Sitting in the Current

resistance and suggestions of clarity

Fall often brings a rush of momentum. I don’t know why, but the double-digit months typically carry an inherent swell of excitement to work. There are artworks to create, proposals to send, plans to make. This month however, that autumn surge ran up against and eddied around something else. Something like a stone or a block asking (requiring) me to pause and to open to cooler spacious waters. 

This figurative stone literally hurt when I hit it, I spent most of October either sick or injured or close to passing out. The block was so painful, probably because I had a certain idea of how my October “flow” would look. Upon returning from an enchanting and generative time in Lisbon, I was excited to continue working on the next iterations of the project I began there. This became increasingly difficult - the ideas were simply not coming in. I kept searching, eagerly (desperately?). On this hunt however, I was repeatedly crashing against a block, determined that with enough force, I could get over it and keep swimming in the current to find what I wanted. 

After a few rounds of forced rest due to sickness and injuries, I re-adjusted my position and leaned against the stone. I could simply exist in the tension, sitting in the current of two opposing feelings - a flow and a block. Rather than “finding” what is next, I could sit and watch for it. 

In my new position resting against the block, I spent a lot of time looking out my window, witnessing the communication of two separate spaces. Outdoor life touching at life indoors. Light passing through leaves, filtered through a glass window, glimmering on a drawing that I was working on inside my room. 

The stone began to feel necessary and grounding, facilitating rest that led to activation and clarity. The flow required new direction that only the block could offer. There is strength in resistance, and this message feels especially pertinent now. “Business as usual” is rarely the path to new ideas, to freedom.

Interaction occurs even in moments of rest. Pausing led to watching. And watching led to recording. My work keeps transforming, and I suppose I don’t have to fight that either (a glimpse of what I am referring to is below, for paid subscribers).

Speaking of watching, I cannot stop thinking about this exhibition, specifically the pieces titled WATCHERS. There are so many ways to see. 

“There is a suggestion of clarity if we get close enough.”