Drawing gets a bad reputation because people often think it’s only about getting details right and you have to be “talented” to do it.

No.

Those are just expectations loaded onto the activity. To hell with what other people think. Drawing can be what you want it to be.

Here’s what I love about drawing:

1. It’s affordable. There are hardly any materials involved, and certainly no toxic ones. You could draw with a ballpoint pen and paper from the printer in your office. Hell, you could even scratch out a sketch on a post-it note. The barrier to entry is virtually non-existent.

2. It’s lightweight. I’m a bit of a minimalist, and I want art practice to be a part of my daily life (more on this later). I refuse to let excessive materials burden me or get in the way of me experiencing joy or mindfulness wherever I go. It must be portable. For that, drawing reigns supreme.

   

3. It’s dry. Meaning I don’t have to wait for my work to dry before I can transport it. If I’m drawing while waiting for a train and the train arrives, I just shut my sketchbook and get on. La vie est simple.

4. It’s clean and tidy. There’s a reason museums will let you draw in their galleries, but if you needed a bottle of turpentine just to get started? Forget about it.

5. It’s straightforward and direct. Drawing is just mark-making. No mixing, diluting, thinning, wetting the paper first, nada. Just touch.

6. It makes you better at other creative pursuits. Back in the day (like, 16th-century “day”) you’d spend years drawing before you were allowed to pick up a paintbrush. I think that’s extreme, but drawing has long been foundational in art because it helps you work through problems that show up across different media. Drawing can help test different compositions. Drawing helps painters understand light and dark in their paintings better. Sculptors, too, regard drawing as an important part of their practice. Drawing is the starting point for a lot of creative pursuits.

Now take all of that and add the fact that drawing can regulate your nervous system after just ten minutes of doing it. It interrupts your thoughts, grounds you in the present moment, and connects you with your surroundings.

The more you practice the easier this becomes. The inner quiet. The deeper awareness. The heightened sensitivity. The ability to really see what’s in front of you, rather than the version adulterated by your thoughts. All of that becomes easier to access.

You don’t need a studio, you don’t need fancy materials, you don’t need talent to get the benefits. You don’t need much to make something meaningful (just ask Dolly Parton, RIP).

It’s a prime example of getting maximum impact out of very little.

So as we’re rolling out of summer, through “back to school” season and into the cozy hobby months, if you’re looking for “something for you,” the answer may be one of the simplest of them all.

For my readers in Dublin— I’ve got two drawing programs coming up at that I’m looking forward to hosting.

“Life Drawing” - A 6-week course that will equip you with practical figure-drawing skills while giving you the freedom to develop your own approach to the human figure. Learn more here.

“Mindful Drawing” - A 5-week program to build a regular drawing habit and make creative mindfulness a part of your everyday life. Learn more here.

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One was with a friend here in Dublin. She’s a musician who had taken a break from writing and performing her own music, but recently has gotten back into it. For a period of her life, she felt shame, and maybe a little embarrassment, telling people that she writes songs and has original music that she performs.

But now, she’s looking forward to a couple of performances opening for an internationally touring group from here in Ireland. She’s devoting a lot of time to rehearsing and practicing, and feeling motivated to get back into writing and performing music that is meaningful to her.

The second conversation was with a cousin of mine. She has just graduated from college and has a job working at a ceramics studio where she’s living. She was telling me how much she loves pottery, and now she gets to teach it. I heard her talk about how much she loves the work environment, the leadership, the responsibilities they’re giving her, the space to grow, and how open the studio is to feedback.

“These are wonderful qualities to have in any workplace,” I told her.

This was in the midst of a larger conversation about what she’s going to do after college. Her mother wants her to get a full-time job, because this ceramics studio job is part-time and she’s balancing it with a couple of other things.

I was listening to both of these people speak—my friend about her music and my cousin about her work at the ceramics studio—and I told them both that I can hear them “shimmering” from the inside. I can hear how warm energy fills them up and makes them glow when they’re talking about these activities that are so meaningful to them.

I could also tell, in their faces and in their tone of voice, that while they were speaking to me, they were having visions. They were envisioning something for themselves. Something that might happen in the future, and they were looking forward to it. That vision itself seemed to be shimmering and gleaming for them. It inspired them. It motivated them.

I had another conversation about this when I was in France this summer. We were talking about things that make you shimmer, the way I’m using that word now. The French used the word vibre—to vibrate.

Vibrate has a sense of motion to it. You can think of it as being animated. Something that moves you to action. Vibrate also makes me think about resonance, and how something can resonate within you. A chord is struck inside of you and the sound emitted from that chord vibrates inside of you and resonates, maybe even amplifies and grows louder.

Both of these metaphors, whether light or sound, describe an energy that’s moving through you. A positive energy that animates you and is visible or easy to witness from the outside.

In these first two conversations, I’m talking to people who are younger than me, who are envisioning something that is going to happen in the future. The third conversation (I know this is four, but the French one didn’t count - whoops) is with someone who’s much older than me: my mother.

She’s going through a process right now of selling a rental property that she has had for close to 50 years. An apartment in Washington, D.C., where she lived, where I lived, where my wife even lived for a period of time. It’s been part of our lives for decades, and it was her baby.

My mother is a creative woman. Her craft is interior design and decoration. She was always so intentional with how she organized and decorated that space, seeing it as a canvas for her taste and for things she had collected and curated throughout the years. And now she’s going through the process of selling it.

Getting it ready for sale involves improvements—more than just painting the walls. The bathtub, windows, air conditioning units. All sorts of things.

And boy is she animated. She was shimmering when I was talking to her. She’s invigorated to be making all these improvements. She’s pulling out all the stops. She’s not holding back. There were probably times between tenants when she would just have to make do with the state of the place, or have a limited window to make whatever improvements she could. There were definitely moments when she was over it and didn’t really want to be involved anymore.

Now she’s seeing this moment, the sale of this apartment, as a rite of passage. She’s making all the moves because it’s important to her that she hands this place off to the next owner in a state that makes her proud. It’s almost like a burial, but a beautiful burial, for this relationship she’s had with this property for 50 years.

And she’s having a vision, too. She’s arriving at this realization of, “wow. You know, this is how beautiful my place is.”

She’s reflecting on having owned it for so long. And she’s arriving at this moment of, “finally, I’m so happy that I could bring it to this state, to send it off.”

There’s a real deep level of fulfillment in that.

I’m sharing these stories because I want to contrast them against one another. The first two were conversations with people who are younger than me, who have something they’re looking forward to and are imagining a future for themselves.

However, my mother is witnessing some sort of deeply fulfilling reconciliation with herself take place now. She’s looking back and at how far she has come. She’s looking at the present moment of all these improvements happening to her apartment, and how that is closing a chapter, neatly tying up decades of her life being involved with this place.

I don’t want it to seem like these moments of shimmering can only happen when you’re looking toward the future. It can happen in the present.

It can happen when the present is deeply connected to the past—to things that you have wondered about, been curious about, thought about, or hoped for, but left open-ended, and can finally bring to a resolution.

So I’m speaking on this topic of shimmering and vibrating and being animated and resonating and radiating with light because I want you to think about:

What’s something that makes you shimmer?

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Including a written version below for those who are used to reading:

I host a weekly drop-in mindful watercolor creative break. I don’t call it a class because I don’t really teach anything. I simply come with an activity, people join me for the activity, and it becomes a time for people to unwind at the end of their day, spend some time in the company of strangers, and enjoy the chemistry that can come from that.

I had a participant this week, a young lady, who said to me, “This is giving me a little bit of nostalgia because I used to paint loads when I was younger.”

“Loads,” she said.

She went on to describe how she stopped because she felt she wasn’t good at it and wanted to pursue her studies or career in something else.

However, her younger sister would also paint with her when they were younger. Her sister stuck with it all these years and has far surpassed what anyone thought she would become as an artist. She’s showing her work and selling her work now.

Apparently, her younger sister has her little corner in the living room, and every night she sits there with all of her art materials, completely transfixed in whatever she’s creating. This young lady in my workshop told me that her younger sister “has less than one hour of screen time a day.”

What she then went on to say was that there’s a difference in their attitudes.

And then she said, “But my sister has a different attitude.”

Her sister’s attitude is:

This young lady was telling me that because of her younger sister’s attitude, that’s largely why she stuck with it.

Hearing this reminded me of a conversation I had with my father-in-law this summer. My wife and I were visiting her family in France, and we were sitting around the dinner table. We got onto the topic of hobbies, creativity, leisure, and the things we choose to pursue.

Her father said something like:

So imagine that. The simple act of falling short of perfection is enough to convince someone not to try at all.

I hear this attitude a lot: if you can’t be perfect at something, why pursue it?

And it’s funny because that’s not how I approach these things. Art, music, dance, boxing, surfing… any of the things that I do, I arrive and think,

This difference in attitude has been coming back to me over and over again these past couple of months.

I wonder if this idea that you have to be innately talented at something—like it has to be inside of you from birth—is what holds so many people back. While I do believe in the different forms of intelligence and different ways people are naturally inclined to certain things, I don’t think it’s realistic to believe that we should be naturally masterful at something from the beginning.

We all need to remember that there was a time when our parents had to show us how to eat with a spoon, how to tie our shoes. Skills are not innate.

Yes, there is such a thing as talent, but I think that often has more to do with sensitivity and different intelligences rather than some kind of finished ability that appears fully formed. It still needs to be cultivated.

My shoulders fell a little bit in disappointment when I heard this from my father-in-law because, first of all, the French are known for “joie de vivre.” I see no “joie de vivre” in the attitude of: if you won’t be perfect at something, don’t pursue it at all.

Where’s the joy in that? Where’s the life in that? Where’s the adventure? Where’s the curiosity? Where’s the exploration? Where’s the learning?

And unfortunately, I encounter this attitude very often in my classes.

And maybe going back to the young lady in my workshop and her younger sister, the difference is simply the ability to accept that you’re not going to be good at something right now.

Instead, ask: what can we make of it right now? What can we learn? And have faith, trust, and belief that if we stick with something, we will get better.

So these are two attitudes. Two different approaches.

Which attitude do you have? Which attitude do you approach things with?

And when was a time that you experienced having the other attitude?

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Summer break is a reset I look forward to — a time to get away, zoom out, and reflect.

Truth is i’ve felt very unmotivated to paint or draw lately (as evidenced by my last post), and that’s perfectly ok. I’m listening to that.

…but you’re an artist. Painting and drawing is what you’re good at and who you are.

Ok, but I’m still letting myself step away.

It’s not failure or self-betrayal. I’m not falling short or letting myself down. In fact, even though I’m taking a pause from it, I’m still able to connect with the part of being a “practicing artist” that matters most to me.

I’ve been playing music again lately, which has been lovely. I can’t bring myself to pick up a brush these days, but I can easily spend an hour or more with my bass.

But no matter if it’s paintbrush or bass, I’m channeling my attention into one of my senses which centers me. It centers me in the here and now and unites all the different layers of me into one. It brings me peace and calm.

That’s what I practice for.

I’m not about being the best at painting or proving I’m talented. I’m about having a variety of ways to access the nourishment I need to live a more grounded life.

Once you know what is important to you, it’s easier to craft versions of a practice that will keep you nourished.

So, what is important to you? What are you doing this for?

Here are some questions I’ve encountered over the years that have really helped me understand what my practice means to me

• what do you do?

• what makes you keep coming back to your practice?

• who are you creating for?

• are you playing it safe? if so, who or what are you trying to be safe from?

• why do you do it?

That last one changed my life. That last one distinguished the doors I need to step through from the ones I could forget about. That last one showed me the thread that runs through everything I do.

After your next practice, try asking yourself some of these questions. I encourage pen and paper. Summer is a reset to look forward to — a time to reflect :-D

Until August, everyone.

Peace and love,

NCV

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A written check-in. Below are assorted notes from a weekend of on-and-off journaling, in no particular order.

• Summer is here.

• I feel a little depleted.

• I find I have more energy for things outside what I normally do.

• I want to get away from art. Just read books, play music.

• I know my motivation will come back.

• this has been a shift into something else.

• a period a chapter a zone a reset

• ready to put it down for sure

• allow your self to step away

• we can read books

• let yourself stop

• see friends

• shifting modes

• la flemme d’ouf

• boxing is important

• music I am motivated by

• tend to physical, mental

• slow it down, no need to go fast.

• take it in.

• stretch your body

• practice bass

• read books

• see friends

• rest up. the next three months are a lot of bouncing around.

• voilà

tout est réglé ;-)

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give it a listen and check in with where you’re really alive.

—NCV

Everything here is free and made by a real human with a real practice. If you’d like to support the work, paid subscriptions help keep it going.

It’s easy to be overpowered by obligations, responsibilities, and to-do lists into nonstop action in the name of productivity. Combine my OCD with regularly biting off more than I can chew, and before I know it I’m a hamster running in a wheel of my own making.

Recently, I’ve been sketching nearly everyday as part of my mindful drawing program at . When I sketch it’s often in the morning, for a fixed period of time (usually less than 20 minutes) and totally up to me what I draw.

What’s been interesting is seeing my sketches as a way to gauge my energy for the day. Sometimes I draw really slow and this is all I manage in the amount of time:

Sometimes I’m capable of working a little more steadily, with careful looking.

Other times an absolute abundance of marks flow out of my pencil.

This small daily practice has felt so grounding lately. In the middle of all the pressure to keep moving, producing, planning, and doing, the sketch becomes less about producing something and more about where I place my attention.

A quick check-in instead of another demand. And that small pause often gives me a clearer sense of how to move through the rest of the day without ending up back on the hamster wheel.

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It’s not always deep. It’s not always the soul-charging ritual I fantasize having time and energy for. It’s not always long. It’s not always the magical bubble where the world stops spinning.

Sometimes it’s unfinished nonsense. A beginning of a drawing that anchored me to the present moment just long enough to gain insight on how I feel and some words I wrote down.

“overwhelm, lower output

rest, healing, soothing”

Not some profound awakening. Just a check-in. A lens with which to look inside.

Self-awareness.

But who knows… what I do with that awareness could set me up for a profound change in my day… or week.

It’s not always deep. It’s not always precious. It’s almost always worthwhile.

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I started another round of my mindful drawing course this week. The cohort met for the first time and I did a similar grounding exercise with them. No pencil on paper just yet, just deliberate use of our vision and nothing else.

It is possible to put all of your attention and existence into one thing, into perception. It’s amazing what wakes up in the world around you when you do. It’s also eye-opening (pun-intended) how blind we may be in many other moments of our waking lives lost in thoughts or behind screens.

A reminder to pause, and just take in what’s around you, because it is rich.

Peace and love,

NCV

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I was showing a friend my artwork from Venice last weekend. Among the paintings were two that I did from the same location at the same time of day, but ten days apart.

The difference is striking.

“Wait, what??? This one came first AND then you did that one? I would think it’s the other way around!” they said.

They were probably imagining that the looser one on the left above was a “study” done before the second one on the right. But really, it’s the other way around.

I don’t do “studies” and “finished works.” Everything is a sketch. Like a jazz musician taking a solo, I step up to my easel, give it what I’ve got that day, and accept what comes out. What comes out usually has to do with what I’m carrying inside at that moment.

What I see going on inside the first one (above), is I wanted to prove that I could do it. I wanted a palatable and recognizable outcome that was a testament to my skill and experience. But after ten days of painting around Venice, I stopped caring about all that. This motif had been sticking in my mind so I came back just to play. The need to make something presentable had left and I could paint loosely with more joy.

Don’t get me wrong, I love both of these so much. They're some of my favorite work from this trip and I think they need each other to tell their story. But there’s something magical in how carefree the second painting is while still holding together the light of the scene.

I think that carefree zone where painting becomes paintbrush playtime is best accessed after working habitually like I was. Everyday. Not swinging for the bleachers trying to make each one a masterpiece, but just accepting a painting into the regular rhythms of my day. Once in the morning, once in the evening.

After awhile creating no longer becomes precious and rare, it becomes common and ordinary. As a result, the activity becomes less loaded with expectation and becomes as significant as frying eggs (which is literally the imagery I had in my mind as I painted the one above).

Some might say that making art ordinary removes what makes it special or gives its mystique. But I think the opposite. When we stop placing creativity on a pedestal reserved for the uniquely talented, we allow its magic into our actual lives. To me, THAT is deeply beautiful. To draw, paint, sketch, or create not as a rare performance of artistry, but as a regular way of being present to your life. To me, that is an artistic life well-lived.

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My first painting trip to Venice was in 2012, while I was an apprentice at the Leo Marchutz School of Painting and Drawing. It was there I witnessed the magic of not just painting sunrise, but painting sunrise in Venice.

What invigorated me about those sessions was that they felt so out of the ordinary. Venice is already unusual with its canals and lack of cars, and sunrise there is something witnessed by few. However, to be equipped with an easel and paint to take in all of the colors, lights, and shadows as one of the most beautiful cities on earth wakes up is a sensory-soul experience like no other. I found exuberant joy in this rare moment, so different from how most people experience the city.

Venice has always represented that to me — otherworldly, out-of-the-ordinary, set-apart-from-everything-else-ness. For the past few weeks I stepped into that “world apart” to reconnect with my painting practice the way I learned how — working habitually, multiple times a day, and being completely immersed in it.

So as it goes, it’s coffee, painting, pastries, painting, gelato, painting, peroni, painting. Maybe a mosey around a new neighborhood, breaks in cafes to journal, but continuously I’m thinking, “where and when am I going to paint next?” When your daily rhythm revolves around making art, you live differently. You depend on the sun, how it moves in the sky, and the faces of the buildings it illuminates and obscures in shadow. You’re familiar with the cool morning colors and warm afternoon colors. You’re stumbling upon new views and motifs, having that “wow, thats beautiful” moment, then allowing your wonder to take over and find the exact spot to stand to compose your painting.

As you’re consuming your environment, it’s formed an all-consuming bubble around you. You’re reflecting on your last painting, what was difficult, and what worked. Since you know you’ll be doing three or four paintings a day, you’re less precious about each one and happy accidents emerge that characterize your work. Soon, painting stops being about finessing a product, but instead manifesting a body of work that tells a story. It becomes about the the process, progress, and the way your artistic touch weaves and wanders across your paintings just like you meander across Venice.

It’s a rare thing to experience, but I think it’s valuable. I wish every artist could experience the difference between work that flows naturally out of them and work that is simply testament to willpower because of a deadline or assignment. The art isn’t saying “look how talented I am,” the art is simply a by-product of a sensitive rhythm intentionally lived. In a way, the artist becomes nature themself, fertile with art.

I’m lucky I got to experience such a rhythm at such a young age. And it informs everything I do. Everything is habit, everything is practice. Boxing, writing, teaching, meditating, music. Because it is habit I know I will have many moments, so each encounter is about growing familiarity, not outcome. And as it becomes more familiar it becomes easier to access, and with time even a refuge to restore, recharge, retreat, and re-emerge.

Having pursued this “habit” lifestyle across many interests, I’ve also learned that it’s not possible to make it completely one’s life. It’s not reality. It is an ideal. There is a balance. After the “other-worldly” we must return to the “this-worldly.” But that doesn’t mean it’s not true, or not meaningful, or not worthwhile to pursue. It’s fertile, it’s rich, and maybe we can draw from that “out of the ordinary” to nourish the “ordinary.”

Peace and love,

NCV

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That’s dramatic to say, I know. Especially these days. but the stability of our home life has been disrupted. Our landlord is selling, we need to find a new apartment, etc, etc.

For those reading that don’t know, the word that usually follows “apartment search in Dublin” is “nightmare.”

So we’ve been at it. And it’s been hard. It consumes us. It weighs on us. It’s relentless uncertainty. It’s a roller coaster of hope and disappointment. It’s given me bad dreams and woken me up in the middle of the night.

Instead of focusing what I don’t have—a long-term place to stay—I focus on what I do. After my walk this morning, I decided to journal a list of things that I have had, experienced, and felt in the past few days.

written this morning, March 25 in Dublin:

trying to focus on the glass half-full

I have coffee, food

I took a walk and got some sunshine this morning

my body feels nice and sore after training for the past couple days

I have ideas and next projects planned.

I have completed ideas and projects that have been in me for almost three years. that feels amazing.

I’m just now stepping into a role that i’ve visualized for myself for eight years and have been working at for almost six. bravo

and it’s resonating with people.

I’ve received very thoughtful and meaninful gifts this week.

and in reality, I do keep managing everything else.

and of course, Alice. you are both healthy, you are both bringing each other comfort. you are getting quality time soon, you have each other. and through this ordeal, you communicate, work together, and recognize each other’s efforts.

Typing this down and reading it back just now, I’m reading the thoughts of someone who is realizing that they actually have everything they need to get through this.

And just like that, I feel more open to the day and what comes. Looking ahead instead of dwelling on what we may not get.

And it’s only 9:30am

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Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel has been a thematic book for my practice. I remember reading it for the first time towards the end of my first year studying at the Leo Marchutz School of Painting and Drawing. Very recently, a musician friend of mine here in Dublin gave it to me as a gift, not knowing I had already read it.

I showed him a particular passage that had felt so profound when I first encountered it that I could still recall its vivid imagery and knew exactly where to find it.

The passage describes the kind of transmission that takes place within an artist at work—the way an initial spark of inspiration moves through the body and becomes action.

What is true of archery and swordsmanship also applies to all the other arts. Thus, mastery in ink-painting is only attained when the hand… executes what hovers before the mind’s eye at the same moment as the mind begins to form it, without there being a hair’s breadth between. Painting then becomes spontaneous calligraphy.

I’ve applied this notion of seamless transmission to many practices in my life—music, writing, and boxing included—sometimes even using it as a measure of authenticity and truth, always as something to strive for.

Now, this lesson has come back to me as a gift. From Gabriel, but also life. I want to pass it on and share.

Seriously though, couldn’t recommend the book enough. Top three of my life easily. Influenced my direction, path, nearly everything I do.

Everything here is free and made by a real human with a real practice. If you’d like to support the work, paid subscriptions help keep it going.

Peace and love,

Nick

Everything here is free and made by a real human with a real practice. If you’d like to support the work, paid subscriptions help keep it going.

For me, less is more.

Fewer materials, fewer things to maintain, means fewer decisions which means more practice actually happens.

That’s why the sketchbook is the heartbeat of my artist practice. I may only get to one oil painting a year, but I am sketching 200+ days every year hopefully. And any larger work I do emerges from the momentum I keep with my sketchbook.

Sometimes a sketchbook gets filled in a couple of months, sometimes it could take over a year. But there is nothing like completing a sketchbook, undoing the stitching, and pulling out your drawings. Some you’re fond of, some you’re not, but each one associated with a particular place or memory. Each one evidence of you having been there, you having been present enough for that sketch.

This week I had the joy of doing this with a sketchbook I had been keeping for over a year now. Here’s a selection of the drawings within:

Seeing your practice together as a whole, as one body of work, as evidence of consistency and momentum is rewarding. It helps you identify themes and patterns in as well to give you a sense of your touch or trajectory.

The beauty is, you don’t have to rush through a sketchbook. You don’t have to exert yourself trying to complete it. Just sketch the way that feels good, because it resets you. And keep it realistic, not a chore. Let yourself off the hook when you need to, but also leave your sketchbook out with a pencil tucked inside so it’s easy to pick up again. Embrace having a habit of art in your life, with no mind towards the outcome, and you’ll be rewarded for showing up.

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Sometimes a journal entry is just a way to quickly check-in, touch base, and acknowledge what’s happened, but not necessarily analyze.

Sometimes a journal entry doesn’t even have to be sentences. It can just be words and associations, each connected to a deeper memory.

When things get chaotic and almost out of control, sometimes making a way to behold it all and witness what you’re going through can make you feel a little more sane ;-)

Fire horse.

This may just be the necessary transition to earn your next month.

Retreat, rest, fire, water, life changing massage

Chinese New Year, pork dumplings, vomiting, diarrhea, 2 brand new programs and your largest creative mindfulness workshop yet.

tension, uncertainty, shaken ground, shaken emotions. trustworthy friends and mentors you can call on. conversations with a capital “C.”

that’s definitely one hell of a start.

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And I’ve been feeling concerned I won’t get it all done. That the squeeze I’m feeling will only tighten.

Calling out through the noise in my head have been my watercolors. Probably calling out more because I haven’t been giving myself time with it. I haven’t been nourishing myself.

So I painted last night right before bed, on my bedside table in fact, just so I could squeeze in something for me. And again this morning right up until my first meeting.

Pockets of time to shut out everything else, even just temporarily.

I hope these guided grounding exercises help you enter that special, bracketed-off time and space from the rest of your life with all of its demands.

Wishing you a happy practice and a healthy reset this weekend—

NCV

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The sessions begin with a round of sharing to break the ice, and give everyone a chance to contribute something of themselves to the space.

One of my regulars is a mom of three. She comes when she can, usually in bursts of a few weeks at a time when her husband isn’t traveling for work and she can hand-off the childcare for an evening. She often mentions the chaos at home, and how coming here is something she does just for herself.

One time during our opening round of sharing, she described walking to this session and how she could “feel her shoulders drop.”

That imagery stuck with me. The mere anticipation of returning to our art session provided relief.

Creative practice doesn’t have to be loaded with pressure to level-up and prove you’re talented. Having something presentable at the end is not the only thing that makes it worthwhile. But if you’re reading this, you probably already know that.

It’s about permission. Permission you give yourself. To shut out the world for a moment, to not critique yourself, to embrace what happens, and enjoy ...regularly.

And truth is, that permission has always been yours to give.

Everything here is free and made by a real human with a real practice. If you’d like to support the work, paid subscriptions help keep it going.

When I began my circle facilitator training last year, our instructor, Nele, asked us to journal beforehand. One of the prompts was to begin an entry with: “If my voice were heard…”

That question stuck with me, because I’ve always struggled with my voice — at least with how it exists in the world. Might sound strange coming from a teacher who’s given a TEDx Talk. I certainly consider myself articulate, even poetic, but I wouldn’t describe myself as outspoken.

Growing up in Washington, D.C., means entering a world that revolves around sharpened judgment and opinion. Only the loud voices got amplified, even if their words contained no thought or meaning. Real listening was rare. For an only child of an equally-introverted mom, who played alone in his room undisturbed and never had to debate or assert himself, this was not my element.

Only a few years ago, when I started teaching and embracing my “why” of creative mindfulness did something begin to shift. I remember making a video and one of my friends saying: You have such a soothing way of speaking. You have a perfect voice for this. Over time students and peers began saying the same thing.

That was when I began to realize that maybe my voice was meant for something else.

Mine isn’t for arguing, overpowering, or proving others wrong. It’s for calming, soothing, reassuring, encouraging, and teaching. Instead of trying to beat others down, I can build them up and help them see what they already have.

Writing this journal entry for Nele was a meaningful moment for me. It allowed me to connect with that truth more clearly, and offer myself permission to continue walking in this direction.

If my voice were heard…

people would feel calm and soothed

people would feel inspired

people would feel hopeful and optimistic

people would understand completely that real true listening happens best when you empty yourself, when you hold nothing in your mind and just witness

people wouldn't sneeze at this work, it would be seen as a necessary part of a healthy and balanced lifestyle — meditation, journaling, and at least some regular exposure to how creative practice can be soothing

imagine if we did this as much as we checked our phones. the amount of time in a day we would spend returning to ourselves in the present moment and having THAT as the center, the grounded core from which we live our lives

and people wouldn’t fucking roll their eyes when I talk about this anymore, because they’ve stopped denying that they need to revisit it in themselves

Now it’s your turn. Give it a try. Take your pen and… If my voice were heard…

Everything here is free and made by a real human with a real practice. If you’d like to support the work, paid subscriptions help keep it going.

Lately, I’ve found myself saying in my classes: I don’t really think of myself as someone who makes art anymore.

When I meet someone new and they ask, “So what kind of art do you make?” I never know how to answer. It never feels accurate to say I’m a portrait painter, or a landscape painter, or an expressionist artist because I don’t stick with one subject matter and my touch is constantly changing. As usual, I don’t fit neatly into a category, and what I think is an accurate answer — “well, i’m an artist that uses painting and drawing to get my overactive mind to shut up and engage my senses to connect with to the present moment” — tends to be more than what introductory small talk can support. Like, here I go again making social interactions more burdensome because everything in my life requires explanation …ugh, artists ::rolls eyes:: (but also, …ugh, attention spans ::rolls eyes again::). So, I tend to avoid the conversation completely.

But recently I’ve started saying something else.

I don’t make art anymore. I just have art activities that I love and practice regularly.

I don’t really care about the pieces themselves — which I know I’m not supposed to say as an artist because that “devalues” my work (grumble grumble something about capitalism infecting things I’d like to keep sacred and pure) — but it’s the truth. Ask my wife, I can’t be bothered to frame the majority of my work.

What I care about is the time I spend making them. Like the drawing at the top of this post, for example. Besides being shown here, probably no one will ever set eyes on it unless they flip through the sketchbook it will forever be bound in. Ça va. Don’t care. But the hour I spent drawing it in a coffeeshop, may have been the richest hour of this whole month so far for me.

If a drawing or painting got lost or something happened to it, I don’t think I’d be nearly as upset as I would be if someone interrupted my time making it. That feels like heartbreak.

So I have art activities that I love, and I want to mention two of them briefly:

One, of course, is painting outside during golden hour. But in the winter months, when it’s endlessly rainy like it’s been here in Dublin this week, I practice something else: masterwork studies.

I love going to a used bookstore and finding a book on an artist I admire. I’ll make some tea, pull out a sketchpad, and slowly flip through it until I find something I want to draw. It feels a bit like putting on a favorite jazz album — just another way of enjoying their work and learning from it quietly.

A friend recently pointed me toward this book on Vermeer — an artist I absolutely love and find endlessly intriguing. I’ve been taking my time with it, choosing an image, drawing for a while, and stopping when I no longer feel like continuing. Nothing has to be finished.

The important part is that I’m spending time looking.

And that brings me stillness.

So maybe in the new year, instead of worrying about what kind of art you make, you could forget that question entirely. Focus on which art activities bring you the most joy, and devote your creative time to those alone. Just see how it feels.

Everything here is free and made by a real human with a real practice. If you’d like to support the work, paid subscriptions help keep it going.