The End of Week Six
Inflow-Walking in this World, Week 6, sections 2 and 3
Ours is a stimulation world-often and overstimulating one. Cell phones, radio, televisions, social media our families, our friends, and our jobs all are potential sources of stress and sensory overload. Julia asks..Have you every heard yourself say "I can't here myself think?" Our deeper selves are muffled, over taxed, and overextended. Our sensibilities are stripped of their fine tuning. We become numb to our own responses and reactions. Life is "too much" for many of us.
Julia shares.. The act of making art requires sensitivity, and when we cultivate sufficient sensitivity for our art, we often find that the tumult of life takes a very high toll on our psyches. Our energies are drained not by coping with our output of creative energy but from coping with the ceaseless inflow of distractions and distresses that bid for out time, attentions and emotional involvement. As artists, we are great listeners, and as the volume is pitched too high our inner ear and our inner work suffers.
When a creative artist is fatigued, it is often from too much inflow, not to much outflow..This is the truth, as I teach or do workshop etc...I need to have time away from it and solitude to calm and center myself...I know the feeling I get is a feeling of disconnected. The best way I can reconnect is to walk in the woods.
Julia continues...We may need to draw more boundaries than many people, and those who love us must be conscious that unless they can respect this, they are not a friend at all. I can share that when the Husband is out rebuilding a motorcycle I know he's trying to working out creative problem solving with his customize bike building. . As for me I have to state that I'm in the process and what I'm working on so that I have a couple of hours for me to work on that. We are blessed with that respect for each other.
Julia shares from Virgina Woolf...All artists need a room of their own. An artist requires solitude and quiet-which is different from solemnity and isolation. Artists require respect for their thoughts and their process, but that respect must start with us. An Artist needs to be treated well-but often we are the ones who must begin that treatment, and one way we do it is by carefully setting our own value on how much inflow is allowed to come into us. I personal could so easily get sucked in to more social media site then what I do...I have to watch that...I do value my time to accomplish what is on my list and when I sit way too long in theses arenas, then I rush around trying to make up for the time I wasted and I actually feel ill...
One of the small things that Julia ask you do give a try is to shut off everything say only half an hours to start with. and turn into yourself. I know there are days when I finally get back up into the studio and I've been involved in a whole lot of stressful things that is described above...I do go into the studio and create in silence and work with my inner guidance.. it is another way to regain the balance and connection. For me it's important stay in tune with this behavior that sneaks up on you if your not aware of the values you would like to keep for yourself.
My journal for the new year... My last journal lasted from Nov 6th till this day Jan 20th.. I do morning pages every day. This one is made from the hard cover of old books..I use the inside of the books in my collage work.
Day Job
If we do not limit our inflow, we become swamped by the life demands of others. If we practice too much solitude,we risk being flooded by stagnation ans a moody narcissism as our life and our art become emptied of all but the High question" How am I doing?" What wee are after is a balance, enough containment and autonomy to make our art, enough involvement and immersion in community to have someone and something to make art for.
As artists, we need life, or our art is lifeless.
Art thrives on life. Life feeds it. enriches it, enlarges it.
We talk about self-expression, but we must develop self to express. A self is developed not only alone, but in community.
it was Chekhov that advised younger actors: "If you want to work on your art, work on yourself". here I thought it was Julia that said that...well it doesn't matter it sure is true. She shares more "he meant we ought to do those things that develop in us creative sinew. A day job can do that. so can some committed community services. So can taking time to practice the art of listening to something other than our own concerns. A day job requires that skill. I've heard get out of yourself once and a while.
In our cash-conscious culture, we have a mythology that says you must be a full time artist to be a real artist. We hear this to mean "no day jobs." The actual truth is we are full-time artists. Art is a matter of consciousness. Julia shares.. A friend of mine gets cranky when he is separated to long from his piano. He's also gets cranky when he is closeted too long with his piano. Our love affair with our art is like any other love affair-it needs separation as much as it needs togetherness.
Life is not linear. Our Artist's Way is a long and winding road, and we travel it best in the company of others, engaged not in the inner movies of the ego but in the outer-directed attention that fills the well with images and stocks the imagination with stories. Rather than yearning to be "full-time artist," We might aspire to being full-time humans. When we do, art is the overflow of a heart filled with life.
That day job may mot be millstone after all. It might be a life-support system.
With classes starting up this past two weeks I needed to put a full focus on that and now that they are going I can get back to my introspective work in the Second book of the Artist way series..
Ours is a stimulation world-often and overstimulating one. Cell phones, radio, televisions, social media our families, our friends, and our jobs all are potential sources of stress and sensory overload. Julia asks..Have you every heard yourself say "I can't here myself think?" Our deeper selves are muffled, over taxed, and overextended. Our sensibilities are stripped of their fine tuning. We become numb to our own responses and reactions. Life is "too much" for many of us.
Julia shares.. The act of making art requires sensitivity, and when we cultivate sufficient sensitivity for our art, we often find that the tumult of life takes a very high toll on our psyches. Our energies are drained not by coping with our output of creative energy but from coping with the ceaseless inflow of distractions and distresses that bid for out time, attentions and emotional involvement. As artists, we are great listeners, and as the volume is pitched too high our inner ear and our inner work suffers.
When a creative artist is fatigued, it is often from too much inflow, not to much outflow..This is the truth, as I teach or do workshop etc...I need to have time away from it and solitude to calm and center myself...I know the feeling I get is a feeling of disconnected. The best way I can reconnect is to walk in the woods.
Julia continues...We may need to draw more boundaries than many people, and those who love us must be conscious that unless they can respect this, they are not a friend at all. I can share that when the Husband is out rebuilding a motorcycle I know he's trying to working out creative problem solving with his customize bike building. . As for me I have to state that I'm in the process and what I'm working on so that I have a couple of hours for me to work on that. We are blessed with that respect for each other.
Julia shares from Virgina Woolf...All artists need a room of their own. An artist requires solitude and quiet-which is different from solemnity and isolation. Artists require respect for their thoughts and their process, but that respect must start with us. An Artist needs to be treated well-but often we are the ones who must begin that treatment, and one way we do it is by carefully setting our own value on how much inflow is allowed to come into us. I personal could so easily get sucked in to more social media site then what I do...I have to watch that...I do value my time to accomplish what is on my list and when I sit way too long in theses arenas, then I rush around trying to make up for the time I wasted and I actually feel ill...
One of the small things that Julia ask you do give a try is to shut off everything say only half an hours to start with. and turn into yourself. I know there are days when I finally get back up into the studio and I've been involved in a whole lot of stressful things that is described above...I do go into the studio and create in silence and work with my inner guidance.. it is another way to regain the balance and connection. For me it's important stay in tune with this behavior that sneaks up on you if your not aware of the values you would like to keep for yourself.
Day Job
If we do not limit our inflow, we become swamped by the life demands of others. If we practice too much solitude,we risk being flooded by stagnation ans a moody narcissism as our life and our art become emptied of all but the High question" How am I doing?" What wee are after is a balance, enough containment and autonomy to make our art, enough involvement and immersion in community to have someone and something to make art for.
As artists, we need life, or our art is lifeless.
Art thrives on life. Life feeds it. enriches it, enlarges it.
We talk about self-expression, but we must develop self to express. A self is developed not only alone, but in community.
it was Chekhov that advised younger actors: "If you want to work on your art, work on yourself". here I thought it was Julia that said that...well it doesn't matter it sure is true. She shares more "he meant we ought to do those things that develop in us creative sinew. A day job can do that. so can some committed community services. So can taking time to practice the art of listening to something other than our own concerns. A day job requires that skill. I've heard get out of yourself once and a while.
In our cash-conscious culture, we have a mythology that says you must be a full time artist to be a real artist. We hear this to mean "no day jobs." The actual truth is we are full-time artists. Art is a matter of consciousness. Julia shares.. A friend of mine gets cranky when he is separated to long from his piano. He's also gets cranky when he is closeted too long with his piano. Our love affair with our art is like any other love affair-it needs separation as much as it needs togetherness.
Life is not linear. Our Artist's Way is a long and winding road, and we travel it best in the company of others, engaged not in the inner movies of the ego but in the outer-directed attention that fills the well with images and stocks the imagination with stories. Rather than yearning to be "full-time artist," We might aspire to being full-time humans. When we do, art is the overflow of a heart filled with life.
That day job may mot be millstone after all. It might be a life-support system.
With classes starting up this past two weeks I needed to put a full focus on that and now that they are going I can get back to my introspective work in the Second book of the Artist way series..
Oh God! How I love those books!
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