh, to lie

I had suitably, I thought, left to the upper echelons and those who had "deep understandings of the crafts they chose to pursue" to enjoy and consume, let alone create it myself.

Continue reading: Art Beyond Permission—Understanding

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Sandman by L.C. Schäfer

He steps slowly, firmly. Bringing the cold dust of dreams on the pads of his paws, his magic beans.

He circles, and settles, and something settles with him. Is it the drifting scent of starlight on his whiskers?

Continue reading: Sandman

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Feline folly by Antoni De'Leon

Many times I have clicked off the screen and back and every time the name Ophelia jumps from the art to my mind. And so we shall name the naked tortured soul Ophelia. The cat tells me that she once belonged to Cleopatra but her name is Nefertiti...her choice...so we shall honor it.

Continue reading: Feline folly

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Desert Of Sky by Laura Pruett

The land lay warm and barren beneath my bereft form, and I wondered if I had any chance to make it back alive. Three days, it had been, since they’d picked me up that night, drugged, from that den of demons, that Godforsaken “sorority party,” where I never should’ve been. They said they’d take me home, but this is no home of mine.

Continue reading: Desert Of Sky

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Winners announcement

Thanks for reading