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art
June 2008 
"Space is the Breath of Art"
Posted on Apr 6th, 2007
by 
Wabisabisatva
Wabisabisatva
This is excerpt of a paper that I wrote for a class called "Process Painting and Meditation." The paper explored the connections between meditation, painting, the therapeutic process and other creative processes.
The experience of this energy, without being able to explain it with words, pointed out to me another commonality between painting and meditation: the experience of what is. In some way, the presence and awareness that we bring to these processes is our greatest creativity. For me this insight was a relief, the discovery that I do not have to do anything to be creative but that I am innately a creative being. In fact, I have spent most of my life suppressing what is naturally there inside, wanting to be expressed. All that I have to do to be creative is to breathe and see what comes. As Frank Lloyd Wright
said: "Space is the breath of art."
It is this idea of space, the empty white page, the blank canvas, that brought my thoughts back to how these experiences will be useful in the therapeutic process. I thought of the empty white page and the Buddhist concept of heaven. Heaven is that moment, (in life and in art), before you fill in the space and just experience the openness, fear, excitement and the endless possibility. Next comes the moment you paint your first stroke; this is earth. This moment between heaven and earth, before contact, of not knowing what will be produced reminded me of this same experience between client and therapist. If, as with painting, I can come to the canvas of my client with no expectations and no agenda, anything will be possible.
One of the greatest lessons here is to see how agenda prevents real and genuine presence, awareness, and contact. I can not see what "is" if I am holding on to what I would like to see.
The parallels between meditation and painting have presented me with new ways of understanding the polarity between mind and no- mind. I have also gained greater clarity in the recognition that much of what I am holding on to, is already disappearing or gone as I am trying to hold on tighter. Whether it be a thought, a feeling, a person, or an image- before I have even begun to understand it is already in the process of transforming. Art like life is not about capturing something in its unreal, permanent state, but instead about producing a state of energy, motion, and impermanence that is always changing. Some wise teacher once said to me, you're not the same person that you were yesterday. "We should not complain about impermanence, because without impermanence, nothing is possible." Thich Nhat Hanh
The experience of this energy, without being able to explain it with words, pointed out to me another commonality between painting and meditation: the experience of what is. In some way, the presence and awareness that we bring to these processes is our greatest creativity. For me this insight was a relief, the discovery that I do not have to do anything to be creative but that I am innately a creative being. In fact, I have spent most of my life suppressing what is naturally there inside, wanting to be expressed. All that I have to do to be creative is to breathe and see what comes. As Frank Lloyd Wright
said: "Space is the breath of art."
It is this idea of space, the empty white page, the blank canvas, that brought my thoughts back to how these experiences will be useful in the therapeutic process. I thought of the empty white page and the Buddhist concept of heaven. Heaven is that moment, (in life and in art), before you fill in the space and just experience the openness, fear, excitement and the endless possibility. Next comes the moment you paint your first stroke; this is earth. This moment between heaven and earth, before contact, of not knowing what will be produced reminded me of this same experience between client and therapist. If, as with painting, I can come to the canvas of my client with no expectations and no agenda, anything will be possible.
One of the greatest lessons here is to see how agenda prevents real and genuine presence, awareness, and contact. I can not see what "is" if I am holding on to what I would like to see.
The parallels between meditation and painting have presented me with new ways of understanding the polarity between mind and no- mind. I have also gained greater clarity in the recognition that much of what I am holding on to, is already disappearing or gone as I am trying to hold on tighter. Whether it be a thought, a feeling, a person, or an image- before I have even begun to understand it is already in the process of transforming. Art like life is not about capturing something in its unreal, permanent state, but instead about producing a state of energy, motion, and impermanence that is always changing. Some wise teacher once said to me, you're not the same person that you were yesterday. "We should not complain about impermanence, because without impermanence, nothing is possible." Thich Nhat Hanh
Access: PublicTagged with: art, creativity, painting, process, impermanence, Thich Nhat Hanh, mind, awareness, presence, contact, client, therapist, psychology, therapy, heaven, polarity, earth, energy, meditation
“i can not see what “is” if i am holding on to what i would like to see.”
very good.
have you heard of arvo part, the composer? he composed a piece called “tabula rasa” or “blank slate” which is a study in sound of exactly what you speak of here. his piece “beatus” is similar. in orthodox chrisitianity they have a term for this: “hesychia” or inner silence. it corresponds to the buddhist “mushin” or empty/void mind.
did you paint the above? it’s gorgeous.
Your picture is wonderful, and reminds me of Australian aboriginal “dreamtime” painting.
Have you come across Kimon Nikolaides, a very influential teacher of drawing in New York in the 1920s/1930s? His book “The Natural Way to Draw” had a huge influence on me, particularly his technique of “blind” drawing, in which you cannot see the paper on which you draw, only the object/subject in front of you. This allows you to get away from the prison of “making a work of art”, and allows you to be entirely in the moment of the process.
If you have seen the pictures in my photo section, you'll see that they are very representational. Yet for me, the magic of drawing, even “realistically” from a live model, occurs when even the process of drawing is forgotten, has become almost completely “blind,” and the drawing mysteriously seems to draw itself. There is in that moment a continuum, a unity of awareness between me and the model, so that there is no “I” drawing, just a sort of mobile meditation, the hand apparently dancing across the paper. This always seems to produce the best drawings, and in a remarkably short time, usually a few minutes!