Eleven Floors of Art

Yesterday, I went to visit the Artomatic in Arlinginton, VA. This is an event where an old office building is filled with art before it is torn down. In this case, the 11 story building housed over 1,300 artists. Imagining that each artist presented 10 pieces, that is over 13,000 pieces of art. I confess; I didn’t see it all. We visited about 3.5 floors before I experienced art burnout. I wish I hadn’t waiting until the last day to go, but had planned several days so that I had a chance to experience and savor all the art.

Well, maybe not all the art. One of the wonderful things about artomatic is there is no gate keeper. There is no juror inflicting his particular taste on the show. There is no austere woman telling artists they are not good enough. On the other hand, one of the bad things about the Artomatic is that there is no gatekeeper saying that someone might need to practice a little more before they try to show some work. Everyone and anyone can exhibit. This lack of a gatekeeper creates quite the diverse experience.

What I came to realize while wandering through is that I don’t appreciate most art. I don’t get it. I don’t think it’s beautiful. I could do without it. That said, I don’t believe my opinion on should make a difference to anyone except me (and maybe my husband who might be inspired to buy me artwork). I’ve often wondered what other people saw in the art they decided to hang in their homes. I have no love of pastoral landscapes or elephants working in India. I don’t want to continually look at scenes from city streets or people at work or play. I don’t want to take the time to delve into the meaning of a piece of art. I want to see it and have everything it is conveyed to me in a blast of wonder. Then maybe I’ll be interested in what the artist was thinking. As I wandered through the Artomatic, I felt like I was just walking through rooms of noise with the occasional moment of silence when I found the art that spoke to me. These tended to be macro-photographs of nature, serene natural or abstract paintings, trees of any kind and anything with beautiful lines or bold colors. In other words, art that felt soothing. I hate to confess it, but I also walked out being amazed at how much bad art there was in the world. That is a secret, mean thought, so please don’t tell anyone. However, whenever I have mean thoughts, I am rarely content to let them stand unassailed. I must investigate and break them down to their primal elements. After ruminating over this thought for a day or so, I finally came to an epiphany. Art is about taste. I know, that ‘s boring and unoriginal, but here come the original part. My artistic taste reflects my preference for how I live my life. I love being in nature and often long for the childhood days where I could be out in the world and never hear the sound of mankind. I love the quiet wind in the trees. I love the small changes that happen every day from the bursting of a flower to the sprouting of a fungal castle on a rotting log. Art is supposed to inspire emotion and I hate being riled up, sad or riddled with angst. I want to be soothed or humored. So of course I am not going to appreciate art depicting riotous crowds on city streets or profound political messages. However, I realize as an introvert, I am in the minority preferring to be away from people and the riot of life. The type of life I enjoy is directly reflected in the type of art I enjoy. And for other people, I am absolutely positive this is true as well. So people who love mankind and civilization are going to love art based on it. I am sure many of those people walk into the rooms where I linger and walk right back out again because they are bored out of their mind. That’s OK. More solitude for me. So, I am so glad I went to Artomatic for the sole reason that it allowed me to reach this realization. Without seeing so much art in one place, I doubt I would have muddled it out. The new look on art will also have bearing on the perception of my own art. When I show my art to people, everyone seems to love it, but few people want to buy it. I won’t deny there was a little sting in that. For many years, I have tried to bend my subject matter to more mainstream subjects, with the hope that I would make some sales, but I could never really get there. I don’t think I could paint a bowl of fruit if my life depended on it. The few mainstream pieces I have painted, I got through solely on the challenge of the work, not inspiration from the subject matter. My recent epiphany has led me to the conclusion that I shouldn’t try to change. There are people out there for me. They are just a smaller set of the population than the fruit and barn lovers and it will take longer for us to find each other. Thanks Artomatic for giving all those artists a chance to reach their people and for leading me to a new way of looking at art.

 Also, just a quick promo of the artists I know who displayed art at the Artomatic.

Jennifer Stone – Definitely one of my people
Blair Jackson – Not for me, but I could easily knock off 75% of my Christmas list in her art store.
Lisa M. – Her art makes me smile.

Moments of Bliss

I started going to a counselor today for anxiety. She repeated some of the same things I've been reading about in a book called Mindfulness. The idea of mindfulness is about living in the present, actually experiencing the moment instead of running on autopilot. How many times have you suddenly come back into yourself and realized that you drove all the way to work, but can’t remember the drive? Happens to me all the time. This book is about taking back your life moment by moment. It’s big on meditation and one of the meditation practices is about eating a raisin. In this meditation you use all your senses to fully appreciate the raisin. The idea is to be fully and completely present for the experience. But you don’t need a raisin or meditation for this moment. It happens all the time. Every time you take that first sip of the uber choco mega foamed crumbly carmel delight you get as a treat, you are fully present in that moment. It happens every time you take that first bite of a meal in a restaurant. First kiss! When you have that first kiss with someone really special, are you thinking about how you need to wash your car? NO! You 100% focused on the present moment and all the physical sensations happening. How about that moment when you first relax into your bed, snug under your covers ready to go to sleep? Makes me smile just thinking about it. There are a million moments where we are fully present and attentive, but the real tragedy is how quickly we let them go and move back into our harried existence. The second sip might as well be dishwater for all the attention we pay it. And how quickly the shine rubs off that new relationship. The instant you are comfortable in bed, your mind starts racing ahead to tomorrow. Instead of realizing how much we ignore in life, we seek out those moments by buying a super coffee treat every day, every hour, until the specialness has worn away because we are no longer taking the time to be mindful of the experience. Yet we remember those moments of mindfulness and seek them out and compare the rest of our lives to them. So, I guess I am saying to enjoy the second sip and the last sip just as much as that first sip. Extend out your moment of bliss if you can.

            Just a note on mediation. I made a commitment to myself to meditate every day for just 15 min. I kept the promise today and found it enjoyable. I was very calm and centered afterward. That lasted all of 5 minutes. Then I opened my computer and started reading the twitter feed. I could feel my calm center fragmenting away into little pieces as I skimmed down. I found myself reading a story about murder even though I didn’t want to read about murder, but had to read because I didn’t know what a conker was. Then I had to google a conker. And it was, as the article said, a ridiculous reason to murder someone. And it was ridiculous that I was reading about it. I had in just a few minutes managed to stray from my calm center into the chaos of the very large global world we live in. I resolved right there to unfollow a bunch of twitter feeds like BBC. I thought it would be a good way to keep informed since I don’t watch or read the news, but really, if a catastrophe occurs, someone will tell me about it. So, time to declutter and enjoy another sip of cinnamon tea.

Conversational Risk

Have you ever met a person that is so adamant in their beliefs that they shut everyone around them down? I have a “friend” like this. I put friend in quotations because I don’t know if I can actually be friends with this person because I can never get past this personality trait. Whenever we stumble upon something she feels strongly about, she broadcasts her opinion in a loud and aggressive manner. This puts me and many of the people off of any further conversation with her just in case we stumble across another landmine. I am not averse to arguing a point with someone, so why is it different with her?


I think it has to do with risk. Every time you converse with someone, you risk the possibility of changing your mind. In small matters, like if you whether you like Crest or Colgate tooth paste, changing your preference is no big deal. However, when we discuss more weighty views, the consequences of changing are more serious. So when we enter in a conversation with someone, we evaluate whether they will share our views, whether they will ridicule our beliefs, and if they might change us. So is change bad? No, but subconsciously, if you change because of something someone said you may feel that you are admitting that you are wrong and that is a difficult thing for most people. Now if you are admitting that you are wrong about the type of toothpaste you like, it does not change who you are and most people won’t even know that you switched. However, if you suddenly realize that Sponge Bob is the anti-Christ, then you have some real soul searching to do. You have to reevaluate previous conversations and thoughts. You have to rewatch every episode from your new anti-sponge viewpoint. You have to tell your friends at some point. Every time someone remembers your previous stand on the issue, you have to explain to them that you have suddenly developed a fear of a sponge that wears pants. Changing is difficult!


So, how about those people that broadcast their opinions so forcefully that they shut everyone around them down. They, who want so much to change everyone around them, instead force a situation of zero change because no one will engage them. Why—because they bring nothing to the table. If a conversation was a poker game and all the players brought “the possibility of changing” as their chips, the loud adamant people are the cheapskates that expect to play for free. They risk nothing and their opponents with chips on the table have no incentive to play against them. It may seem at first glance that these people are risking plenty by the fact that they are bringing up the topic in the first place. However, this is deceptive because while they are shouting their beliefs at the top of their lungs, they are putting out the vibe that they are not going to listen to anything anyone else has to say. They drown out other opinions by yelling, intimidating and pounding the table. They refuse to risk changing their opinion and expect their victim to take all the risk of changing, while they incur none.


So, let’s say that you are one of these loud people and you have alienated everyone that could be your friend. How can you change your ways? Start by realizing that if you want to change someone’s mind, you have to accept the idea that you might also be wrong. You have to allow them a little room to try to change your mind. It has to be an exchange of ideas, not a dictation from one person to another. Why bother to change (besides the fact that you are losing friends faster than the smelly kid in class)? Because one day you will meet someone just like you who shuts you down and will shatter your argument, leaving you to pick up the pieces and fuse your ideas back into a brittle shell. Soften your beliefs. Take a risk. Do not get violent. Learn to be the reed in the wind.


Then there are people like me, who avoid risk by avoiding the topic all together. I have learned to cherish some of my beliefs, like the idea that televangelists are evil. Now I refuse to reexamine these ideas. I scream at the TV whenever the 700 club comes on so that I don’t accidentally hear what they are saying while I fumble to change the channel. I won’t engage my grandmother on the topic of religion or politics. I know that, because I am unsure about what I feel in religion, I don’t want extreme views until I have settled into my own opinion. When it comes to politics, I know what I believe, but I am not well informed and so could not defend what I believe. It is not that I am afraid that someone will be able to change my opinion, but that I will be beaten back and forth like a tetherball, yet still remain attached to my political pole. In other words, I will look foolish for my beliefs. So on these topics, I do not engage unless the person is like me and we might benefit from each other’s opinions without being torn apart. Advice to myself: get educated on politics and figure out what I believe. Since I am too lazy to do the former and too confused to do the latter, perhaps I should just let others persuade me into new beliefs…as long as I don’t develop a love of sponges in pants.