Being “In the Flow”… an artist’s perspective
What is Flow?
What is Flow? Being in the flow is that tiny moment, almost meditative state of being when you ride the wave of inspiration…. It happens to most of us at some point — artists, athletes, gamers, writers… most of us have that moment when everything seems effortless… when creativity just spills out from us and we are in the moment… in the flow….
For me as an artist, flow is that beautiful state of being that you strive towards. It is truly one of the best parts of the creative process because there is no negativity. No second-guessing yourself that weighs you down with doubt. No indecision, because you just know that every decision you make is the right decision… You are in the flow.
So very often in the creative process, there are moments when things feel forced. You feel the exertion of effort as you are really trying to create something. You are attempting to bring forward something new and that effort strains you. It’s mentally and physically exhausting. It’s emotionally draining. You know something is there in the back of your mind, in some hidden place that is just waiting to come forward into your consciousness and you’re just trying to will it out of you and onto a blank canvas… And it just won’t.
Yet other times, you feel yourself run out of steam — when things started so well and at some point, you took a wrong turn. You added a different colour that completely changed the atmosphere of the painting… you added a straight line when only a curved one would do. You may be lucky enough to work in a medium where you can correct yourself. You can wait for the paint to dry and then go over it again, trying to cover where you went wrong, like a plaster or a bandage. But the magic is gone. The self-doubt has crept in and started stretching its tentacles around you. And now, everything you do no longer feels right. You’ve lost your way. You’ve lost your flow.
But then, there are those rare seemingly perfect times. When everything is just right… and you’re just in the flow. It is al almost transcendental experience — a meditative frame of mind of being one with your art. In those moments, time has no meaning and effort seems unnecessary. You are energized, clear and confident. The path to take is yours to define as you see fit. And all you want to do is ride the wave of inspiration and be in the flow and hope that it lasts as long as possible, so that you can do what you were born to do — to create.
Getting into the Flow
There has been much scientific research into this state of flow. So much of it speaks about neural pathways and muscle memory and the mechanics of the way the human brain and body work. But for us creative types, being in the flow is much more intangible. And I think we like it that way. It’s as if we fear that if we talk about it and analyse it too much, it might run away.
There are many tricks out there helping us get ourselves in that “in the flow” state of mind when everything we do is gold. Some suggest having a regular schedule that gets the body and mind accustomed to a certain routine. Others believe in destroying a blank canvas so that it loses its power to block creativity. And for others still, the way to achieve flow is to review previous work… editing… reading… understanding… and then hoping that with a little nudge, the flow will be there waiting to erupt and move us forward in the creative process.
But why is there this focus on getting into the flow? Instead of spending so much energy developing tricks that allegedly help get us in the flow, I believe that once we place appropriate value on the entire creative process, then flow will feel less elusive. For me, in the creative process, all parts hold equal value — the struggle of fighting against the blank page, the self doubt when you know the painting just doesn’t work, and that moment of glory of being in the flow when you seize beauty and gently and lovingly place it on the canvas. It all matters. We don’t need to put on a pedestal what the human mind, body, and spirit can achieve when it is in the flow. It is unnecessary to spend days trying to achieve a preconceived notion of being in the flow. Once we value everything as part of the creative process equally — then we know that we don’t need to be in the flow to create our best work. Because being in the flow has no definite beginning and end — it is an ever evolving process that moves back and forth between moments of clarity, to moments of doubt… from absolute energized certainty to drained effort and muscle ache. And despite what it feels like when you’re in it, being in the flow cannot exist without all the other parts of the creative process that build, protect, and nurture it.
Flow is nature
Flow is first and foremost ever changing. It is exactly this combination of control and lack of control that makes creativity and being in the flow so enticing. There is a natural rhythm to being in the flow. A physicality. Like ocean waves, there is movement, sometimes hidden sometimes violent… a transformation. It is the juxtaposition of being still yet active — in perfect synch with something that is fundamentally moving and changing constantly.
All of life has to do with flow — breathing is flow… liquids in the human body are flow… sex is flow… the change of seasons is flow. Flow is fundamentally movement. It’s riding an ocean wave in a fog…. You can’t see ahead of you, you don’t dare look behind you, you can’t physically stop and look below you, and you can’t hear anything but the ocean itself, but you trust that as long as you ride that one wave, you’ll get there… wherever “there” is. You’ll get to where you need to be because you’re in the flow.
Is Flow the feeling of control?
For some people, being in the flow is essentially feeling in control. There is intoxicating power in feeling like you have control over what you do and what happens. That power is comforting. Often, when you’re in the flow you feel all powerful. Athletes talk about feeling physically stronger when they’re in the flow. Some feel that they can create certain outcomes more predictably when they’re in the flow. They believe that in the unpredictable game of life, when they’re in the flow, they manifest predictability and order.
Flow is serendipity
For me, being in the flow is slightly different. It’s less about feeling in control and it’s more about feeling like I am simultaneously creating something that I intend to and watching outside of myself something surprising that has its own life being created. It is both feeling in control but also knowing that control is irrelevant because whatever happens on the canvas will be beautiful (even if surprising).
In art, I’ve never had any interest in painting accurately what I see in front of me. I admire those who can, as it is unparalleled skill to paint something that looks lifelike. But my passion doesn’t lead me that way. My passion leads me to that place where what I physically see combines with what I imagine, what I remember from a hazy memory and what I feel to create something. It is me creating but not only me. It is life creating. It is every single atom dancing its own dance. It is the rhythm of the world. It is so many things we know to be true and so many still that we are learning every day…
It is that magic that I consider to be my “in the flow” moment…. When simultaneously I maintain control and lose control and the result is both intended and surprising. It is serendipity. Perhaps, that’s why as an artist, I’ve always been attracted to working with media that has an element of surprise in it. Some element of unpredictability that reminds me as the artist that my hands can only guide, but they do not fully decide the final image.
Serendipity in art
What does serendipity mean in the world of art? I believe that means the most fundamental of all elements — water. When mixed with pigment, water flows and dances and jumps through a painting in a multitude of uncontrollable and surprising ways. And each way simultaneously has numerous scientific explanations and a bit of magic as well.
Logically, I know, that different inks have various levels of viscosity and they react in certain ways with whatever substrate I choose to use them on, be it canvas or paper. I also know from experience, that no two paper or canvas supports are alike and they enable the pigments and water to dance as they want. And then, you add in the other elements, which seem minor but are anything but — the type of brush (or brush substitute) used, the time of year it is and what that means for the temperature, dew point, and humidity in the air and you then have even more elements to dance with. Of course, gravity also is a deciding factor in which way the pigmented water spreads or stays and what patterns it creates.
So many factors come into play with water-based media and each have their own influence on the paint, colour, composition and final outcome of an artwork… But it is not with rules or logic that I paint. It is with intuition and emotion. There is that constant balance when I paint when I chose which elements to use and how to control them and then I stand back and watch the elements unfold. It is in that magic moment, when I am in the flow, that the artwork that comes alive and is simultaneously exactly what I intended to create and a complete surprise.
Inspiration behind my new collection of NFT artworks focusing on Flow
This idea of flow is the inspiration behind my new collection of NFT artworks. This collection features my original purely digital artworks that I have created by “stitching together” images of my original physical artworks. Starting in the physical world of my traditional artworks, I then transform them through painstaking photographing, documenting, recording, reshaping, and composing in order to create an entirely new artwork that only exists in the digital world. A process from start to finish that celebrates and embraces the idea of flow…
To create my Collection of Flow NFTs, I started by using water-based media (calligraphy ink and liquid acrylic ink) to paint with pigment and water around paper creating fractal-like shapes, intertwining colours, tonalities and moods and fundamentally celebrating movement…. The next step, is me photographing my original artworks — taking digital shots from all different angles, focusing on details and angles and creating new landscape images by shooting at an angle. The final stage of the artworks is when I create a digitally stitched together collage of nearly 200 images, all individually chosen, cropped and placed into one original new entirely digital artwork.
For each individual digital artwork, I start with an idea of inspiration, which then leads my colour palate — a place I love, an experience, a mood. And then I start adding the first key images, each time cropping, deciding, rotating and carefully placing. And then at some point, being in the flow kicks in and it’s less about deciding which image to use or how to crop it or where to place it but it’s more about just following my intuition. At that point, I go with the flow, adding images, resizing them, adding, subtracting, moving, changing… Until the result seems to be what “flow” is all about — when the result is simultaneously exactly what I want and yet full of surprises that I never planned.
Interested to see my original digital artworks inspired by the idea of being in the flow?
Head on over to OpenSea and check out my collection of original digital artworks here https://opensea.io/collection/in-the-flow .
