Heartsong Studio

How can you find the creative space to make art, with a thousand and one things that need doing ?    It seems like there are always more pressing obligations on your time, and that art, which is often seen as an “indulgence”, should come last.

“A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting,” said Maslow, the father of humanistic psychology.

Making art is a lot like preparing a wonderful meal from scratch.   It’s much better when you can focus and totally immerse yourself, rather than wondering whether you have all the ingredients while trying to pay the Visa bill, or pick up the kids from soccer practice.

Effective art, like creative cooking, needs our total focus too. Isn’t it possible to have a life which includes other creative fulfilments without having to be a starving artist 24 hours a day ?

You don’t need more time.

The advent of fast food owes its success to busy people with no time to cook from scratch.   It feeds into this type of personality, but is missing much basic nourishment.

I confess to having been a “fast art junkie” when it came to making art.  I was uneasy with unfinished projects sitting about, and so I’d rush each work to completion asap.  I didn’t know what nourishment I was missing out on with this driving habit to be productive.

It wasn’t until there were even more demands on my time and I had all but given up making art, that I realized I was starving.

Enter the slow food movement.

Slow cookers were rediscovered.   All day simmering stews, for example, can develop inner flavour and goodness while you are working at something else, and end up being far more delicious and nutritious than any take-out fast food.

Planning meals that can cook slowly on their own, or be warmed up later can be done while you’re driving, vacuuming, or shopping.   Preparation time can be done in the morning before breakfast.    When you’re not actually cooking, the flavour develops slowly on its own.

When you’re not really ‘doing’ it.

The most crucial stages in art making like mulling over the inspiration,  composition, size, and approach are all important decisions which come before you ever touch any media.

You gather inspiration while doing something else, holding your mind open to scan for possibilities day and night.

To some like me, this ‘delay’ may seem frustrating.

Once you’ve tried it with an open mind, your heart sees unexpected possibilities to be gained by letting it yeast and grow in flavour.

Then later, once it has been started, you can leave a work set up, so it’s visible as a reminder of where you are in the process.  Each time you see it, it will be in different light, from a different angle, and in a different mood.

Create in haste, repent at leisure.

Instant, one day art masterpieces happen rarely if ever to any but the truly present and practiced in working from the heart.   Ordinary mortals like us, can benefit from slowing down the rush, and taking time to savour the process as it grows, and allowing the depth of heart to grow.

“Let your hook always be cast. In the pool where you least expect it, there will be fish.” (Ovid)

It’s better to take it in small bites anyway.

Recently I caught an inspired idea for a 4 X 6 foot painting.    After setting it up with the initial sketch, there was little or no time to dig in and begin laying in the under-painting.   This huge canvas set up on the easel took most of my studio space, so it was literally in my face several times a day as I squeezed passed.

Itching to get on with it, I confess that I even resorted to rereading a couple of my own Fresh Horses articles.   These led me to focus on letting the visual metaphor grow until gradually the next small step became clear, and then the next.

There followed several days with no time to paint.   This turned out to be a blessing. It gave me the chance to consider what I’d done so far, until alterations suggested themselves.

We cannot imagine what we have not known.

This was a totally new metaphor for me, so it couldn’t grow on command.    It had to be lived in real time as I went.   Had I charged on with the initial concept right away, the metaphor wouldn’t have had the chance to develop, and I’d have painted from my head, missing the real experiences growing from my heart.

Does the world need any more fast produced, mediocre art ?

We all need to participate in and be surrounded by unique beauty.   When it grows slowly over time, a heart-centred work of art can develop flavour. This is no indulgence.

The point is not to make a big production right now.   The point is to feed your spirit through your art.

“After all this time wandering in the desert…”

a 48″ X 72″ canvas painted slowly over months, because it needed time for the metaphor to naturally grow.