“Why haven’t you been writing much?” I asked a many times published writer friend of mine one time.
“I need time to breathe.”
“Breathe?”
“Yes. But you have to know what I mean by ‘breathe.’ I mean sail a boat across an ocean, climb a mountain in the Himalayas, photograph lions in Africa… Something of magnitude. That does the trick. Then I’m ready again. Then there’s no stopping me.”
“Ah. I do know what you mean. I think I need to catch my breath too.”
What do you do to rekindle your artistic energy?
Rex,
I find that artistic energy comes back quickly if I can clear away impediments. Cleaning up the studio, putting away some old projects for the moment, getting back to playing around with materials for fun, all these work wonders.
Spooning with my Schipperke, long aimless walks in the city, online trivia games and short naps.
When I’m really burned out, I lay on the floor, stare at the ceiling and listen to jazz alternating with opera. After doing that until I get bored, I clean the studio and take long walks. Finally I meander off to the local art museum to see if I can find a new favorite piece.
Oh yes, I read trash mysteries and an occasional book on art history/ theory — something like “Brunelleschi’s Dome,” which is totally outside my area of expertise. “Outside my area” is useful because it doesn’t trigger any anxiety about getting back to work.
Making no plans and seeing what happens (in or out of the studio).
Then there’s bad tv, paint by numbers, poker, and word games like Boggle.
I sleep late. Play volleyball. Read. Go up to Big Sur and wander around under the redwoods.
Actually, just making that list kind of recharged my energy. Okay, I’m going back to work…
Thanks for the comments.
I do pretty much the same stuff. Sometimes though, like my writer friend, I need something big… like swearing I’ve quit forever.
But that’s impossible.
Somehow, however, the act of letting go, completely letting go, fills my mind with exiting ideas again while exercise, hard exercise, utterly calms me. Additionally, finding new people and new markets is stimulating too. There’s nothing like a show or presentation to get me busy on the next.
I wish I spent enough time doing art to feel occasionally burned out! As it is, it’s more the opposite: do photography to rekindle energy for other things. Problem is, then I don’t want to go back to other things. If I spend a whole week, as I did last spring photographing Anasazi ruins, I do start to feel need of some variety.
Rex, I’m not sure if you’re saying that letting go and hard exercise are the same process for you, but I often get ideas and energy when out running or skiing. That’s only partly because I like to do those activities in places I also like to photograph.
I get some of my best ideas on long drives alone at night. I’ll turn off the radio, open all the windows, and just enter another mental space. I’ve gotten in the habit of keeping my journal open next to me on the passenger seat, though it’s sometimes hard to figure out later what I’ve scribbled.
David,
Is your comment above incomplete, or do you in fact write while driving?
Every morning: Coffee.
More dire circumstances: Exercise.
Most dire circumstances: Purge.
Karl, the comment is as complete as I intended. I wouldn’t go so far as saying I write while driving, but if I need to jot down an idea I’ll blindly scribble a word or two to remember it, and will then fill in details when I’ve had a chance to stop. I’ve written a number of songs driving down the highway singing them to myself, and have had many ideas for visual works too.
Okay, just stay off the bike path please.
I do a lot of thinking while cycling, maybe too much. It never occurred to me to keep a notebook in the passenger’s seat, but I have shot some photos from underway. I guess writing would be even more dangerous.
Did someone mention photographing lions? I seem to photograph lions in unusual places and they then appear in my art portfolio!
I find that music rekindles my artistic painting energy, indeed I cannot paint without it. Breathe out and be ready to inhale the music and let it feed the artistic veins I say. My buddhist meditation background helps tremendously to meditate with the music and to then form colourful visualisations for interpretation on the canvas.
MJ,
I understand from your web site that the actual painting takes place to music as well, not just the preparation. Very interesting! Why don’t you give the music used for each painting in your gallery? Or is it more eclectic even for a single piece?
I’m shocked to see on your web site that Photography is not Art. Letting that pass, I wonder what connection you see between your painting and your photography. It seems lions are not required.
Steve, Yes my painting takes places to music, it’s absolutely integral to my art and it enables the characters of light, dark, texture, shape and form to unfold with the soundtrack just like in a movie.
The music used for each painting is listed on my site; most sets of mixed music are available on the web or on cd, all are too big to post as sound in the gallery and I think I’d need a licence to make DJ’s and musicians work available via my site. The music used is usually a fusion of many different pieces of music woven together in a mix. Please ask via my site if you want to track down any particular music I have used.
The music is not the art, but part of the journey towards the output that the viewer sees on canvas. I open up and share the details of the music I use, as a glimpse into the record of my artistic path, during each painting.
Sorry for the photography shock, there is a simple explanation. The Photography on my site is art, and of course subject to interpretation. I title it “photography” in the gallery simply to differentiate from my art paintings and to avoid a word wrap in the left hand navigation if I’m entirely honest-art photography is too long. Maybe I’ll change to the heading to Art Gallery with subheadings of Painting and Photography – it’s a good observation, thanks.
The lion may or may not be required, the lion is another aspect of me that appears in my creative art photography. The same applies to my painting and photography; they are aspects of my art that manifest themselves – both may or may not be required, but they do exist.
Thanks, I hadn’t looked at the separate music listing before. I’ll have to spend some more time looking at the pairings. I was just kidding about the art and photography, of course, but I think painting and photography would actually be a better description. Art sounds like it might include sculpture or drawing or something else.
As you’ve noticed, we’re pretty much about visual art here, but your way of incorporating music sounds very interesting. If you want to write about it and discuss it sometime, consider a guest post here!
Thanks, I hope you enjoy the paintings further. I’m going to review the titles on my site soon.
Thanks also for your invite to write a guest post here about how I incorporate music, I will put something together in due course – it’s exciting and worthy of discussion.
Looking forward to it. You might get some ideas from Sunil’s guest post today.
I like your painting entitled Irasshai. If you have some connection to Japan, you might be amused to know that my email name (futtara) is almost the same as the name of your website.
Steve
Sorry for the delayed response – I have been frozen in art (well that’s what my blog says!). It’s been chilly in the UK and I’ve been breathing in the cool calming air with my painting.
I will take a proper look at Sunil’s post later this week so that I can look at his approach. Do you have any prescribed format, content, or questions to be answered for a guest submission? And what’s the best method to get my guest post to the blog please?
Finally, I’ve not been able to track down the precise understanding of futtara but I do know it has a connection to if it rains.How bizarre is that? or not, in the karmic sense. Please can you enlighten me? My connection with Japan is more buddhist than language.
Hi Mark,
We always say the art’s more important than blogging, so don’t apologize. Sunil generated some interesting discussion around a number of topics. You might want to focus it more, but you can’t really control the discussion much. At most you can set it on a trajectory with your post, by what you present and what, if any, questions you ask.
You can present anything you like, all that’s needed for a guest post is to send it to and have it accepted by any one of the regular contributors (see sidebar or Schedule page). It’s not anything rigorous, just a matter of form. You don’t necessarily have to start with your own work, although that does fit well for a first post, and there are so many interesting things about your art, I’m sure you can’t go wrong.
Futtara means, in the right context, “if it were to rain.” I like rain (especially in Japan) and weather in general. Looks like you do, too. You could probably fashion a post around “I’ve been breathing in the cool calming air with my painting.”