Namaste
January 15, 2010 by Janice
Aromatherapy sketching, Janice Cartier, January 2010
It’s about zone. The candles are about zone and agility. And purpose. Being agile with flow. I spent the afternoon sketching yesterday. Pulling things out of the this needs drawing box. I sometimes light candles and listen to music softly.
Create kind of a bubble.
This is very different from the sometimes rowdy drawing sessions we had in Santa Fe. Ned, a western art hall of famer in our group said, when you can draw well in the middle of a marching band parade you will have attained focus. So music played and the guys cracked jokes and we drew naked models.
It was good.
Very good.
But for solitary drawing I like something soothing.
Until I am into a piece maybe.
I did one of my first large scale paintings called “Tempest” listening to B.B. King. The Financial Chairman of Federal Express bought that piece within minutes of seeing it, even though it was essentially a fabric landscape. A very fine one. Well it was a dark and stormy night and B.B.was singing the blues. I was in the zone.
Creative people need to find their way into the zone. The good stuff is there.
Ways into it,
Involve a decision.
To cut off, which is what decide means actually. A decision to put this outside and that inside. To find your own bubble of concentration. Becoming agile at letting go, leaving everything else outside and hunkering in to “allow” is something they don’t teach you in school exactly, but has to be learned.
How to create your bubble.
Time is a consideration too. How long and when is my highest best use….of me.
Me.
Me is the resource.
And me is a fluid resource that needs to be managed and exercised just like an athlete exercises core muscles.
Seriously.
Part of being agile in coming in and out of the zone is a self trust and exercising that trust. Showing up fully, with an exclusive mind. Excluding all else except what is right before you. We have to create a context, some kind of personal structure and space then allow things to develop. It’s a practice. Like working out.
Except without the sweat. No, I take that back. Sometimes there is sweat. Lots of times there is sweat.
And sometimes meh, not so much you like happens.
But sometimes it does. In a big way. Most times it serves its best purpose this bubble making time. It keeps you fluid. At ease with the flow. At ease going to the river and drinking of its clean running stream. Being very present, even still. So that fresh current can wash over you.
And yesterday, the water was good. Three new painting experiments flowed right into being. From drawing, from taking a closer look at a small part of the big painting, from letting go, playing with form, and just being totally present when there. Saying hm, what if….feeling hm, look at this….and making some essential marks…
So the paper is torn to size, the fingers are itching, the sparkle is in my eyes, and a little paint will come out of the tube, but not in the usual way. And I like that. Cannot wait to get to them.
Now? Now, I am off to look for more candles and pick the music I’ll play. So… namaste. ( hm, maybe I should bring a towel today… just in case it gets messy… )
How about you? How do you create your bubble?
And yes, around five, we should haul out a huge pitcher of Naughty Margaritas. After a day of creative play those sound pretty good.
Comments
2 Responses to “Namaste”
Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
You write very well with concrete, visual imagery. How do you get in the zone is a good question. For me, it is just remaining aware of my environment and some of my passing thoughts. My favorite quote from a song by Joni Mitchel is ‘people hurry by so quickly, don’t they hear the melodies’(from “Songs To Aging Children Come”). One way to get in the zone is to slow down and become more keenly aware of what is going on within and without you. Life has a way of surprising you. You have to let it. You do it by slowing down. That is one important way.
Siggy,
Slowing down is a vital way to get into the zone. Time out becomes, time in.
And thank you for your kind words.