Map Series – Coordinates of an Unknown Destination – 2008 – 48” x 36” – Mixed Media

I consider this to be one of my most “successful” paintings. It was forged in the doing and re-doing of a canvas over a period of a month or so. It started with a finite plan and, in the process of painting, evolved into a wildly different image.

Once I “finished” it  and sat with it long enough to declare it done (or at least permanently abandoned) I shared a pic of the canvas with various friends and unexpectedly received an unusual number of responses.

James, a longtime artist pal, wrote:

“There really is a lot of interesting paint there, excitement, like molecules… what’s the word for air building the electrostatic charge that rips loose as lightning and a      blistering thunderclap?  Brought back a memory from about 8… was mesmerized      looking at a Christmas tree, the amazing rhythm of pine needles in the chaos of          branches, then suddenly aware of the subtle feelings running through me: the              charge of that discovery. Then the distraction – noticed the Christmas decorations –  yanked me out of it. The feeling was gone.

As I was looking at your painting, reliving that strange moment, Hanne leaned in for  a look over my shoulder and asked,

“What are the whites? Something religious?”

“Huh,” I said,  pondering the synchronicity. Said I’d ask. But see what I mean? The mind whispers a response to them.”

“A very powerful and gratifying response,” I thought. “Thanks!”

To my friend’s wife, Hanne, I wrote back that, “what others might see as crosses, I marked as X’s.” They had been cropping up everywhere in my work at the time. Upon reflection, these particular X’s transmogrified in my mind into coordinates in a peculiar geometry/geography radiating in an arc like points on a compass.

Also, I wrote back to Hanne that,  “X’s can denote arrival.  X Marks the Spot.  You Are Here!”

Looking back at that time, I see that I was reading (which is in no way to imply understanding) articles about string theory, particle physics, and speculation about time travel. 

James’ response to the piece startled me. Had I scraped out a glimmer of visual language that vibrated in some universal way?  Something Iconic?  It would be pretty to think so.

I never expect to, but I do get suspicious from time to time.

 

Optimal Experience

For me, an optimal experience of art making, similar to my experiences with meditation, can be a journey which I embark on primarily to connect to flow, to observe whatever comes up… and to practice ownership of it.

When I pursue this mode of art making, I may or may not start with an idea, a direction, or anything like a specific image in mind. My goal is to create an arena for myself where, through the practice of making art, I can enter what I’ve come to enjoy as a kind of altered reality where I can engage with the directive voice (inner voice? voice of the cosmos?) in a repeating cycle of listening, contemplation, action, contemplation.

It doesn’t always work, but, as in my meditation practice, with more and more repetition, I’ve become able to access the experience more reliably. Often, the resulting art is far less significant to me than the act of creating it. Often, the art is like a postcard from the trip: interesting, but only as a two dimensional memento of a 4th or nth dimensional experience.

At other times, though, I manage to create what I consider to be a more successful image, an image that becomes, for me, an icon or a portal, which, when later contemplated, can connect me back to a flash of that alternate reality. Coordinates of an Unknown Destination succeeds for me in that way.

About Flow: An Autotelic Experience

The following is cherry picked and paraphrased from wikipedia’s article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology): 

Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csiksgentmihalyi and his fellow researchers recognized and named the concept of “flow” around 1975 when Csiksgentmihalyi became fascinated by artists, especially painters, who became completely immersed in their work to the point of foregoing sustenance and sleep.

His use of the descriptor autotelic (from Greek: Auto, meaning self, and Telos meaning goal) rang a tuning fork within me. The article explains an autotelic experience as engaging in “a self-contained activity, one that is done not with the expectation of some future benefit, but simply to experience it as the main goal.”

The article further reports that “Csikszentmihályi suggests that time spent in flow makes our lives more happy and successful.”

And that:

      “People who have experienced flow, describe the following feelings:

       1 – Completely involved in what we are doing – focused, concentrated.

       2 – A sense of ecstasy – of being outside everyday reality.

       3 – Great inner clarity – knowing what needs to be done, and how well we are doing.

       4 – Knowing that the activity is doable – that our skills are adequate to the task.

       5 – A sense of serenity – no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond                  the boundaries of the ego.

       6 – Timelessness – thoroughly focused on the present, hours seem to pass by the                        minute.

       7 –  Intrinsic motivation – whatever produces flow becomes it own reward.”

                                                                           

The above seven point list pretty accurately sums what I experience when I’m creating art in flow.

What is your experience of flow?

Thanks for checking in!

Hello!

Thanks for checking out this inaugural post of ART, PRACTICE, &.

I’m beginning this blog to share thoughts about my personal journey of art making and spiritual exploration.

For readers who are not friends and family, here’s a wee bit about me:  

Professionally, I have enjoyed a 40 year career working as a designer and scenic artist for theater, film, and network television. I spent twenty of those years living and working in NYC.

Personally, I have been making art, music, and theater, writing, and exploring Eastern spiritual practices since my early teens.

Currently, I reside amidst the tall trees of the Pacific Northwest, where I continue to follow my creative pursuits, and teach and design, as opportunities present themselves.

Spiritually, I identify as Hindu and I’m a Pastor Spouse to a truly wonderful woman who is a United Methodist Minister.

Oh, and we have a really, really old black cat named Coyote…

And what about that weird title up there, ART, PRACTICE, &? Well, though I’m starting this blog primarily to write about connecting my art making and my spiritual practice, I’m sure I’ll meander down other paths as well. I tend to lean toward quirky thought, extravagant punctuation, and I’ve always liked ampersands… and e. e. cummings…

Now, down to the business at hand!

Stream One:

Making art is what I’ve been pulled to do ever since I was a youngster. Crayons in kindergarten and grade school, coloring books, drawing spaceships and the planets; I did the usual stuff. I had an older sister who did art with crayons too, only she melted them over a candle and made colorful drippy Pollocks on pieces of wood. I was fascinated!

In junior high, I graduated to colored pencils and drawing mod designs, peace signs, strutting heroes, and otherworldly landscapes emulating my favorite sci-fi paperback and album covers.

Peter Max, Rodger Dean, Frank Frazetta. Conan. Yes and Cream.

Then:

I spent one particularly sunny summer afternoon at the county library, squatting between the stacks, leafing curiously through a book on modern art. Its pages were filled with literally stunning images of Braques, Klines, Rothkos, and the like. I was agog with wonder! This was a new world! And in that book, on that day, I discovered a Motherwell reproduction that spoke right to the core of my young self in a language which I clearly perceived, but couldn’t at all comprehend.

It scared me a little bit and mystified me a lot. It stuck with me. It got to me. It stirred something.

I now count that moment as my third ever spiritual experience…

Standing with Elegy to the Spanish Republic – Robert Motherwell – 1958-1960 – Philadelphia Museum of Art

Stream Two:

Along about that same time, I chanced to purchase a book on Eastern thought and practice from the remainder bin at the local Kmart.

Now, my mother was a Polish Catholic converted to Protestantism, and my Dad was a baptized-in-the-creek Kentucky Christian. They took me along to church when I was a kid in elementary school, but didn’t make any particular effort pass their faith on to me. I was never baptized into a Christian church, and I didn’t turn that way when, in my adolescence, I began to feel the beginnings of a spiritual void. It was the early 70’s and there were influences of all kinds around me. I had a brother-in-law I idolized who practiced transcendental meditation, my high school art teacher was an Eckankar devotee, and, of course, there were the Beatles, Pandit Ravi Shankar, and protesting the war in Asia.

I was a stripling hippy wrapped in incense and Indian-print bedspreads. Eastern philosophy? I was in!

No surprises there.

Crossing The Streams:

By the end of high school, the thought of trying to feed myself by making pure art was just too daunting. I had been designing and building and painting stage sets all through high school and loved it. I reasoned that I might just be able to make a career out of that. (Only marginally more realistic, right?)

Luckily, it worked out. I studied Art and Theater in college, learned to render, kept making art for myself and began to hear – and learned to heed – the hum of an inner voice guiding my creative endeavors.

It took me years to realize that the inner voice I learned to listen to when making art sounded just like the inner voice I heard when meditating….

It took me more years, and the encouragement of my partner, to begin to understand the non-duality,

…Atman is Brahman…

and to understand that, for me, freeing my creative self IS spiritual practice. The more I’ve merged those two streams in my life, the more clarity, purpose, direction, and joy I’ve experienced.

I was doing it before I knew it. I want to celebrate that I’m beginning to know it now.