Meditation in Action

Oil on Linen board

 

 

 

We won't talk about how many paintings I tried and threw away before getting this one down pretty well!  I love flowers and need to try more of them but they are so fragile and don't really last that long, you have to work so fast or use photos!

Recently I've been contemplating why I love art and how being alone with nothing but a current piece of artwork I'm working on is like meditation.  I decided there were several reasons in no particular order why I enjoy being alone creating art!

1. Being totally present in the moment
2. Seeing and looking
3. Creating
4. Appreciation and gratitude
5. Transformative
6. Peaceful

I've felt this for a long time but I picked up a recent book about how meditative drawing can be and I think this statement in the book says it best!  "When the eye wakes up to see again, it suddenly stops taking anything for granted.  The thing I draw, be it leaf, rose bush, woman, or child, is no longer a thing, no longer any "object" over and against which I am the supercilious "subject". The split is at once de-thingafied. I say yes to its existence. By drawing it, I dignify it. I declare it worthy of total existence, as worthy of attention as I am myself, for sheer existence is the awesome mystery and miracle we share."

From Zen Seeing Zen Drawing: Meditation in Action by Fredrick Franck.