Thursday, January 08, 2004

4 Paintings on Ebay I've relisted four small (8x10") paintings on eBay at bargain prices, no reserve, including Bright Moon:  This is about your cherished dream. Much stands in your way - and all of nature conspires in your favor. One painting won't be showing till 10 p.m. EST Thursday night, but the others are already up. I'm really curious as to where the paintings will go from here. I am eager to do more. As soon as the photography is done for now, I'll take down the blackout curtains, open the studio to the sunlight, and paint again. 7:53:07 PM    comment []

Miracle Photography Day Today I shot four rolls of slides! For a professional photographer, that's probably very small potatoes. For me - I think it's a first. So I finished all the slides of my bowls - unless of course I look at the processed slides and see that they're not fabulous yet. What interests me about the day is that I didn't push at all. I didn't start early. I was prepared, had figured out yesterday exactly how to bracket the exposures, what views to shoot, etc. I'd narrowed down the best views using my trusty Canon s110 digital. I had printouts of the views I wanted, so I didn't really have to think much to do the actual shooting. About not pushing...I didn't tell myself "wouldn't it be great to shoot all four rolls? Or "let's shoot two rolls today and two tomorrow." Instead, I took a Wilderness Time approach. I said "let's start the first roll, and let it take however long it takes. In fact, I believe it took a very long time. It was the "easy bowl" re views, but getting the lighting right took a lot of experimenting. I like the glass and metal beads to shine. Since I was in the middle of shooting a bowl when I finished that roll of film, I ate lunch and came back to shoot another roll. After I shot two, I thought, "I can shoot another now." And so I ended up shooting all four. I never pressured myself, which made it much easier. Only after I'd cleaned up and walked back to the cabin, did I realize that a true miracle had occurred. I had an entire photography session, shooting four rolls of film, without shedding a single tear. I was so far from crying or even feeling tense, that I didn't even notice this wonder. Of course I give Bejeweled much of the credit. Playing last night and relaxing when I "couldn't see" really helped today. When I "couldn't see to focus" I knew I'd be able to see once I relaxed more. The originator of the Suzuki violin method wrote a fascinating autobiography. In it he mentions that he was once asked to offer management consultation to a manufacturing company. How to increase production? He suggested that the owners give the workers an hour every day to play table tennis. They did. Production shot up. Suzuki thought it was partly the eye-hand coordination that table tennis develops. But of course relaxation was a big part of it too. Table tennis or Bejeweled? Both? Take your choice. Let's step up production and make plenty of good art - and slides. 6:20:31 PM    comment []

Focusing on relaxation Last night I was playing a pattern recogniton game, Bejeweled, on my partner's PDA. (That's a palm sized mini computer that's called a Personal Digital Assistant or PDA for short.) I was playing the timed version, so the more quickly I saw the patterns, the higher my score. Sometimes this is easy, but other times there may be only one possible move on the entire screen. Then I'd start to tense up. Time's running out! Where, where, where? As an experiment, I tried placing my attention on my state of relaxation. Instead of going for a high score, I'd base my success on how relaxed I could stay through the whole game. So when I suddenly couldn't see a move, I'd remind myself of this, and take a deep breath. I'd just let my eyes rove "softly" over the screen, relaxing. This worked much better. Often as soon as I took a deep breath, I'd see a possible move. My scores were higher than before. Naturally I'm telling about this because it looks applicable to many other situations. I got the idea of focusing on relaxation from my favorite book read in 2003, Effortless Living. Of course, even if the "scores" aren't higher, having a relaxed good time is nothing to sneeze at. By the way, there's a desktop version of Bejeweled, too. I think it's not quite as much fun as the PDA version, but it's better than life without any Bejeweled at all. This game was invaluable when I was in a wheelchair after breaking some bones. Be prepared.... 9:03:38 AM    comment []