The Mindful Artist

A STATE OF MINDFULNESS

I have been offering a Sketching and Drawing class at the Roundhouse community center for many years now and after many successful sessions, I noticed that my numbers were becoming low. I decided to address this issue by offering 3 shorter specialized classes: Drawing the Figure, Sketching In Situ and The Mindful Artist. The last one, focussed on meditation, abstraction and colour, is about to begin. I decided to test the concept in classes at other locations. It was quite exciting to experiment with this idea of using lucid dreams induced by guided meditations by yours truly; in order to make expressive art from within.

As children, it is much easier to draw from memory. This is the natural instinct before any training or technique comes along. On the other hand, for adults, clearing the mind and focusing on breathing does help. One could argue that it helps awaken the inner child within.

You can see how flexible children are in the way they move. They are lively and playful with their bodies, something we forget to do as we age. The same nimbleness applies to the mind of children, their neuroplasticity is greater for many reasons, most of them unknown. We know they soak knowledge like a sponge but exactly how that happens would require further investigation into the human brain.

Letting go of judgement is a good way to get that flexibility back somehow.

This student created a gorgeous landscape she had envisioned in her mind as her eyes were closed, guided by the sound of my voice. She was very grateful to be invited to breath with mindfulness and in her words, “the painting breaths” as well.

LETTING GO OF JUDGEMENT?

Even though I am resolute to minimize the judgement in my critiques, I am inclined to include some talk about technique. For example, a painting that breathes makes for a powerful watercolour. It is something that is also desirable with oils although not as essential. Watercolour is inherently transparent. Gouache is opaque and layers seamlessly over watercolour so it is a good option for a painting which would not play to the white of the paper like this one.

Less judgement means more creativity but it is also fun for me to help my students achieve their goals. I don’t have a background in art therapy but I am confident in my sensitive nature and I hope to learn a lot from trial and error. It feels good to be developing this opportunity with the community.

This student sketched this composition when the mental scene was still fresh. She found it challenging to depict the perspective she had seen but came pretty close. I was surprised at how important it was for the students to depict their vision precisely.

“It’s what I saw!”, this student simply said.

WHAT IS MINDFULNESS

If I knew that, I would no doubt have transcended this plane of existence. After all, does pure mindfulness not equate to Nirvana?

I am very inspired by Feldenkrais, a novel form of physical therapy popular around the world. I begin and end the meditation with an attention to the physical body. I ask questions while everyone is sitting on a chair with their eyes closed like:
“how did you choose to place your feet? Are they pointing in, parallel or are they pointing out? Are they even? Just notice without jugement. Do you have a sense of the weight of you pelvis on the chair?” Etc.

I have them experiment with conscious breaths as opposed to automatic ones.

There are visuals in the middle of the experience and I will be happy to share more about that once I start the actual set. So far I keep it vague to allow for more imagination and ask questions like: “do you see any blue?”

In a relaxed state, mindfulness is increased and so I am aware that I am sharing a powerful tool to reduce stress. My hope is that seeing the correlation between mindfulness and relaxation will improve their lives, allowing them to make more enlightened decisions.

Of course this is very relative in the complexity of the modern world but I feel like being a little empowered is better than not at all.

This is an interesting study in all it’s minimal serenity. I would call it automatic painting. Automatic painting or automatism is a driving force of the Refus Global an art manifest from Quebec which was released August 9, 1948. It is inspired by the French surrealists of the time.

Can one create true abstraction, without preconceived ideas is a debate that survives to this day.

Cenelis

This title is from a joke born of an ad lib with my mom which is on YouTube. I was playing dumb with a high pitched voice, reading her tattoo in a dyslexic manner. Her tattoo reads Silence, she is a big fan.

It was her idea to include silence after the meditation. I have found that it certainly helps the lucid dreaming aspect of the meditation. Silence makes it easier to remember the sensorial experience.

It also strengthens the output from the right hemisphere of the brain, the intuitive one with a lot less judgement. I would argue that the right hemisphere appreciates reality in a non-binary fashion. Binary thinking leaves its trace in what we call judging.*

So far, I feel like the silence is much appreciated. I do allow everyone to speak again before the class is over.

BLISSFUL JOURNEY

When I look at the work, I am humbled in respect for the journey we are having together. I want my approach to be compatible with atheism or any other religion and I have to be careful to make room for what spirituality means to everyone coming through my doors.

The work produced in this article is from students who had enrolled in general classes. I am ever so grateful to them for playing along, especially if they got out of their comfort zone. In Vancouver, there is a yoga studio around every corner and this in part explains our success!

* I am still unclear of what is even referred to with judgement. We live in a hiarchised world and we need hiarchised thinking to make any sense of it but the idea here is that it is overly powerful and that it will survive the scrutiny. Getting out of our comfort zone helps the right hemisphere thrive and we can disregard the distress signals from the rational Left brain playing victim.

For more on this, you can read Drawing from the Right side of the Brain by Betty Edwards