The Artist’s Walk Episode 1
Hi, it’s Michael Bell. Welcome to the Artist walk episode number one!
The artist walk is my chance to share some thoughts with you, some encouragements, and ideas about art and being an artist and creative and also being a functioning human in this chaotic world. I hope you’ll come along with me on this Artist walk.
Today I want to share a thought with you I had this morning. I was thinking about the idea of focus. focus is buzzword. We hear a lot. We hear people throw the idea of gaining focus or getting focused or taking a CBD gummy to increase your focus and I think that a lot of times What we think of as focus is really the idea of clarity. We are searching for clarity in a busy confusing, distracting world. we want to be able to see clearly the things that are happening around us, but I think focus is something a little different focus is more aimed it has a direction.
In photography. We use the lens on the camera and other techniques to create a sense of focus. focus calls our attention to the subject that is most important to the composition. When some things things are blurry and some things are clear or attention is drawn to the things we see clearly first, and then we examine what is happing in the rest of the picture. I think that’s true of life as well. many times we can’t take in the whole picture. It’s overwhelming for us. We like to think we can multitask and maybe some are better at it than others but I think for me in particular I really struggle with multitasking. I really struggle with having multiple projects going on at once. I really struggle with many different things happening at the same time in life and sometimes that’s unavoidable.
We live in a busy world and if you are someone with kids or if you have multiple jobs or multiple responsibilities and everything is pulling you in different directions. For us Artists and us Creatives we have to be really intentional about things that we focus our attention on and in a world where clarity is difficult to achieve. I believe that that through intention, we can focus our attention on the things that matter the most to us in the same way that in a photograph we can highlight the most important part of that composition through this process of focusing. So my encouragement to you today, this week is as you contemplate all the things on your plate, All the things that are coming at you, your responsibilities, your job, your family, your relationships that you would hold all of those things and be gentle with yourself as you go through the process of discerning what it is you’re going to spend your time on your energy on and I don’t think that it’s necessary that we do it perfectly. I think it’s OK that we live in a fluid state a messy state in many ways. I think where we get into trouble is when we try to look at everything all at once that’s when we become burned out that’s when we become overwhelmed by the amount of things that we have to take care of by the amount of projects on our plate so my encouragement to you is to think like a photographer when you start out your day think about your day as being an image a composition what things do you want to show your audience? What things do you want to highlight what things in your day are going to be the subject matter of your days composition and you can think about structuring your day around that primary thing so if it’s your work if it’s a project you have if it’s something with your family relationships your kids, your partner whatever it may be hold that subject as your area of focus and see how that affects the composition of your day.
I’m Michael Bell and this is the artists walk. If you’d like to follow along on the Artist’s walk, please subscribe follow me on socials and I’d love to hear your comments and feedback. Have a beautiful and creative day!
Listen to the episode Here