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.