Flowers in the desert

~ we have it all already ~ 

There are flowers in the desert that we didn't know existed. They just need water.

I've been wondering why Meditation has resonated with me so strongly, and I realised last night that it because I've already had some of these thoughts - in relation to making and teaching sculpture.

The main focus of my teaching has always been on bringing out what's naturally there.  We don't have to be experienced Sculptors/Artists to make expressive work, complete beginners can have as good an idea and create as strong an image as any experienced sculptor.  

I'm an untrained sculptor (as are many) so I had to think my own way through the whole thing. When I began to teach I thought back to how I felt when I started: what the intention was, the focus, the drive.  I remembered the fear of being useless and  the exhilaration of expression.  I recalled what it was that I needed then - and now, for my Classes/Courses, that's what I provide. 

The act of creating/expressing comes from so deep within, hard to know from where, but its palpable.

Reading the wonderful book "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle has just joined up the dots for me.

As with Meditation, when we're creating, we need to let go, stop thinking, start contacting our deeper selves: the source. 

We need to free ourselves from our judgmental minds, from a fear of failure, from a definition of what's "good", from the so-called "conscious" world we spend our lives in. (Conscious?  I don't think so) 

We need to slow down, wake up, close our eyes to open them again.  

And in Art we need to stop looking for something-to-say.  All that's needed its that we start listening to our deeper selves.  

"I have known it all already..."

(Thank you again, TS Elliot)

Look for Nothing, and you'll find Everything.

"Form is emptiness, Emptiness is form"

(From The Heart Sutra - one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts)

To paraphrase some of what Tolle says: We need to reclaim consciousness from the mind, freeing vast amounts that have been trapped in useless and compulsive thinking.

We need to free ourselves from fear of failure, the constant tormentor that entraps us in the illusion of who we think we are - "this ephemeral and vulnerable form"

We are massive.  And its from this that we create.

To quote Tolle directly:
"Every physical object or body has come out of nothing, is surrounded by nothing and will eventually return to nothing.  Not only that but even inside every physical body there is more "Nothing" than "Something". Physicists tell us that the solidity of matter is an illusion.  Even seemingly solid matter, including your physical body, is nearly 100% empty space.  - so vast are the distances between the atoms compared to their size. What is more, even inside every atom there is mostly empty space.  What is left is more like a vibrational frequency than particles of solid matter, more like a musical note".

Nothing and Silence and being present in the Now is the portal to our source - our Being, from which we connect with all creativity in the universe.  There is nothing to understand, nothing to learn, certainly nothing one can do a Ph.D. in.  If we try to understand it, we'll miss it... All we have to do is be present in the Now.

So, couldn't be easier then! (erchum ... takes a while I understand, but the road's a straight one and we've only got to put one foot in front of the other)

"... Here, Now, Always.

A condition of complete simplicity

Costing not less than everything".

(Elliot where would we be without you?)

~ ~ ~

For more info on the way I teach and the courses I run go to http://www.katenewlyn.com/

Beauty is Truth, Truth, Beauty.

"Viewers are often wrongfully seduced by beauty.   Art is not beauty; rather it is the deepest expression of emotion in the moment."
Lucian Freud.

Same said 3 centuries earlier by Keats:

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

(... Well, apart from the fact that putting your hand in a flame's not a very good idea ... Oh, and knowing a bit of "what the Romans did for us" ... but that I think just about covers it)

But, back to Beauty 'n' Truth ...

The Guest House - By Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out 
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them all at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent 
as a guide from beyond.
Always check your inner state
with the lord of your heart.
Copper doesn't know its copper,
until its changing to gold.
Your loving doesn't know majesty
until it knows its helplessness.

A Friend Indeed by Kate Newlyn 2013

We'll all probably aware that one of the healthiest things we can do is to acknowledge our emotions (even - or especially - the most painful).  

To acknowledge them instead of blocking them off/pushing them away is to be absolutely truthful with ourselves.

From this: not only good health, but true Art will come.

"Emotion recollected in tranquility" (thank you again Wordsworth)

Observing the emotions (as the image of my sculpture above suggests) is one of the keys to meditation too.

This "Friend Indeed" is both parts of oneself - the suffering (the mind-based ego that has lost touch with the Now) and the Watcher (acknowledging, allowing, letting things be)

More later on how we go about doing this in our lives ...

http://www.katenewlyn.com/

A lovely exercise

A First-Aid exercise, to chill out ... 

Close your eyes and relax (become aware of your breath, feel your body supported by your chair  and your feet on the ground, relax every sinew ...) then:

Imagine that the darkness you see with your eyes closed is actually an incredibly beautiful blue sky.  The loveliest of summer days, with just the faintest wisps of cloud.

As you're enjoying this remember that this isn't just a sky you're looking at, you're actually staring right up into space.  And its massive.

Become aware of your breathing again and start to breath that beautiful infinite space into your lungs.  

A few deep breaths and it starts to become part of you. It fills your chest and belly, warming you throughout.  Emotions dissolve in the enormity of the space you're creating inside yourself.  It fills your head and your thoughts evaporate in tiny wisps of cloud... 

... revert to normal breathing and stay with the image ...

Soon there'll be no difference between you and that infinite blue, except for a vague awareness of the translucent body you live in, a shimmering mirage of form suspended in the clear blue of that infinite space... a gossamer shell of transparency drifting on the whisper of a wind...

Enjoy

(don't forget to come back tho')

~ ~ ~

I devised this exercise when I was in need of some peace from a ridiculously busy mind last night - and it worked. It won't win the war but it'll help to keep the peace, so its a useful First-Aid-er.  I'll ask my meditation teacher this week where else we can go with this one.

It was devised from 2 things:
1) my mum's self-devised exercise in meditation (she's taken it up now ~ at the age of 90)
2) some key words my teacher used at my last session.  Notably: the notion of the vastness of the universe dwarfing one's emotions, and the idea of connecting oneself to that infinity.

I'll describe my mum's exercise in the next blog.  Its lovely! 

I too a beginner at meditation, I also really want to become a beginner in sculpture again, and I think this exercise may help this as well ~ in harnessing the subconscious ... losing the ego ... letting go.

More on this later too...

~ ~ ~

For more information on the Sculpture Courses I run go to: http://www.katenewlyn.com/

  

We're all Artists

Two interesting notions were discussed in my last Meditation session:

1) Ideas, Art, Inspiration (even just fleeting images) don't come to us from the outside, they come from inside - from our internal response to the outside world. 

(... so, no flashes of divine light here, no great "outer power" giving some lucky "chosen ones" the power of genius. Its all within us all. We just need to look inside).

2) This type of Meditation doesn't aim for introspection, its aim is to open us out.

~ So that thought bubble turns into a whole world ~

On a very basic level, as far as Art's concerned, its Hallelujah for anyone wanting to take it up but cowed by the fear that they won't be "good enough" - everyone's capable of creating great Art, it just takes looking in the right place: inside oneself.

And as far as this Meditation technique is concerned we can put aside any fears that we may turn into introspective reclusives.  Quite the opposite. Having looked inside we'll then be far more capable of relating to and dealing with the outside world and what it chucks at us (such as big changes in our lives, shocking diagnoses, the deaths of a loved ones etc).

"So that's all good then" (thank you Hue Bonneville from "W1A" - and if you haven't yet seen it: Do! its a scream!)  

Right, breakfast.

~ ~ ~

These ideas aren't new - but what is? - and they've been propounded by some great thinkers, I'm looking forward to re-focusing on them. I came up with similar theories when I began teaching - was lovely to find others had thought, and do think, the same.  You can read how I described it, on my website: http://www.katenewlyn.com/

Breakfast calls...

Thoughts - and a Break-through

So, if our clever minds are our best friends (albeit bossy ones) we should treat them with respect and be polite when we ask them to leave us alone for a while. 

Creating an image is a lovely way of doing this. 

I picture myself reaching out and catching a bubble or a feather on the wind. I hold it, name it ("memory", "regret", "idea" etc), thank it for coming to help me and then blow it away. I can then return to the Now.  

If I'm having a hard time quietening my mind, with a whole series of thoughts coming one after another and no time to name them all, I'll imagine blowing loads of beautiful soapy bubbles into a blue sky ~ its pretty good short-hand for "thanks but go away".

Using images, as we're doing more and more in my Meditation classes, is one of the reasons this feels so good for artists, poets, painters, sculptors etc. 

And I'm thinking about art much more in these terms now.  

My preference is definitely shifting away from anatomically accurate figurative sculpture I've been in love with for so long...

Ariel by Kate Newlyn 2006

 and much more towards abstract and stylised work. Its a lovely break-through

Osho

In my sculpture classes, for many years, I've stressed the importance and power of simplicity in images, but somehow I've always held onto the "security" of the complexity of the anatomical structure.  I guess I've just been aware that I've had to make a living and, for the most part, figurative work is more "sell-able".  
But so much can be lost. 

I'm now letting go of this.

My students have now become my teachers.

Couple by Ann Shipobotham

This gorgeous couple, made by Ann a few years ago says it all.  The power of simplicity and understatement.  Just the slightest tilt of the woman's head, and the subtly laconic pose of her partner.  A whole relationship described - and not a care in the world for sculpting their fingers - who needs them? 

Mother and Child by Carol Moule

And this lovely piece by Carole, another student, not an experienced sculptor, just someone who wanted to express the closeness of this bond.  And she's done it.

Celebration by Carol Westecot 

This expressive figure was made by another of my students. Again, a first-time sculptor, (who has since been bitten by the bug and gone on to study at Art College). 

Grief

Another by Carol, another exercise in simplicity.  Feels like I'm attending my own courses now)

The Journey by Miles Thomason

And another piece, by another beginner sculptor, using cloth and jesmonite, and allowing only the flow of the material and a simple stance to create the sculpture.

Yup, I've definitely just enrolled on a Newlyn School of Sculpture Course.  


Odd, but when I look back on some of my old work I had much more of a sense of the power of simplicity. This piece, from 1997:

Apart We Exist; Together We are Whole

and this one too

Mother and Child ~ 1999

Making my living got in the way - well now I'm making my life, I'm back on track.

... I'm stretching figures out of proportion to accentuate tension, squashing them to create a sense of claustrophobia, paying no head to proportion of hands/feet...  

Free again!  Feels good.

~ ~ ~

You can see more inspired/inspiring work by beginner sculptors on my website, they have their own gallery page http://www.katenewlyn.com/