On Seeing

I can say that there is no time to write or paint or draw, or I can take time to see what is before and paint it, or draw it.

Other times, I just see what is before me and do nothing with it, but keep in mind for a future time. I carry a little black notebook where I write ideas and notes about what I want to write or draw and yet, sometimes I am so busy I don’t have the time to do it.

Busy.

The truth is that it just takes a desire to be with life, take it in and draw.

I have a Dell Tablet PC, always wanted one, so that I can carry it and not only write, but also draw. I have numerous tablet PC art software installed in it. The Dell Tablet PC is the slowest to boot laptop I have ever had. You turn it on and it can take fifteen minutes to boot. Even my mini turns on and boots pretty quickly, but the Tablet PC is a booting burden, yet, I can carry it with me and draw, that is, if I not in one of my hibernating states, the Hermit state, where I need no stimulation other than the one provided at my job.

In the Hermit state, I am in such a silence I cannot speak to even myself. I am shhh…..quiet.

Sometimes, during these states, something happens, a creative flow surges through me and there is no stopping me. I can do anything on a napkin, or a cardboard box, I can redesign a lamp…. a guide to keep me posted.

I took a workshop once with Fredrick Franck, this was a long time ago. It was on Zen and Seeing and drawing. I was excited. I loved his book on The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation.

“Let your eyes fall on whatever happens to be in front of you. It may be a plant or bush or a tree, or perhaps it is just some grass. Close your eyes for the next five minutes …

Now open your eyes and focus on whatever you observed before – that plant or leaf or dandelion. Look it in the eye, until you feel it looking back at you. Feel that you are alone with it on Earth! That it is the most important thing in the universe, that it contains all the riddles of life and death. It does! You are no longer looking, you are seeing.”

Take the time to see the world around you, let your eyes listen in the silence.

Wishing you time from your busy schedule to create art.