The Sweet Peace of Being Unplugged

For a brief time this fall, I was a person without a computer. I'm amazed at the calm I felt the day my hard drive died taking five years of data with it. At times I felt so carefree, a kind of déjà vu, like a child running barefoot in the summer sun. Peace. Freedom. No entanglements. Design client files— gone. My new web site— gone. Scans of my painting inventory— gone. No Facebook, no blog, no news readers, no email. I couldn't even get into my back-up disk. Just me and the great wide shimmering world alone together.

In The Deep End

Being unplugged is such sweet peace. That experience lead me to a personal credo: Question everything. I don't know what compels the questions. I prefer to think it's healthy curiosity. Anyway, now I'm questioning the value of being plugged in. Because I'm so mesmerized by this electronic miracle in a box, I paint less, my eyes hurt, my shoulders ache, my brain cells are tense. I feel like my life has been swept away by a tsunami of craving for attention. It's not just my craving. It's bigger than that. It's the craving of friends of friends ad infinitum. I want to support them all with follows, thumbs-ups and likes. It's impossible, of course, yet I'm still overwhelmed by the desire to help. I could unplug from the dream world on my computer screen. (Maybe I'd get more painting done.) I do have a choice, but here I am again, back in electronic samsara, wrestling with this new dharma gate. Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to friend and like them all.

Oft spoken rules of art-making get my questioning hackles up. How about the one that speed improves skill? Working quickly does create its own unique artistic characteristics. So does a contemplative approach. There are merits to using both ways of painting as learning exercises. We live in a culture that breeds speed. Bigger, louder, brighter, faster everything. It's easy to be swept along believing faster is better, aware only of maybe some tension in a shoulder, or an anxious feeling. But what if you stop with the hurry-up-all-the-time routine? What if you examine your inner world through the process of painting? What will you find? Possibly you'd feel excitement, then thoughtfulness, or then "Yikes, this is harder than I thought", or "I've wrecked it! I quit." Over time you might begin to see a pattern to your creative process. How many paintings have you tossed in frustration? The —I've wrecked it so I quit— stage is pivotal. It holds the potential for the greatest amount of learning and self expression to take place. That's when speed demons move on to a new painting forgoing a great opportunity for growth. We can choose to dig deep or skip along the surface. Sometimes we need to metaphorically unplug ourselves from all the chattering of workshops, art instruction and well-meaning advice, and reconnect to that still point within. From there we can see more clearly our own unique way to paint through the —I wrecked it— stage and in that process develop confidence to meet new creative challenges whatever your medium.

It's important to explore, practice and hone your technique as an artist, and examining your state of mind can free you from creative hang-ups or blocks. We are indoctrinated to speed by the culture we live in but we can choose to investigate the unconscious habits that rush us through a painting, relegating yet another one to the "I quit" pile.