Artist’s Corner 4

Imperfect & Unwritten Inspiration

Kimber S Prewit

Feb 18, 2025

Song

I’ve got a pocket, got a pocket full of sunshine…

Take me away! A secret place! A sweet escape! A hiding place!1

Poem

So I can discover in peace
What my soul cries out and says
Must come out of the shadows
And become written instead
Of remaining
Unwritten

Unwritten, a song by another female singer I like-Natasha Bedingfield. I remember hearing the song on the radio back when it first came out in the U.S., and before I even knew the title, I felt this song sing to my heart and bury itself into the depths of my soul. It still inspires me today, and when it comes up on my Spotify playlist random shuffle, I crank up the volume and sing my heart out. Okay, not all the time-mainly when I’m by myself and no one else can hear me. Because I fucking cry when I hear this song. Like, if Spotify ever plays this song and Reflection by Christina Aguilera back to back, I’ll be swimming in a pool of inspirational tears.

So you can understand, hopefully, why I made the above drawing the way I did. Okay, maybe you have a general idea of why I made the drawing the way I did, but I’ll clear up any confusion very soon. First, you can enjoy the music video for this song, as well as the lyrics. There’s actually two different music videos (same lyrics though), but I’m just going to post the U.K. one here:

I also found a video of how Unwritten came to be. I would encourage you to watch this video as Natasha and her crew’s explanation of the song very much matches the idea of what it represented back in 2004 when it first came out in the U.K., in 2005 when it came out in the U.S. when my group of Millenials2 were going through our teenage growing pains, how it is still inspiring GenZ, and will hopefully inspire future generations to come. Lookin’ at you GenAlpha and beyond!:

And now here are the lyrics to the song, as they are suppose to be, not as I’ve written them in the second image of this post😉:

I am unwritten
Can't read my mind
I'm undefined
I'm just beginning
The pen's in my hand
Ending unplanned
Bridge:
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Chorus:
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
Oh, oh, oh
I break tradition
Sometimes my tries are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes
But I can't live that way
Repeat Bridge
Repeat Chorus
Choir:
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
Repeat Chorus
The rest is still unwritten
Oh, yeah, yeah
The rest is still unwritten
~Song: Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield

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Bringing Out The Images of Unwritten From My Mind To Paper

Credit: Author; Image: Unfinished view of piece

This piece came about while I was working on an art series that I called Emotions. The emotion that I put this work under is Inspiration. I had to really rack my memory buuuut I believe that shortly before I started this drawing I was listening to Unwritten. I was also trying to figure out what I would work on next, as I had come to a temporary pause of another Emotions series called Depression that is currently complete. I say “currently complete” because I may pick it back up in the future, though I don’t know what form it may take.

My piece, officially called Imperfect & Unwritten Inspiration, was created using Prisma Color Pencils and Prisma Color Ink Pens. The images consist of:

1.) An opened, presumably blanked page of a book
2.) Two rain drops
3.) A splash of water (This is my favorite image on this piece)
4.) Two windows that simultaneously look out into the unknown and also have water marks on them
5.) Two question marks
6.) Two pages of lyrics of Imperfection on either side of the main image
7.) The lyrics of Unwritten written out of order
8.) The Pen(cil)
9.) The Background

Let’s Unpack These Images

1.) An Opened, Presumably Blanked Page Of A Book

I am unwritten…/Staring at a blank page before you/…Let the sun illuminate the words that you cannot find/Reaching…/So close you can almost taste it

A blank page is the perfect space to put inspiration. Blank pages can bring out the beauty, ugliness, and everything in-between that does or does not define creative inspiration. The only limits of a blank page are when you can no longer write/draw/paint/work on it because it is already full (even when it looks empty), and the page has made it clear that it’s time to stop and move on to the next blank page.

2 & 3.) Two Rain Drops & A Splash Of Water

Figuratively speaking, rain can be very inspiring when you are in it and are trying to get dry, or if you’re in a creative dry spell and then the drops come roaring down.

But perhaps there is a deeper symbolism to this for this piece: As I mentioned, I had finished my Depression series. With depression, most people tend to feel sad, numb, emotionless, etc. Images of rain, dark skies, dark clouds, and lightening can enhance these feelings. However, there are other times where feeling a drop of rain, and maybe seeing a rain drop splash in a puddle made by that drop’s fellow rain drops, can be uplifting!

My allergies will protest later, but sometimes when it rains, I will stop and try to catch a drop of rain water on my tongue, and I love seeing the splash of a rain drop on a water puddle, even dirt water puddles! I especially love sitting on a couch, chair, or laying in my bed and listening to the sounds of rain, thunder, and lightening outside.

Of course, Nalia and Salem will protest if the sounds are too loud, but that’s also when they’ll both want to cuddle and I will happily oblige them!

I do have to take a moment and brag, though: I am damn proud of that water splash image! I did trace it a bit from an image I found on Google, but the coloring and the semi life-likeness to it-that was all me, motherfuckers! 💯%! It may seem silly but I remember really feeling like I had reached a new level of confidence when I was done filling this image in. Truly, that image is my favorite image on this whole piece!

4. & 5.) Two windows looking out into the unknown with water marks on them asking questions

Open up a dirty window/Let the sun illuminate the words that you cannot find/Reaching for something in the distance/So close you can almost taste it/Release your inhibitions/Feel the rain on your skin

Windows are usually used as metaphors, and this imagery is no exception. A lot of times when we look out our windows, we see the same damn thing landscape. The only thing that changes is the weather patterns, maybe an occasional bird or 5 might fly by, you see someone walking their dog (and hope they are a responsible dog walker and pick up after the dog), etc. Many a human has looked out their windows and have gained inspiration, asked questions, perhaps have also had those same questions answered, and have found more questions waiting to be asked.

6.) Two pages of lyrics of another song on either side of the main image

On the spaces beside the big space, you may be asking what is that writing? And why the fuck is it so tiny that you can’t even read the words?

The writing is the song called Imperfection by Evanescence. You may be asking why do I have this song on such an inspirational piece?

A bit of a backstory: My currently final depression piece was inspired by this song. I will eventually do some Artist’s Corner posts about my Depression series, but I admit some trepidation to showing those pieces, releasing them into the world for anyone to see, with the exception of one person here on Substack that I befriended early on when I started writing (whom I cut ties with), along with my parents+a few real life friends+my art classmates and teacher who witnessed me literally drawing out my emotions. In a way, it’s funny how it’s different-sharing something so personal with loved ones vs sharing it with the world!

So to answer the above two questions-Imperfection was still on my mind, and as for why the writing is so small? It was really suppose to be a space-filler because at first I didn’t intend to have anything legible there. In art, the term for that kind of writing is called asemic writing when it’s applied to an art piece.

**Example of asemic writing**/Image Credit: Heather Neilson Art

But if you’re able to zoom in on the image, you can make out some of the lyrics, so it’s not completely asemic. Honestly, I’m surprised I was able to fit the entire song on those two spaces! However, it was also fun seeing my teacher come over and give a puzzled look on why I was writing so small, haha!

<Fun Side Note: I had a classmate who did asemetic writing for a few of her art pieces, and called it lizard language. She put images of said lizards onto the work. She admitted to be going through a lizard phase. She also did this same writing on a piece with images of a few moon phases. End of Fun Side Note>

7.) The lyrics of Unwritten written out of order

I remember writing the lyrics in patches. Once I had a good idea of how I wanted the lyrics to be placed, I vaguely remember feeling, as I was writing and tracing the lyrics on paper in pen, the feeling of inspirational manic or in a state of mania as I was writing the words down. My hand and brain were one, moving in sync with each other. I was aware of this happening, I knew what was going on, but I also felt not in control, and was completely okay with it.

The closest comparison that I have for this feeling is when you see someone focused on a task, such as writing-and they’re on a roll, and your personal deity help you if you have the guts to interrupt that roll. That’s what I remember feeling as I was working on this piece.

And when they (my hand and brain) were done with writing the words with the (mechanical) pencil I was using, I looked at the paper, the semi-chaotic way the words were written, and my soul said, “Yes! This is what this needs to be! How it needs to be! Don’t you fucking change it bitch!” Same with the colored pens used to trace the words.

8.) The Pen(cil)

I don’t really have any deep thoughts about the pencil. I’m not really sure why I put it there, to be honest. Looking back at the lyrics, though, the part where the song says:

No one else, no one else can speak the words on your lips

may have brought up the image of the pencil in the sense that the pencil symbolizes that only the writer/lyracist/creator/artist/person/etc. can write what they write and fully understand what they mean when they write/think it into existence. Some thoughts are not explainable. Some thoughts are for you and you only. And that’s perfectly okay!

In this sense, the pencil is the “lips” used to “speak” the words. Just like a Substack writer’s keyboard is the “lips” that are used to “speak” what the writer is attempting to convey.

Deeper Side Musing: Perhaps I understood the song better as a teenager, because as I think more on the song as an adult, I feel that some of the meaning has become lost in translation for me. Yet when I listen to the song, that unexplainable meaning comes back and makes perfect sense. But I won’t ever be able to put into words or expression that meaning for me.

Sorry, didn’t mean to get all philosophical there! Funny, me sounding all philosophical-I actually dropped out of my first and only philosophy class because I couldn’t connect with the philosophers that were being taught in the class. Only recently did I realize that maybe it’s because the philosophers being taught were all of the male, and there was not a single female being quoted. This made me search engine for female philosophers. Found a few names. But that’s a musing for another day!

9.) The Background

You may not be able to see it clearly, but the background is a bit of a sandy color. I had originally wanted to put that color on the windows to go with the lyric line “Open up a dirty window”, but I felt that it wouldn’t have vibed well with the rain in the windows. Basically, I wasn’t confident enough to make “dirty water”, so the “dirt” is represented as the background, vaguely covering the lyrics. This allowed me to make a contrast with the open book page that I left with the original white that is the original paper color.

Conclusion

Welp, Fellow Musers, that’s about all I have for this post. Thank you for coming along with me on this continuous journey of artistic expression! And if you happen to be an artist who is a Fellow Muser of Musings of an Anthropology Student, or you just happened to come across this post looking for inspiration for your next piece, I hope reading this helped give you that inspiration!

Below, you can find a video and a collage of behind-the-scenes images of Imperfect & Unwritten Inspiration. And, as always, until next time-

Carpe Diem and Huzzah!
~Kimber, Salem, & Nalia