Alexandersmap

    Category: Art

    • Do It

      “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” — Pablo Picasso

      We grow into ourselves by stretches and the occasional leap. Now some people leap all the time, and become known as either bold or reckless, depending on how they land. Most of us test the waters a bit, see if it makes sense to move in this new direction, and work our way there gradually. A few never leave the nest at all, choosing familiarity and comfort over reaching for their own potential.

      So what do we do with habits that work for us, when we know that to grow we must break patterns and try new things? Delay? Dabble? Dive right in? We’re each unique in our willingness to try new things by letting familiar old things go.

      I think the moment we ask ourselves if we ought to try something new, we ought to take the first step towards that new. And then the next. Venturing more and more into the unknown to discover something about it and ourselves that we felt was possible all along. As that character Yoda put it, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Learn as we go. Do it.

    • The Steady Ascent

      “The main reason to produce something every day is that you must throw away a lot of good work to reach the good stuff. To let it all go easily, you need to be convinced that there is ‘more where that came from’. You get that in steady production.”
      — Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living

      Amusement parks may have Lightning Pass lanes, and tourist attractions may have a “Skip the Line” scheme (there’s always a line, it’s just a little shorter), but the work that we produce in a lifetime has no such option. Getting to the good stuff isn’t accomplished without putting in the time.

      Sure, I hear the call of Artificial Intelligence (AI) filling the gap between apprenticeship and mastery. Maybe research and first drafts don’t have to be so tedious. But there are lessons in the grind, and the willing student reaches wisdom not found in AI efficiency.

      The Mona Lisa wasn’t painted in a couple of days. Leonardo da Vinci carried that portrait with him for the rest of his life, adding touches, refining the work, ignoring it and coming back to it. It was never really completed before he passed, it simply reached its final state of being. That state happens to be masterful; A pet project that became the most famous painting in the world.

      Writing every day is sometimes a grind, but it teaches and informs the writer. We may publish regularly or be forever polishing our master work. Unlike our friend da Vinci, we ought to ship our work regularly, that we may move on to something else. The good stuff is earned daily. The great stuff is just over the next rise, awaiting our ascent. If we keep climbing.

    • Call It Inspiration

      “The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself…Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel.” — George Gershwin

      I once wrestled with time. Once I called it time management, and then productivity, and maybe a few other names along the way. The way itself is time, and within it, we produce something or we do not. It was never really time at all, it was how we use our lives. And how we use our lives is who we are, and who we will become, and how we will be remembered one day.

      That’s a lot of wrestling.

      Perhaps that effort is better applied towards discovery. I write every day to discover what will stroll into the room next. We go back and forth a bit, I takes notes as quickly as I can, and the muse exits once again. Who saw that coming? And thanks for the, uh, time.

      Yesterday I finished a delightful book I’d never have read but for the fact that I said yes to it at the exclusion of a lot of great options I said no to. And then I immediately started reading another. The more books we read, the less we’re staring at a screen. That seems like a great trade-off to me. What does that have to do with productivity? Everything. And nothing at all.

      All that we do in our lives is derived from the experiences we make for ourselves. Writing, reading, travel, work, coexisting with these characters in our lives… it all accumulates into something larger than where we began this journey. And growth is where it’s at, friend. We are alive, and life is forever growing into something more than we started as. Just keep heading towards the light, wherever it takes us. Call it inspiration if it helps.

    • Difference Awaits

      “Normality is a paved road: it’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.” — Vincent Van Gogh

      What do you dream about? Who knows? Some people seem to remember all of their dreams. For some of us, the world of dreams is slammed shut upon waking. Is there a metaphor in there somewhere about waking up to finally begin living one’s dreams? Wouldn’t that be the obvious path to take right about now?

      My own dreams, such that they are, usually end with me waking up trying to figure a way out of some maze I’d wandered into, or to find a solution to some problem that doesn’t exist in reality. Ah, you dream interpreters, there’s nothing to see here! We’re all figuring things out as we go. Every day is a winding road.

      We may choose to wander off the beaten path any time we want to, for it’s our story to write. That beaten path laying up ahead is beaten for a reason. It’s tried and true, and won’t make our mothers lie awake at night in worry. Taking the road less traveled makes all the difference, right? Ask a poet:

      Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
      I took the one less traveled by,
      And that has made all the difference.
      — Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

      The thing is, most of us aren’t choosing poetry or painting as a career path. We’re figuring things out as we go, not wandering off into the wilderness. Maybe that means fewer flowers, but it also helps pay the mortgage. And so paths less traveled by remain in our dreams.

      Then again, we may opt to stray further and further from the beaten path each day, returning to pay the bills and such, but building those wandering muscles and stretching our inclinations in new directions. Our path is simply where we are heading at the moment. Perhaps it’s paved, perhaps it’s full of wildflowers or thistle or perilous beasts that make us break into a cold sweat for the terror of it all.

      Fear not! Our path is meant to be figured out. Like an Andy Weir novel, there’s always a way out of the maze. We just need to wake up to see it. And having seen it, to take that path to where difference awaits.

    • Get Out and Happen

      “It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” — Leonardo da Vinci

      I had a conversation with someone this week who observed that Americans believe they can be anything they want to be if they work hard enough towards a goal. The inference was that this isn’t the case in some other countries. Perhaps that’s true, perhaps not. As an American it’s not for me to say what someone from another country believes. I would point towards the Winter Olympics happening right now in Milan as one counter to that argument, and read the worlds of the prominent Italian quoted above as another. I think the real point is that Americans always wear their aspirations on their sleeve. We lead with who we aspire to be.

      This blog surely doesn’t refute that statement. Decide what to be and go be it is one of the most commonly quoted lines you’ll find here (with a nod to The Avett Brothers). At this point in the blog, AI and you, dear reader, have figured out a lot about this writer. The trick in this evolving world is to never show all your cards. That ought to go for aspirations too. Don’t tell us what you’re going to do, show us with the results of your actions. This is the only truth—the rest is just talk.

      The thing is, we know that time is flying by so very quickly. The deck is stacked against any of us really doing anything significant to put a dent in the universe in the time we have available to us. The only answer to this riddle is to be audacious. If fortune favors the bold, stop being timid about what needs to happen today. Get out and happen.

    • For the Love of Winter

      “I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.” — Andrew Wyeth

      I would be lying if I were to write that I love winter the most. It’s true that I do love winter, and snow, and the cold dark indifference of the long night. But to say I love winter most is to ignore the very best days of spring, when the daffodils are blooming and there is hope in the air. Or the warm comfort of summer days, with the meditative delight of deadheading the flowers and plucking cherry tomatoes from stem to mouth. To say nothing of autumn, in its kaleidoscope of color and the smell of leaves returning to earth. Like children, we may love each season in their own way.

      The trick is to love each day, no matter the season, for all that it brings to us. To pine for other seasons is to concede our agency over now. This is our time and place. We are right here and now because of the choices we’ve made in our life. So embrace the cold with another layer and venture out into the wild world of winter. Or simply grab a cup of steaming tea and a great book if you like. The days are what they are, and soon they’ll lead us to another season with something else to complain about or secretly love, whatever our inclination might be.

      When we approach today as if it’s a beautiful day to be alive, the day comes alive for us. Stack enough days together this way and we have a great season. And these seasons do blur together after enough of them. So celebrate this one, and maybe do something with it to remember it by. Winter is here, bitingly cold and alive. Take the day in hand in all its stark beauty and dance with it.

    • We Become the Sum

      “What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is related only to objects and not to individuals, or to life. That art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who are artists. But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life?” — Michel Foucault

      Walking the pup yesterday during a snowstorm, I considered turning back to slip on micro spikes. Fluffy snow over ice is never a good recipe for reliable footing. Instead I shortened my stride and the leash so the dog wouldn’t pull me down in her snowy exuberance. Some life lessons are learned from a sore backside.

      We know that we are works in progress, but sometimes get frustrated with the pace of that progress. It’s okay to paint over our mistakes now and then. It’s better to make them anyway, if only to learn which paths are not ours to take, if only to not have possibilities haunting us for not having tried them at all. As Nietzsche reminded us, that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. In this way, we may consider each day a lesson in how to live.

      The pup and I have a loop that covers the same ground twice to get us to the desired distance. Double the distance and we’re doubling the frequency of times covering the same ground. Which is noticeable when it’s snowing out and we’re leaving foot and paw prints behind us. In this way, each loop revealed the previous ground we’d covered, but our steps never exactly repeated themselves. Our strides changed with the conditions, we were pulled towards some curiosity just a nose below the snow, a car passed by that changed our path or some such thing. As the snow accumulated, the oldest footprints faded more and more into the layers building up on top of them. Each loop was the same, yet completely different. So too are our days.

      Our canvas transforms with every stroke of the brush. Each offers lessons on where to go next. Each fades further into the background with the addition of yet another. But here lies depth and progress. The richness of life is found not just in the changes we make to our days, but in the rituals that anchor them. It all builds upon itself to form the work of art that is our life. In this way, we become the sum.

    • And Now We Rise

      A day once dawned, and it was beautiful
      A day once dawned from the ground
      Then the night she fell
      And the air was beautiful
      The night she fell all around
      So look, see the days
      The endless coloured ways
      Go play the game that you learnt
      From the morning
      And now we rise
      And we are everywhere
      And now we rise from the ground
      And see she flies
      She is everywhere
      See she flies all around
      So look, see the sights
      The endless summer nights
      And go play the game that you learnt
      From the mornin’
      — Nick Drake, From the Morning

      I’m told that Nick Drake’s family had the two lines from this song, “Now we rise and we are everywhere” engraved on his gravestone (a simple Google search verifies this). Could there be a more beautiful choice of words to mark a life? Nick Drake’s career rose quietly, posthumously, and is now everywhere (should we listen for it). Our work outlives us, doesn’t it? So it follows that we ought to put our very best into the work that matters most.

      We are creative beings, putting our dent in the universe, such that it is, before we fade away into eternity. Knowing this, we ought to rise up to meet the work as best we can, to put something of ourselves into it that makes it uniquely ours. And then to let it fly, to find its own way in the world like a moth rising to meet the light. Most everything is consumed and disappears, but some work might just break through and go everywhere.

      I think sometimes, is this blog enough? The question betrays the answer. There is far more to do. We put our best hours into other things, knowing that the days flow into nights and begin again and again. And we only have so long to play this game.

    • Courage

      “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
      — Vincent van Gogh

      When we look back, how does the path that brought us here look? Probably full of switchbacks and a few dead ends, some steep learning curves and false peaks, disappointing descents and surprising vistas that taught us a thing or two. Life is a series of attempts at something new. We may be bold today and again tomorrow, or we can shrink into familiar and less risky ventures. Which is the hero’s journey? Which will give us a better story in the end?

      None of this will mean a thing a hundred years from now. If we’re lucky maybe one small thing will break through and resonate beyond. Whatever project we’re currently working on is unlikely to resonate through the ages like Irises. Does that mean I shouldn’t write this blog post or go to work today? Purpose is discovered through daily action and the courage to change course when the one we’re on isn’t bringing us to where we’d like to go. Van Gogh painted Irises shortly after checking into the Saint Paul-de-Mausole asylum. Do you wonder if he considered his own path clear and straight to the top?

      It’s not just okay to try new things, it’s imperative that we do so. Exploring new paths opens up new opportunities, it colors our world with new perspective, it teaches us who we might be simply by stepping away from the tried and true. Some paths turn out to be magical, but we’ve learned that some will crush our spirit. Knowing this, courage is indeed necessary to rise again to try another. And another. And yet another. In this way, we grow into who we might become in this lifetime.

      Irises, at the J. Paul Getty Museum

    • Expression

      The reason we’re alive
      is to express ourselves in the world.
      And creating art may be the most
      effective and beautiful method of doing so.

      Art goes beyond language, beyond lives.
      It’s a universal way to send messages
      between each other and through time.
      — Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

      Walk through a museum and inevitably some work calls to us from across the room. We’re drawn in, connecting to the human who created it who may live next door or lived a thousand years ago on the other side of the world. Human connection through art, literature and poetry, music, photography, architecture and engineering or really any expression that is mined deep within and brought to the world binds us now and through time. Artistic expression is thus a time machine.

      It follows that one who makes art may wonder whether their particular expression is enough. Sure, it’s our verse, but why are we making this and not something else? Why do I write a blog post every bloody day, no matter what? Why does a hiker I know spend every free moment redlining the trails of New Hampshire? Why choose a certain career path over another, potentially more profitable career path? We do it because something within us demands that we do it. Each pursuit fulfills something within, making us whole. And in turn we express that outwardly as part of our identity. This is who we are, doing this, at this moment in time. We are trading our precious time to express this pursuit, but feel more alive for having chosen it.

      Throughout life we acquire skills, develop muscle memory, navigate triumph and tragedy, age and learn and grow through the years that we’re given. All of that changes our perspective about what it is to be a human being. If we choose wisely we maximize our experiences along the way, and if we aren’t wise with our time we accumulate regrets for not doing certain things in the time we were given for it. Our reward is perspective. We grow as people and as artists to the level that we open to the experiences of a lifetime.

      The work that we produce is a time stamp of our experiences, created one after the other, indicating who we were when it was created. Our lens of now is forever altering our perspective, and thus alters our expression. When we think back on the person we were ten years ago, do we smile or shudder? The work that we produced, the routine we built our life around at the time, the people we surrounded ourselves with, all brought us here, to this place and time, where we may express ourselves yet again with this newfound perspective. Expression is a gift of our time and perspective to those who choose to use their time to connect with it (and in that connection perhaps alter their own perspective). We owe it to ourselves and our audience to draw out the best we can in the moment.