Mindfulness in Art: Patience and Slowing Down

My workshops are filled with (mostly) women, who are in the 50-75 year-old range. They are coming to art with a vengeance and an impatience, having recently discovered or rediscovered their creativity after years of working in other jobs. On the one hand, it's a huge pleasure to teach them because of their burning desire to learn. On the other, many appear to be under an enormous amount of pressure. Time pressure.

There is a sense that they don't have time to waste.

Christine Brutin

Linda Virio

Sharon Helleman

How can I teach them to slow down, to have patience with themselves, with the process?

One exercise I do, if I'm teaching in a beautiful location, is to have the students go outside first thing in the morning. I ask them to pick a spot where they will sit for 20 minutes each day while asking themselves some contemplative questions. Then they come quietly into the studio and do 4 small paintings.

Anne Jackson

One of the women in the class I taught last week, found a quiet spot to sit for the 20 minutes each day in the forest behind my studio. In the silence of the woods, she was able to make a connection with an old tree nearby. She wrote this heartfelt poem:

From the Forest

Moss-softened with years,

this tree, enduring and naked

after its leaves have blown,

gossamer light and free,

back to the ground of our being,

Stands. Tall.

Roots reach toward scorching,

feed saplings and silently call through the field,

I am here.

We are here.

Interdependent.

As limbs stretch toward sky,

seeding the clouds,

prompting the rain

to grow and maintain

this forest,

this tree

receives me.

Patricia Pidoux

Another way I begin the day is by reading from poets such as John O'Donohue or Mary Oliver or David Whyte.

But then we begin painting, and mindfulness gets lost in the pressure of things.

How can we hold onto that?

Oxanna Adams

"I am not the endless chatter in my head. I am the me who recognizes that chatter is happening. I am not the me who is impatient in the grocery line or at the stoplight. I am the me who recognizes and acknowledges that impatience. If I take a breath and change the chatter to "This is me waiting calmly," that is what the experience becomes. Practising this simple awareness allows me to be present in all moments, to fully inhabit my life." Richard Wagamese, from the book Embers.

Liminal Time

The word liminal comes from the Latin, limen meaning threshold. an in-between place, a place of transition, a time of waiting and not knowing. Dawn and dusk are considered liminal places. Crepuscular animals, like foxes and coyotes are most active at this time of day, a time that is considered a magical time in Celtic spirituality and to Indigenous people which is perhaps the origin of their designation as tricksters. As I write this, the northern hemisphere has just passed the vernal equinox, where day and night are of equal length.We are in a liminal space between winter and spring right now, unsure if we will have one more storm or snowfall before spring finally settles in. We're also in a liminal place as we live through this pandemic with the anxiety and discomfort of not knowing. A time of great transition for the entire world, wondering what we've learned from this and what lessons we'll carry forward. Author and Fr...

Lessons that Stone Walls Teach

Dry stone wall in the Burren, Co. Clare, Ireland I've just returned from teaching a Workshop in Wild Places class in the Burren in County Clare, Ireland. Writing this post, I'm reminded of another post I wrote after visiting Inishmaan, the middle of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland several years ago. Stone walls crisscrossed the island in tight webs like a fisherman's net. I wrote then that the web of stone walls made me think of the idea of putting limitations on our painting as a way of exploring more deeply and how walls give limits against the limitless. You can read that article here. As our group hiked in the Burren with our guide, Marie McGauran we learned that the walls are stronger because of the holes in them. The wind can pass through. The oldest stone walls, estimated to be 3500 years old are at Skara Brae, a Neolithic site in Orkney. Most walls were built in the 18th and 19th century, marking areas of private ownership and resultin...

The Importance of Silence in Art

Gathering Light 60x60" Oil on canvas © 2014 Janice Mason Steeves Michael David Rosenberg, the musician known as Passenger, sings, "See all I need is a whisper in a world that only shouts." In the workshops I teach, I find that one of the most common problems with paintings is that they shout. Most have too much going on: too many small shapes, too much texture, extremes of colour, too many lines, too much, too much. One thing I say most often as I walk around the classroom working with students individually, is 'make bigger shapes'. But not only bigger shapes. Quiet shapes. Where can your eye go and rest in the painting? That isn't a consideration in much of contemporary painting or much of contemporary life. Ours is a noisy world both visually and auditorily. Ours is a world that shouts. People are afraid of silence. I wrote a blog post 3 years ago about planning a retreat in my own home, where I shut off the computer ...

Janice Mason Steeves

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