This is a time of year stillness isn’t a very appropriate. Frenzy is more appropriate especially in Europe and US. Yet there is something to be said for stillness, and not only on those time. Solitude, stillness, silence: in urban environments in general we don’t get enough of these. Is it my character as an artist that longs for those conditions? After spending 6 months in Los Angeles this summer had me longing and craving those like I have never before. I felt totally de-centred, my mind was foggy. I had to escape.
Sometimes I go to the desert, this place of humbling silence. For a change I went to the mountains for a few days. I hiked, I blended in, unconsciously, with my outfit ( it was an impulse drive, as per usual, I wasn’t prepared , I didn’t think about what I had on me or with me or the temperature)!
I went watching the moonrise in silence ( asides from bats flying around me and some other weird creatures I couldn’t see running around )
I sat there – I watched it rise, I had butterflies in my stomach and a big smile, excited like a child.
Felling that sense of oneness with nature is paramount for me, as much as exercise, which I prefer to do in the outdoors too. A ritual that helps centre the mind and the body. It keeps a sanity from the city where everything is noise, is bright, artificial, all is a stimulant. It has its perks and seductive side, but I find it can loose me.
It is a time suspended, stretched where thought can unfold without background noise and I mean by that distraction. It helps you tune yourself to the within in and out. It is also that precious time where creativity can kick in. Where all the datas amassed over time can find their space so that they can be easily retrieved when needed and sometimes cross each other to form a new one. Creativity requires a moment stillness, a time where all the seed gathered have the time to germinate and unfold into ideas.
I may be an artist, and with that a dreamer with my head in the clouds but I am also very earthy with my feet solidly on the ground! Perhaps it is why I like to have a horizon, that line that links the two together. Bridging the intangible, the abstract to the physical, palpable, biological. Turning one into the other.
Latitude 34 