Shadowhunters and Downworlders

Art is a kind of magic. Creativity is mysterious, even to artists, who might be able to name their inspiration but can’t always explain how their influences and experiences came together to create this new thing—this painting, this story, this song. If you break art down to its base elements, there’s nothing miraculous about the letters of the alphabet or a drop of paint. But an artist can put those elements together to create something powerful, something that moves us and withstands the test of time. A work that no one but that artist could have imagined, let alone created.

Clary has that magic in her. She grew up seeing strange things like pixies yet never remembering them, thanks to the block Magnus Bane put on her mind. Even before Clary realized she had the Sight and that there is more to the world than meets the average eye, she was searching for something beyond the reality she recognized and remembered—and she found that something more in art. As Simon says to Clary in City of Bones, “All you’ve ever needed is your pencils and your imaginary worlds.”

It’s hard to imagine Clary without Simon—he’s her best friend, and she would go to the ends of the earth to save him. So if Simon feels that Clary would be fine on her own, with just her art and her imagination to keep her company, that’s a testament to how essential art is to Clary’s life.

Art is magic, and art is powerful. Art saves lives—I really believe that. It gives us courage and compassion we might not have on our own.

When Clary’s mother, Jocelyn, is kidnapped by Valentine, Clary is in desperate need of some extra courage and strength. And in that crisis, she turns to art—the thing that most connects her and her artist mother—to guide her. Art is Clary’s foundation; it steadies her while the rest of her world is changing. So much so that when she’s living at the Institute and feeling overwhelmed, she hugs her sketchbook for comfort, because it’s such a familiar part of her life.

Art also helps Clary to cope with the strange and magical things she encounters. When she becomes conscious of glamours, she thinks like an artist in order to see through them: “Clary let her mind relax. She imagined herself taking one of her mother’s turpentine rags and dabbing at the view in front of her, cleaning away the glamour as if it were old paint” (City of Bones).

Clary even makes important discoveries while she’s doodling. One night she sketches some runes next to a drawing of an angel-winged Jace, then feels feathers when she brushes her fingers across the paper. Seeing that she can use runes to make a drawing come to life, Clary wonders if she can use runes and art to put an object into a page of her sketchbook. She tests her theory by drawing a coffee mug, then placing the mug on top of her drawing and sketching some runes on the page. Once she sees that it works, she realizes that must be how her mother hid the Mortal Cup from Valentine: by putting it into a painting. And that means Clary knows how to get it out.

Art is a part of Clary, just like her Shadowhunter lineage—but unlike her Shadowhunter side, art is something she understands. She uses it to makes sense of the world, to clear her mind and solve problems. And just as she can relax her mind and imagine turpentine clearing away a glamour, she can open her mind to inspiration when she or her friends are in trouble. She’s used to images appearing in her head—and she’s used to taking those visions and letting them flow from her pencil to the page.

So when she starts envisioning new runes, she picks up a stele and does what comes naturally.

“Where do you get your ideas?” is a question every artist is asked, and there is never just one answer. Ideas come in dreams or visions; they can come from conscious thought or seem to take shape on their own. The concept of the muse exists because there is no one way of explaining how and why artists are inspired to create—and why, other times, their creativity seems to desert them. When in City of Glass Simon asks Clary where her runes come from, she says: