Month: October 2020

Gallery

You may begin to feel your mind expand

 

 

 

 

 

 

Currently working through a meditation block for creativity. So far it has focused on two techniques. A body scan, which is a popular mindfulness exercise encouraging you to tune in to your physical body by focusing on different locations. And visualization, this time of my ‘creative spark’ as a glow which starts in the chest and then takes over my body, the room, the street etc etc. The second one is strange, it kind of makes me think of a virus starting to possess someone (sorry last thing we want is more viruses).

These sketches are straight after 1o minutes of meditation. The one on the left is my first (not so interesting) reaction, then I began to develop the drawing more. These drawings were a reaction to a phrase used in the meditation, which was ‘you may begin to feel your mind expand’.I thought it was strange but it caught my interest.

Aside

On Meditation: the commodification of our well being

Just silly little me having some silly little reflections 

I have ‘meditated’ for a couple years on and off. By which I mean I have been using an app that guides you through techniques that ask you to be aware and unjudgmental of your surroundings and emotions, in order to acknowledge and understand them more. Of course, while giving you the serotypical breathing techniques. That part is all very lovely.

But I recently presented to a group, the idea of meditation helping me through my art, and using it as a tool to create. But I became suddenly aware through a crit that by using this app, I was essentially paying for my well being.

I have access to this app for free through a past job (don’t tell um), but I have previously paid for it. And I’ve never really stopped to think that I was commodifying my own mental health and emotions. I wonder if under capitalism is not commodifying anything possible? 

This realization was quite disheartening at the time, it stopped me in my nice floaty fluffy meditation research tracks, but I think it’s important to be aware of the deeper implications of my subject matter. So now I will continue with both lines of research *woo*

 

Quarantine Diary

         

Yes, my ~quartine diary~ a sneak peek into my lockdown thoughts. And also a starting point for this year and being freer (didn’t know that was an actual word but google says so) with my compositions, as they often spend too long cooking in my head before there’s anything visual!