Presence and Productivity

Every Riven Thing, detail of an eight foot long painting. I am working with pens made by Alan Ariail.

What I want to talk about today is how to find a balance between solitude and interaction, and how bringing presence to both cultivates productivity. Being a maker requires both solitude and interaction. Quality solitude awakens your inner life, your muse and your imagination. Meaningful interaction — a conversation with a fellow traveler — fuels creativity. Joseph Campbell said: “We may as well be with those who bring out the best in us.” How you spend your days, and who you spend them with, matters.

A full day of solitude is water for the thirsty maker…on these days, I often take a long time getting out of my pajamas. Breakfast is late too, but before noon. The  length of time for dedicated solitude is less important than the quality of solitude. Quality is the renewal, the welcoming of a fresh horizon, that arises naturally from stillness. Yet stillness seems so distant to the restless mind. It’s as if everything is aligned in opposition to having an inner life. There is an aversion to boredom and a craving for stimulation. Let me give you an example:

There was a research study set up to examine our resistance to “doing nothing.” The participants were asked to sit alone in a room, without moving or having access to any devices, for 10 minutes. They were given the option to sit still, or to press a button that would give them an unpleasant electric shock. 25% of the women and 67% of the men chose to shock themselves rather than sit still.

It’s as if we don’t want to allow the presences tapping on our dark and luminous world of possibility, the images that are summoning us, to actually arrive and expand our being.

On the other hand, as much as I need solitude, with too much time alone I lose perspective. Sometimes I need to get out of my studio and see someone else’s work. I seek out my friend, Rodney, and we talk about life, art and each other’s work. He is a good critic because he is both truthful and kind. I walk around his studio and feel like trying new things. The last time I went to see him, I had just been smitten by the bareness and beauty of a mutual friend’s exhibit. By “smitten” I mean '“smote” in the Biblical sense — struck down, as in “How can you ever think of exhibiting anything again, ever?”

While in Rodney’s studio, I saw a handwritten sign above his easel: “Shut up and paint.” That’s it. It’s the nature of mind to divide and conquer, cajole and criticize, praise and blame. Just keep going in spite of dire or grandiose visions. Thoughts that you are either terrible or great are off center. I don’t remember what Rodney said to me, but I left with renewed vigor.

Reach for the Latch oil and mixed media on wood 12” x 12” L Doctor

In my upcoming exhibit, I am collaborating with another friend, Martin, who is a wizard in his ceramic studio. I am learning a whole new surface… but I will write more about that in another post. Both Martin and Rodney are collaborators that also exhibit at New Editions Gallery. They provide the kind of interaction I need, and  get me experimenting with new ideas.

However, working on a series of paintings can feel like dying when you are struggling, and wondering what ever made you decide to paint. Or there are those moments of discovery that feel like being born. Finding what shape the painting wants to take is a long process for me. I remind myself not only to “shut up and paint”, but also just to sit still in front of my painting, as if it has something to offer. I want the work itself to give me direction, to tell me the next step. I play with the paintings interacting with each other, having conversations. Your state of mind is a specter that makes invisible marks. These are presences that can be felt by the viewer. And doesn’t this reflect the perennial compulsion of artists, going all the way back to the cave paintings, to make a bridge between what is visible and what is not?

Somewhere along the way, while sorting through my writing notebook, I rediscovered this poem from A R Ammons, and sighed deeply… how beautifully he tells what it is I try to do… not so much looking for the shape as being available to any shape that may be summoning itself:

I look for the way
things will turn
out spiraling from a center,
the shape
things will take to come forth in

so that the birch tree white
touched black at branches
will stand out
wind-glittering
totally its apparent self:

I look for the forms
things want to come as

from what black wells of possibility,
how a thing will
unfold:

not the shape on paper — though
that, too — but the
uninterfering means on paper:

not so much looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours.

What does it take to be “uninterfering”, to get out of your own way … to get to “the self not mine but ours?” To let things come, to hear your own voice, to make room for the presence that is here, now and always. What does it take to know that presence really is more important than productivity, and leads to better things?

It is presence that opens the path to authentic productivity, to doing the work that belongs to you.

Have you found ways to become “uninterfering”? Do you have a ritual that supports your intention to be present to your work? I’d love to hear from you.