Flow helps to integrate the self because in that state of deep concentration consciousness is unusually well ordered. Thoughts, intentions, feelings, and all the senses are focused on the same goal. Experience is in harmony.
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990)
This week, I finished the piece shown here, Flow, for my annual solo show at the Principle Gallery in June. The title comes from the stream flowing in the painting but also refers to the creative flow I am trying to find at the moment.
This is something I have written about a number of times over the years. It is sometimes easy to tap into but other times it is unsatisfyingly absent, as though I might have to resort to a divining rod to find some hidden spring that might turn into a flow.
I know it’s still there at the moment but it’s hard to completely immerse myself in it. Too many distractions, doctor appointments, and fatigue, both physical and mental. It often feels as though just when I am about to slide into the flow lately, something pulls me from it.
However much it frustrates me, I know from prior experience, having lost the flow a number of times over the years, that it’s there still. There’s reassurance in that knowledge. It often seems as though it has dried up forever but somehow, through perseverance and desire, it begins once more to flow easily.
This new painting feels as though it has brought me closer to that flow. Much of the time as I painted, I felt immersed in it. It was great feeling and I think this painting reflects that. It has a strength and rhythm that I like in my work.
Now the trick is to carry that flow’s momentum forward. It’s coming, I am sure.
Here’s a post from 2013 that tries to explain it. I don’t know whether it does so in a satisfying way. But, as they say, it is what it is. Judge for yourself.
I wrote the other day about my search for that intangible thing in my work, that quality that will set me off on a new path. I’ve been thinking about it and what I think I am really looking for comes down to one word: Flow. There’s a famous book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, from psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (please don’t ask me how to pronounce his name)that describes flow as a sense of being in the zone or in the groove, of being so totally immersed in the task before you that the external world is blocked out. He describes it as being like playing jazz, where each action, thought and movement rises from the previous one.
He points out that this flow occurs when there is a balance between the level of the challenge and the skill of the person facing it. Basically, this person is working at the far end of their skill level, pushing themselves to their boundaries in order to conquer the task before them. There can be no thought other than that thing before them. Total concentration and dedication.
I think of it in terms of a mountain climber facing a climb that seems at the far end of their limits, who must muster up all their knowledge and abilities then concentrate on each movement in order to scale the daunting peak before them.
I have known this feeling, this flow that he describes, in painting. I have often described this feeling of immersion, of a level of concentration where each action leads to the next and time seems to fade into nothingness. I don’t hear the music playing, don’t feel thirst or hunger, don’t think about other things that I need to do or things that might be worrying me.
When I have been in this state it seems so real and so concrete that it feels as though it is always right there and attainable. It is intoxicating.
But it is not sustainable forever without creating new challenges. One you have conquered one peak, you need a new one to face up to. Without this challenge, you are at a comfortable plateau, something I have attempted to describe in the recent past. Stay put, your skill exceeds the challenge and total immersion is not necessary. While there is a level of needed concentration to simply maintain this elevation, there is also room for outside thoughts and concerns.
The once difficult task has become the normal course. Comfortable.
And this is fine and, as I have said before, most artists reach a comfortable level and settle in for the long term at this high level. But deep inside, at least for me at the moment, there is a gnawing feeling to find myself hanging tenuously on a new, scary ascent, pushing my abilities to new levels. Riding the flow of the thrill of this tunnel-like focus.
That’s where I find myself at the moment– at a plateau, looking up for a new peak to attack.
Redtree Times 