Dear Subscribers,

Greetings!

JUST A BUNCH OF WORDS.

Yep, no visuals this week, sorry ‘bout that.

The only disadvantage of being self-employed is the amount of peripheral work that must be done in order to keep my business going. Many people imagine life as an artist and don’t realize this. Like any home business or entrepreneurial pursuit, it's a constant hustle. Sometimes it piles up, like this week. I’m a business and I employ two of me. The Me that paints and the Me that does everything else: he frames, ships, markets, inventories, orders, accounts, photographs, photoshops, writes, and schedules, all so the business can sell the other guy's paintings. Problem is, only one Me can work at a time. Luckily, my schedule is flexible and my commute is a flight of stairs. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

In lieu of visuals, I’ve written an article-ette for you, my faithful subscriber. If you are an artist or engage in any sort of creative activity, I hope that you might find the following useful:


Returning to The Zone

I go through periods of time when I have difficulty entering the zone. When I’m just floating on the superficial surface of creativity without breaking through to that deeper level of inspiration and focus. Like a stone continuously skipping on the surface of water. This usually happens when I’ve been using too much media while painting: music, audiobooks, podcasts. I’ll build up to the point where media becomes habit or addiction. At the beginning of my day I'll automatically get some audio playing to keep my mind occupied. This becomes a vicious cycle. As I rely more on media, I begin to perceive the act of painting as work, busy work, drudgery, always looking to be entertained in other places. Because my presence is scattered, the painting then becomes an exercise of the mind, like a math equation--an intellectual problem that must be solved. But that is not where beauty comes from. Beauty and inspiration come from presence, not from mind. You can’t intellectually hammer your way into inspiration, and you can’t just wait around for it either---I’ve tried both. But you CAN be diligent, showing up consistently and devoting yourself to being completely PRESENT in your work, which keeps the window open for inspiration to arrive.

Now back to my problem of entering to the zone, and the solution. When I hit a dry spell, I know exactly what to do, and it works EVERY DAMN TIME. Maybe it can work for you too. You turn off everything. No music, no podcast, no audiobook…no cell phone, no email…nothing. Then you start painting (or writing, sculpting, creating, etc). At first, the mind revolts. It fears boredom. It grasps for something to keep it busy, some distraction, some form of instant gratification, entertainment, some mental problem to solve. Ignore this, and just keep painting. Eventually the grasping goes away. Eventually you lose the knowlege of time passing, you forget that there is no distraction, forget that you are in silence, forget that your mind is silent, and then it’s just you and your tools of creation. You become more present in the doing and as a result the simple joy of it returns. With that comes excellence. That is the zone. That is when you simply cannot fail. It is like magic. That is when a painting can become a work of art.

After a half or full day of this meditation-in-painting, I've found that I can gradually begin to re-introduce audio entertainment without detracting from my presence. I know it's a good balance I must periodically rewind an audiobook because I was so engrossed in the painting that I missed a few plot points. That's the right space.

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Ok, I lied about no visuals. The new postcards from R.S. Hanna Gallery! Look at these beauties!





Until next week,
David A. N. Cheifetz
www.davidcheifetz.com

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