Agnes Martin Inspiration Flow

Being in the Flow — and Agnes Martin

“The most excellent jihad is that for the conquest of self.” — Colum McCann

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” — Rumi

“Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings.” — Agnes Martin

There are many ways to quiet the mind in times of fear and heightened anxiety—some of them destructive over time. Of those that aren’t, I’ve always returned to making art. Working with my hands. Letting my thoughts dissolve into the act of creating. Letting the mind find its rhythm, its zone.

Some days, it feels like flow. On others, it’s more like survival—like holding everything in, like a cork in a bottle, gripping tightly to what I don’t want to crack open… or simply can’t. Often, I don’t even know what I’m feeling until days, weeks, sometimes years later.

I miss the dance floor. I miss my dance community. I miss the moment when the cork pops and the energy spills out. The possibility of release. Of movement. Of freedom.

Since this strange season of COVID-19 house arrest began, I’ve started a new series of paintings: colored stripes, one touching the next. The vision is simple: build an analogous composition that reminds me—constantly—that I never really see a color as it is, but only as it lives in relation to what’s beside it.

There are infinite variations. So many kinds of brushes. So many kinds of colors. The exploration is endless.

And when I hit that point of flow, my mind narrows to the tip of the brush. I become the line I’m painting. Sometimes the paint moves like butter—smooth, long, uninterrupted strokes. Other times, it thickens like cement. Then it’s dot by dot, slow and methodical, one breath at a time.

Unveiling Agnes Martin: From Schizophrenia to Sublime Serenity

“My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.” – Agnes Martin

“When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life.  It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection.” – Agnes Martin

Lately, I’ve been returning to the work—and the life—of Agnes Martin. An American painter (1912–2004), she lived and worked in Cuba, New Mexico, a remote desert town that feels like the edge of the world. Over the years, I’ve stood before her paintings many times in public collections across the U.S. Each time, I’ve stopped. Stilled. They never fail to hush me.

One story I love: she would sit in her studio until an intuitive sensation arrived—sometimes a single word like “Agony,” “Happiness,” or “Love”—and then she’d leap to her feet, brush in hand, and begin. Another story about her that I love is about Agnes holding a rose before a young girl.

“Is the flower beautiful?” she asked.

“Yes,” said the girl.

Agnes hid it behind her back: “Is it still beautiful?”

“Yes.”

“You see,” Agnes said, “beauty is all in your mind.”

But less is told about her illness. Agnes Martin lived with schizophrenia. The voices—those only she could hear—led her to push people away. Friends. Lovers. I don’t envy those on the receiving end of her sudden eruptions. The disorientation, the gaslighting, the heartbreak. Her choice to live in near solitude begins to make sense. As Rumi, the 13th-century poet, said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Maybe that was her path. Maybe her pain was the door to her greatness.

From afar, her paintings appear almost blank—squares of 60″ or 72″ on each side. At best, a pale wash. But as you move closer, faint grids emerge—meticulous vertical and horizontal lines drawn by hand over delicate layers of thinned pigment. Some critics see the vast skies and open land of New Mexico in them. But Agnes insisted: her paintings are about “What is known forever in the mind.” They are “Concrete representations of our most subtle feelings.”

When I look at her paintings, the emptiness sounds like a loud, painful scream. They vibrate with something raw and unspoken. At the same time, they are mystical, zen-like, and most definitely meditative. When I sit with her work, I feel both longing and clarity. As if silence has texture. As if absence holds presence.

She once wrote:

“If you can imagine that you’re a rock

all your troubles fall away.

It’s consolation.

Sand is better.

You’re so much smaller as a grain of sand.

We are so much less.

These paintings are about freedom from the cares of this world,

from worldliness—not religion.

You don’t have to be religious to have inspiration.

Senility is looking back with nostalgia.

Senility is lack of inspiration.

Art restimulates inspiration and awakens sensibilities.

That’s the function of art.”

— Agnes Martin, The Untroubled Mind (1972)

👉 If you’re interested in Agnes Martin’s quietly profound writings, I recommend two powerful sources:

🌀 The Untroubled Mind (1972)

🌿 The Culturium: Agnes Martin Writings.

Gratitude in Routines: Finding Joy in Daily Connections

A word of gratitude.

I’m grateful for routines—and for the energy to sustain them. Every morning, without exception, I ride my bicycle down Ballona Creek to the Marina and continue south along the ocean to Lifeguard Station 56. It’s my daily communion with nature. The Pacific on one side, the quiet path on the other, and Sofi Tukker in my ears. This duo’s electronic dance music and daily DJ session are an uplift.

In this time of physical isolation, many people and institutions found ways to stay present. And for that, I’m thankful.

A shout-out to our amazing Iyengar yoga teacher, Christin Stein, whose Zoom sessions restore body and spirit. Her sequences are methodical, her voice calming—a welcome rhythm in my week.

I’m grateful to Rabbi Naomi Levy, who joins us every Friday night at dinner through Facebook Live, bringing spirit, tradition, and community into our home. From her, I’ve learned a phrase that keeps echoing in me: “The discipline of restraint.”

I’m grateful for my friend Bob Korda—for our daily connection, for the reliability of his presence.

And most of all, I’m grateful to Danna Sigal, my love, who fills my life with depth, joy, and unwavering acceptance.

“Of all the pitfalls in our paths and the tremendous delays and wanderings off the track, I want to say that they are not what they seem to be. I want to say that all that seems like fantastic mistakes are not mistakes, all that seems like error is not error; and it all has to be done. That which seems like a false step is the next step.”—Agnes Martin

👉 For more on how place and ritual intertwine in my life, you can visit my reflection on Lifeguard Station 56.

May 2020