Facing the Empty Space: Practicing Mindfulness Through Art

January 24, 2022 Post a Comment

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Dear Wonderful, Artistic You:

Since last fall, I've been participating in a practise called authentic movement. It's a movement-based mindfulness practice and agile imagination procedure. I've been inspired by all of the parallels between the move exercise, and my art practice, and I wanted to share with y'all well-nigh one of them today.

Just so yous understand, I'll give y'all the basic layout. We exercise in a calorie-free-filled renovated befouled – a big open space. There is a facilitator who is the witness, and there are movers. Each of the participants moves with her eyes closed for nearly 45 minutes. The thought is to tune into what your body wants to do, and to follow the impulse equally closely as you lot can. So if your hand wants to brand a fist, you exercise that. If your anxiety savor sliding on the woods floors, do that. (I practise that often.) But it's not a planned move or a operation of any kind.It'south about being mindfully, not-judgmentally present to your body and what it wants and needs in the moment.

When the movement is over, the witness reflects back something she saw and what it made her feel and feel. Her chore is to assist you feel that you were non-judgmentally seen, not interpreted. It'due south a very beautiful do, and I find it more accessible than regular meditation practice. There'southward something actually powerful about being seen non-judgmentally, both by yourself and by some other.

Earlier we begin, we stand at the periphery of the room and make eye contact to laurels each other, and then nosotros practice something interesting – nosotros look at the open space to honor it too. We exercise this again at the end. At beginning I wasn't quite sure what this meant, but recently, my teacher offered a lilliputian nugget of wisdom that actually struck me. She said:

"In the first, there is zippo. In the end, in that location is zip."

It's the same with art. In the beginning, there is null, and in the end, there is nothing over again. Y'all begin a piece in the empty space, fill up it with your marks, consummate information technology, put information technology away, and return to the emptiness. We face the possibility, the curiosity, and the anxiety of not knowing.

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And then much of what scares us virtually art practice stems from facing this empty space. And then much of what excites us about the art process stems from the emptiness likewise. What helps me to face the possibilities and the anxieties is knowing that I am not alone. I face the unknown in community.

Fluid Art Workshop:

We've been talking a lot in my Diving Deep course about how important customs is in edifice our backbone as artists. I want to help you build your fine art courage too. I'm inviting you to a gratuitous workshop tomorrow, Th, June 21st at 12pm EST. In that location's yet time to register, and y'all'll get an amazing PDF with all the goodies from the workshop. At that place'll be a 48-60 minutes replay equally well. I'm thrilled to tell yous that I'll be announcing an AMAZING freebie at the cease, and then stick around for that. Click here to register at present.

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