Meditation and Graphic Design

It has been an interesting time since my last blog.

I decided to go to Vipassana meditation for 10 days, which is meditating in complete silence, no speaking for the 10 day period. This is beyond any doubt the hardest thing I have ever done but also tthe most rewarding. For peace of mind, happiness, creativity and clarity it is nothing less than extroadinary.

Whilst I was meditating I came up with some great new ideas which I cannot wait to execute. New ideas were pouring in. It dawned on me also that if the mind is to busy and full of crap there is no room for new ideas to come into. Creativly its a log jam.

Before I left I was considering doing scaffholding and driving a delivery van to help subsidise the current art market as there has been no work at the docks since my ankle has been good enough to work. Whilst I was meditating It came to me that I had all these graphics skills that I was not using. I had dropped graphics after half a dozen sellout shows before the GFC and was happy to drop it after 20 years and a market that was becoming flooded with designers making it harder to make a decent living from it. Whilst meditating I realised that if I eliminated all the aspects that were untenable I could happily go back freelancing and have done so. The Anyhow graphic design website is in progress and on the first day I put it out there that I was back, a very good friend Micky Eagn landed me a whole lot of work that has been terrific and its great to be back.

The other point of interest with freelancing is that it allows my art to be a creative endeavor rather than having to create art for a more commercial aspect to pay the bills. This brings me back to my original intention of why I became an artist. Art can be a trap if you create something that is popular you end up doing much the same style because you know it sells and fall into the trap of being a glorified graphic designer.

So I am back from meditating, full of ideas, freelancing happily and ready to explode into some new art that will be very different to what has come before. Stay tuned.