Hallo everybody
I hope you are all well, stay at home and keep your spirits reasonably high, in these strange days..
Here in Athens things are getting harder. Today a total curfew was announced. People will be prevented from moving, apart from going to the super market pharmacy or doctor, exercising outside alone and commuting to and from work . For these you will need to issue special permits. It seems that I will not be able to move freely between home and studio for some time. Not that I can’t but it seems rather complicated. . It’s ok since I have already moved some of my stuff at home and I work from here.
TRYING TO FIT IT ALL IN THIS TABLE
I am not freaking out. On the contrary, I think I am getting a lot from this lockdown. Here I share some of the things and thoughts that make up my everyday reality these days.
I started meditating. Everyday, for 15 minutes. This is the first time I actually commit to doing this and it is thanks to Justin Michael Williams and his audible book ‘Stay Woke’. I actually started with this book two weeks before the coronavirus incident, but it came at the right moment.
I do my yoga practice everyday. Again, after 5 years of practicing, it is the first time I do it everyday. I try to keep my practice as soft as possible. I don’t want to push myself to reach any standard, just to quiet my mind and intention and start recognizing patterns and sensations in my body and way of moving and being
MY YOGA MAT
What has happened lately is that little by little I am starting to recognize an underlying pattern of believing or feeling something is not right, something is not good enough. This is the reason I often feel agitated, not satisfied with what lies before me, thinking I have to change something, correct something, be otherwise. It is the reason I sometimes get tense and do things in a hurry, the reason I sometimes destroy wonderful paintings by overworking them.
LIKE THIS ONE HERE
I have decided to attempt to focus on not pushing myself to attain the unattainable, a standard of perfection, if I may call it this, unattainable because not even existent - it does not have a specific form. It is just Other than what Is.
Even though I chose my path in order to be free, in order to be able to explore and express my deepest desires, in order to escape the feeling of not being where I want to be, I have not escaped the trap of needing an approval, an outside confirmation of what is considered good, or right for that matter. Of course we have all heard that ‘right’ does not exist in art. But my experience tells me otherwise.
I remember I started painting as an antidote to theory. Having studied Social Psychology and then doing my master’s in Media and Communications, I wanted to do something closer to my being. The keyword here is do. I wanted to do things, not think about them, theorize about them or apply other people’s theories about them.
I started painting. And even though my passion was dance, there was something in the act of painting, that drew me more and more to it. Surely this was in part due to its solitary nature. Solitary means being left on one’s own devices, having to decide for oneself how to do things.
Not adhering to standards…
I also saw it as better suited to what I was looking for. My authentic expression, beyond boundaries and limitations. There were no standards, or the standards were so many and variable that practically did not exist. Or so I saw it in the beginning, and this is how I practiced it, with enthusiasm and passion.
Still, after the second year in art school I found myself questioning the practice, myself, the meaning of it all… Teachers in art school are eager to make you get down to the important stuff – why you do what you do- so you will not spend your time painting, not knowing why, like a child…(actual words of teacher)
Or prevent you from taking the wrong path –‘you have things inside that cannot be expressed through painting’- (again, actual words) or, -‘you like this painter”? he is so passé, forget about that direction’…
Or even worse ‘STOP PAINTING”
What happened is, I stopped. For some years at least, until I was done with my studies in art school.
I started painting again right after I finished. And it has been a long way of trying to get back to how I was painting when I first started. With no preconceptions on how it had to look like. Just painting, just acting.
Of course this is something that takes a lot of practice. What I find interesting is how thinking about setting one’s own standards has connected to my thinking about painting as an action and my ongoing project on art as a process . I stop for now and will take it from here soon.
However, I want to share some last thoughts with you,
- Is it perhaps now a time to consider what we truly and authentically love about what we do, about our lives, about our relationships, and concentrate on making these particular aspects flourish, instead of trying to correct something in order to fit in a preconception of how things should be, a time of tackling the issue of believing we are not good enough, and therefore not trusting ourselves and what comes naturally?
- Is it a time now, in relative seclusion and isolation, to get more quiet and start to recognize our voice and distinguish it from the outside critic, mentor, guru, idol whatever?
- This can happen because we are getting more quiet. Perhaps this can be a way of navigating through this hard time and gaining something from it. Something invaluable for the life we are called at the moment to protect by staying quiet.
Take care and stay safe.
AND DANCE, AT HOME