Today, the world of quantum physics confirms that the universe is made of formless energy, and that particles do not originate from particles. Everything springs from something that is akin to your imagination. You can’t touch, taste, see, hear, or smell it. It has no boundaries. You can’t prove it with mathematical formulas or scientific verification. Yet we all know that it exists. These invisible thoughts that you have—these ideas that continue to percolate within you, these fanciful images that are always with you—are beyond the scope of science to prove or disprove.

–Wayne Dyer, from “Wishes Fulfilled”

Recently I was asked to consider what nourishes me. The question was asked in regards to my personal relationships but it got me thinking about how that same question applies to my art making. Besides, isn’t my art a personal relationship too? Maybe it can’t speak back to me with words, but it certainly speaks back to me emotionally.

Lately I’ve been in a bit of a funk.

Perhaps it’s the short New England days, and the fact that I spend so much of my daytime indoors on my computer that I barely get any natural sunlight. I think my whole life I’ve always had a touch of SADD during the winter months and now I’m just putting the pieces together. Could that be why I love the summer so much, I get to be outside in the sun? I certainly know that being outdoors nourishes my soul. Even in the winter, getting to Cape Ann and spending time along the shoreline of Gloucester and Manchester nourishes my soul. Being near a large body of water with an expansive horizon always tends to reset my perspective. It get’s me out of my head and in touch with the broader aspects of life. I connect to the piece of me that is so much more than my physical being.

Since the New Year I have been attempting to adopt a set of new morning habits/rituals. Shortly after getting up I meditate for twenty minutes, read for 30-60 minutes and then exercise, which for these winter months consists of spinning on my LeMond fitness trainer, for 30 minutes. The three things together seem to nourish me in a way I can’t fully describe. The meditation helps keep me calm and balanced, while the spinning get’s my blood pumping and my metabolism raised to help me physically attack the day. These are things that help my body and mind, yet I believe it’s the reading that helps nourish my art more than anything. I could be wrong about that, but it’s the one thing that I’ve let drop off over the past year or so. With an increasingly busy schedule it’s hard to find time for critical reading. For me that means theoretical books, not the morning paper.  I learned when I was in graduate school that my sweet spot for reading was in the morning. I was kind of surprised by that because I always had the impression that reading made me tired. I discovered that was only because I would always try and read at the end of the day when I was tired.

Lately, (meaning the last few years), I’ve been in a rush to get to my computer. To open my email and start work as soon as I can. Now I’m trying to take the 2+ hours in the morning to commit to these new routines. I’ve always deemed them a top priority yet somehow always put them last on the daily to-do list which means on most days they don’t happen.

Why should it be so hard to do the things I consider important; the things that nourish my soul, my art, and not to mention the rest of my life?

Anyway, back to reading. I’ve always described myself as a book hound. Some girls like to buy shoes, well; I have a thing for books. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach and I buy books with the full intention of reading them all. When I buy one I can’t wait to digest it all in one sitting. But I never have the time.

Scratch that.

I never take the time.

And so books get started and then never finished. For instance, right now I have at least five half read books sitting on the nightstand next to my bed, five more half read books on my desk, and three more half read books sitting on the coffee table. That’s thirteen books! And that doesn’t even count the nine that are in the bookshelf that I’ve ear marked as critical next reads!

(Now I’m up to 22!)

I guess in the sense that “we are what we eat,” we too “are what we read.” So here’s the list of my half-read/soon-to-be-read list of books (and in no particular order) that reflect the complexity of who I am, and what shows up in my art:

1. The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, by Lewis Hyde
2. Being in Balance, by Wayne Dyer
3. How to Get Control of Your Time and Life, by Alan Lakein
4. Guide to Getting Arts Grants, by Ellen Liberatori
5. I’d Rather Be in the Studio, by Alyson Stanfield
6. A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle (reading for the second time)
7. The Healing Code, by Alexander Loyd
8. The Language of Letting Go, by Melody Beattie
9. The Vortex, by Esther and Jerry Hicks
10. The Light Inside the Dark, by John Tarrant
11. Buddha Is as Buddah Does, by Lama Surya Das
12. On Women Turning 50, interviews by Cathleen Rountree
13. The Heart of… (oh wait, I can’t list this one, it’s too personal)
14. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2010, edited by Freeman Dyson
15. The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self, by Thomas Metzinger
16. The Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton
17. The Fabric of the Cosmos, by Briane Greene
18. Quantum Shift in the Global Brain, by Ervin Laszlo
19. The Shadow of the Object, by Christopher Bollas
20. Technoromanticism, by Richard Coyne
21. Insights of Genius, by Arthur Miller
22. Art and Visual Perception, by Rudolph Arnheim

This is a long list. More than I can handle in a year, given my schedule and time. But if I can keep up the morning routine of reading for just 30-60 minutes (focusing on one book at a time I might add) my guess is that I can get through a lot more than I think. And I’d reach a goal that I’ve set to read more this year, as it directly informs my art, and the expansion of my life.

I’ll have to check-in next January and see how well I’ve fared.

Antonio Damasio: The quest to understand consciousness

Dan Dennett on our consciousness

Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight

VS Ramachandran on your mind

Last night I met with my peer group which is a part of the Artist’s Professional Toolbox course I’m taking from the Boston Art’s and Business Council of Greater Boston. In our peer group we have a structured part of our meeting, where we each get time to talk about where we are at and then get feedback.

When it was my turn I shared how I’ve been struggling with meeting goals I’ve set for completing a series of paintings I’ve been working on this fall. My first deadline was to have them done by Thanksgiving.

I missed that one.

Now I’ve set a new one for the end of the year and I’m not sure I’m going to make that one either. I’ve been getting time in the studio (although it does vary from week to week) but I’m frustrated with the fact that I’m most likely going to miss this second deadline.

That’s when someone asked me: “Are you more interested in the process or the end result?”

I had to stop and think.

In reality, it’s a bit of both. But lately I’ve been so focused on just trying to get to the finish line of my goals that I’m missing the process. I’ve been making decisions in my work just to move it forward rather than taking the time to be more conscious about my choices of composition and color. So I added something like, “I’ve been painting unconsciously.”

That’s when someone asked me: “Is that a bad thing?”

No.

In some ways my work is about the unconscious part of our being, and how that unconsciousness mixes and flows in the ether to  collectively create what we call our “life experience.” So perhaps I can give the paintings that have developed more unconsciously some validity – even if I think they are “bombs.” More importantly, I’m being reminded that it’s about the process and not the end result. Isn’t life about the journey, not the destination?

Yet I still struggle with the deadline dilemma. As a painter, we are conditioned to create as much product as we can. We always need to be churning out new work. With an exhibition deadline looming it often becomes about the end product rather than the process. Perhaps there really isn’t an answer to this….since all of life seems to be a cycle of ups and downs the focus between process and product may just have this same cycle too and it’s something I need to figure out how to ride.

Anyway, here’s the last “unconscious” painting I finished (quick shot)…

Currently Untitled, 16×16, acrylic on panel.

And here’s one that has sort of been running on auto pilot. I’m stuck on my color direction. I added this bright turquoise blue and now don’t know what to do. (It was part of an unconscious choice in a rush to finish the piece)…

Work in process, 30×30 inches, acrylic on panel.

So I’m going back to nature to see what can inspire me on it’s next step. I’ve got a composite of images below I hope to pull from and see what happens. It’s interesting to find that these unusual and saturated color combinations actually exist out there.

Our earth’s frequency is 7.83 Hz, which is identical to human (alpha) brain waves.? With the advent of 900 MHz to 2.4 GHz portable phones, cellular phones, towers, satellite systems utilizing microwaves and our homes filled with every electronic gadget known to man, how is this not effecting our physical and mental processes? It seems safe to assume that our bodies, minds and spirit are being overloaded, overstimulated, or overrun by this influx of [and exposure to] these incredibly high amounts of electromagnetic energy fields.

It is uncertain on inception how I intend to fully utilize the function of this blog over time.

However, it is my initial intention to use it as a place to organize and distill information that I gather as I both expand and refine my artistic practice. I hope to include important notes from various readings, perhaps recent influential experiences, and even documentation of work in progress. A sort of 21st-century version of an artists professional journal.

While I ultimately believe this blogs existence is to serve my own use and purpose, and I am choosing (for now) to make this process open and transparent. So, please feel free to peruse the links to the right to read my professional journal by topic, or click here to read to my posts in chronological order. Keep in mind I’m not writing to anyone in particular other than myself…yet if you would like to add to this conversation, please feel free to post your comments.

> Studio Work in Progress, February 2010