I’ve been longing for artistic community. Ever since I returned to the real world and left behind the magic of the residency in Nebraska, I’ve felt this lack, this awareness of something missing. And it seems fairly obvious that what I no longer have is a group of comrades, working together, discussing ideas and inspiring each other.

There is this Buddhist idea that you have what you need at all times, if you are able to become fully aware. We humans tend to find the one thing we’re don’t have — and then miss out on acknowledging all the things we do. For example, you might neglect to notice all the love in your life — and instead focus on a broken heart. It takes a certain amount of grace to be aware of all the good and to remember that all of the bad, the entropy, the disorder is just one part of the picture.

In my attempts to be more present, I think it’s important to stop for a bit and be grateful for the community that I do have. Since starting the blog, Rhonda has been sending me an inspirational text message every morning, little quotes and sweet sayings to start my day. It is an amazing way to wake up.

Also, every day, my friend, the musician Mark Richardson, has been sending me songs that he has written over the years with explanations of where he was, what he was feeling and what the words mean. I eagerly look forward to the emails, listening to the melodies and reading what he wrote.

And then there’s the mail. Luckily, I have stumbled upon a few letter-writers lately. I am so grateful to receive a letter from Aimee, a postcard from Selina, a CD from Ben, writing from Carmella, a long note from a writer in Houston, Greg Oaks. It feels liberating to write letters again — it helps clear my thoughts and reminds me that communication can be so much deeper than the usual email, social media interaction or even phone call.

I am thankful for the artists who do call me as well to discuss art, especially for Justin Dunford, who is the most talented and always willing to give me a critique of a painting. I am lucky to have new friends like Daylan who will talk about art over coffee. And it helps me to focus on all of this — instead of sitting around missing my lunches with Angela Dillon, stopping into Kevin Peterson’s studio in Houston or my many happy hours, dinners and evenings at the Art Farm.

I still desire bringing back what I had at the Art Farm to my regular life, capturing that essence somehow. I still want to figure out a way to build a community here and now. But I need to stop and take time to appreciate and acknowledge what I have already — because it’s a lot.

“We come marvelously equipped into a world offering a cornucopia of things to see, touch, smell, taste and hear, and we come with wiring to dream, remember, imagine,” Peter London writes in “No More Secondhand Art.”

Sometimes we forget how fully equipped we are — and how wondrous the world is. It’s easy to get lost in emails, constantly binging cell phones, inane conversations, day job drama, even self-defeating relationships.

Being more present continues to be my goal — and it’s a constant struggle. Occasionally I find myself texting while walking my dog, I stop, put the phone in my pocket, sigh and notice the bending necks of sunflowers, wilting knee-high daisies, gardens of succulents, strange alien-like plants. You can almost see the summer air lingering, seemingly saying the days are long, life is sweet but short.

I find the best thing has been plunging into my chilly apartment pool. I can’t think of anything but breath, light, temperature and movement.

The lovely poet Aimee Herman tells me that she takes time to stop along her journey and check to make sure all of her parts have shown up with her. I like her concept of inventory of self. What would that include, Aimee? Memories too?

I write to Lily, who now exploring Paris, that I want to be more authentic, spontaneous, brave and original. These are things we could practice daily at the Art Farm — but back in real life, I don’t know how to experiment with that, how to show it, put it into action.

Lily writes, “I think we all need the right context and the right place and the right people to allow those things to come out. You can’t do it in a vacuum.”

My painting “Just When You Thought You Would Turn Out all Your Lights, It Shines”

Everything I’ve ever wanted to say through painting is what the act of painting actually speaks in and of itself — it’s the reduction of a chaotic life into a simple and beautiful scene. It’s editing the details, focusing light, speaking to movement the fade of particles into each other, the melting of substance into entropy, the building of one thing onto another as it happens constantly and with certainty. All of that is expressed in the classic style of painting. Adding layer upon layer, thought upon thought, slowly, thoughtfully, constantly building up the surface of the painting so that it still allows the layers beneath to exist and breathe. Painting, covering, smearing everything out and starting over.

Returning to my tiny, closet of a studio

It’s hard to believe that it’s been two weeks since I returned home from my residency at the Art Farm. When I first arrived, I held on to that fierce feeling of being alive that I had gained. I felt like I was listening better, enjoying people more, laughing more genuinely and seeing things more clearly than before.  That lasted a couple of days — and then I felt weighted, heavy, lonely, puttering around the city and half-heartedly trying to catch up at work after a month away.

I didn’t paint at all — until yesterday. And I felt guilty about that. At the same time, I was missing the hours in the studio. I was both nostalgic for the long chunks of time I devoted to art on the farm and yet totally unmotivated to pick up a brush. Even my journal entries became boring and whiny.

Talking to the other residents has helped. Selina said she hasn’t had much time to be creative. Some of the girls reported feeling tired as well. And then I read Carmella’s entry about “Getting over Guilt” on her blog http://www.therestlesswriter.com. She wrote “. . . all along, I was giving myself an internal verbal beat down. You should be writing. Those pieces need editing. Why aren’t you sending work out? You’re never going to be a writer at this rate. I don’t want guilt to be a constant part of my psyche.”

And I agree. We artists are fragile in so many ways, despite our attempts to go out and conquer. We have to be gentle to ourselves — and that’s a big challenge for me.

Guilt and fear should be replaced by brighter things — love, passion, creativity, integrity, light.

Van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother ” . . . it certainly is true that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, then to be narrow-minded and over prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies true strength; whosoever loves much, performs and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”

The fact that we have been given life doesn’t mean that we realize the nature of the life we are given. The creative process has the potential to wake us up to the vast unexplored domain of our own nature. 

— Peter London

At a certain point during my residency at the Art Farm, I thought, “This place is like a playground for adults.” There was a ladder to climb into the sky and a unicorn swing to fly through a floating barn, which was basically a jungle gym itself. I often perched on a swing in Lily’s studio while drinking wine and chatting with the girls and we made little forts of our studios — we claimed the space as our own, made room to explore art and get messy. We tromped through fields to discover hidden sculptures, dove into lakes, raced down waterslides in the moonlight, hiked through prairies and rested on rooftops to take in the view and soak in the stars.

Now that I’m back at home, I’ve been focused on how to not forget that feeling of the Art Farm — the sense that a day can stretch, that hours last for days, that a day can be a month. I woke up knowing that spending as many hours as possible in my studio was my top priority — but also understanding that equally important was chatting over coffee with Aimee, having long car ride philosophy sessions with Lily, jogging with Raluca and soaking up the sun and water with Carmella.

“To create art drawn from within is to create a world of our own and also to uncover an all-but-forgotten original, primal self,” Peter London writes in “No More Secondhand Art.”

He talks about how children explore, how fairy tales are part of everyday life for young minds. Of this original self, he explains:  “Its waking and sleeping life was full of adventurous experiments and confrontations with unknown territory. It wept freely, laughed openly and felt itself grow daily physically, intellectually, socially and spiritually . . . The original self seems to also have been rather artistic; it loved to make things, intricate, finely made things, privately meaningful things. There seemed to be an easy and graceful way of playing, fantasizing, creating stories and things, sometimes with others, often alone.”

London said that art is a means to reconnecting with this original self. I remember when Bob Mosier became my art teacher in high school and started my small class on a journey of becoming actual artists. He told us that we had to be in touch with childhood wonder — and we were only a few years older than being kids then. Now, in my 30s, I feel like so much time has been spent in the drudgery of work, the social obligations, the day-to-day maintenance — and that inner child has been ignored more than she should have been.

I think artists need to make time to play, to explore and to wander. It’s the only way to feed our image bank, to stimulate new ideas and to let that inner creative child live. The question is — how do we encourage playtime in a world that seems to discourage it?

Making art is a way of concretizing our need for a broader and deeper range of living. 

— Joseph Zinker

To create art drawn from within is to create a world of our own and also to uncover an all-but-forgotten original, primal self. 

— Peter London