Expansion

I was guided to create some transient art today. Transient art is art that isn't meant to be permanent, it's where you put together things in a temporary configuration and take a picture.

I started out just gathering pens/pencils from our junk drawer, then added in a few art supplies, and then ended up putting them together in a color gradient, this was totally satisfying, I could feel like the motor was running (the internal motor that starts when you get into a flow state, where time stops existing, and you just keep working at something until you just know its complete. The absurdity of organizing pens, somehow made it even more exciting).

Then I was guided to put together the same rows except group them by type. I found this exercise to be entirely frustrating. As I was sorting through looking for different types, there was no room for expression, because everything was being guided by rules, or definitions, in the end there was no room for expression or flexibility. I might have sighed at least half a dozen times searching and grouping, just to get it done.

I had to sit and ponder these two exercises when it was done to fully understand what was being shown.

I was flipping through the photos I took and as I did I ran across this one. In a moment, I forgot what it was, and my mind looked at it, just as it was without a definition. Noticing the gradient, and sheen, and interesting gathering of grit, almost like an opposite moon.

Then poof, I remembered what it was, and do you know what came in immediately after that? hmm, the lighting could have been better, or what if it swirled around a bit more to make it heavier or darker here.

So I proceeded to make the image even more abstract so you can see it without definition too, and perhaps with new eyes, without judgement and allowing it to just be.

I suppose the exercise this morning shouldn't surprise me about why I'm more drawn to abstract art, where there aren't rules, or pre-defined guidelines. In fact the more off the map I go, it seems the happier it makes me.

Could you expand yourself, if you just let go of the definition of what it's 'suppose' to look like?

Are there 'hidden' rules guiding you?

If you followed more of your initial impulses would they take you to a more expanded way of being?