Time flies when you’re in flow…

When I’m in front of a painting and things are clicking, I lose all awareness of time. I’m just there, witnessing paint flowing and transforming. When I finally stop, I glance at the time:

“…how is it 2 am already?!”

Flow State. Time flies when you’re in flow. That’s doesn’t get mentioned often. It’s the catch: what’s exchanged for art is time.

“…How is it November 2024 already?!”

Flow state? Where did all that time go as we’ve been casually living our art?

I’m not going to get political here, but I am going to draw attention to the feelings of uncertainty and anticipation – even a bit of anxiety – that crowds in on my heart and mind as I look just a few days into the future. It’s a bit like standing in front of a blank canvas. I can envision and hope for a beautiful painting to arise there – yet I still have to pick up the brush and make the marks, welcoming each one: good, bad or ugly.

This particular November feels like a blank canvas – the next painting in a series possibly titled “Late Stage Capitalist Circus, 2024, Compost on Canvas”

But here’s the secret behind my art: it’s all welcomed. Even the parts I don’t like or want or think I need. Each piece is a dance with a trillion unknowable variables. I simply show up with the intention to make art, and then fully participate in the activity with eyes, mind and heart open.

Look: we are going to keep making our art. We are going to keep living our lives. And our best art, our best living is always possible right here and now.

We don’t need to fear the blank canvas if we trust our own deepest nature. It may feel messy and chaotic, even dangerous – as the colors and sweat and blood and dreams are flowing.

But time flies when we are in flow. Soon we’ll get to look back on the art we’ve collectively made, with all its seeming mistakes and ugly parts, and we may just sit back and say “wow. look at this thing we made. Isn’t it strange and detailed and oddly beautiful?”

Keep making your art. Keep living your life. Everything else will be just as it is.