Developing a daily practice is helpful on the road to opening creative spirit. How do you become an artist? Do it everyday even its only for five little minutes. Touch the pencil to the paper. Over the years, here at Rancho DeLuxe Studios we have developed several methodologies to arrive at the present to begin the work for the day; playing darts focused the attention a while back as does the memorization of poetry. A casting of coins to consult with the I Ching has worked as does simple Vipassana Meditation for 15 minutes. We have talked in these pages about the efficacy of the practice of “DO THE NEXT THING THAT OCCURS”.
Lately, the practice is to be listening to some music or poetry via the Internet and, IPhone in hand, make a 30 second video using the ambient sound from outside or broadcast into the computer. In this practice we have limited ourselves to gathering this information from an area within 25 feet of the creation station desk. So… its been a couple of weeks and we have a collection of these mini-mini movies. Here is one recorded while listening to a reading of Roger Keyes’ poem Hokusai Says. Roger was curator of Japanese woodblock prints at the Achenbach and a dear friend.
Hokusai Says
Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
Hokusai says says there is no end to seeing
He says look forward to getting old. He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are. He says get stuck, accept it, repeat yourself as long as it is interesting.
He says keep doing what you love.
He says keep praying.
He says every one of us is a child, every one of us is ancient
every one of us has a body.
He says every one of us is frightened. He says every one of us has to find
a way to live with fear.
He says everything is alive — shells, buildings, people, fish, mountains, trees, wood is alive. Water is alive.
Everything has its own life. Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.
He says it doesn’t matter if you draw, or write books. It doesn’t matter
if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home and stare at the ants on your veranda or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden. It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.
Contentment is life living through you. Joy is life living through you. Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.
He says don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid.
Love, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you. – Roger Keyes
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Now of Now Art 