
All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness. - Eckhart Tolle
1
[caption id="attachment_751" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="San Francisco based Artist & CEO"]
[/caption]
This quote struck me as true. Eckhart Tolle understands artists. This particular understanding of creativity is reflected in my tagline, “Savor the colors of the moment™".
When I’m in a state of creative flow, it’s true, I have no mind, I’m not thinking. So when someone asks “What were you thinking when you painted that painting?” I often have to fish around for something to say. Because really, I wasn’t thinking much.
Something, some quality, simply caught my attention initially. After that, if the creative process is flowing, I’m not thinking. I’m feeling and letting go.
It can be a challenge to say much at all about a painting or even come up with the title. The titles to my paintings are really not all that poetic.
Describing a painting is such a literal exercise imposed upon an inexplicable creative expression. But people appreciate knowing the story and my motivation behind a painting that they are interested in. That said, I often don’t say much.
With “no-mind” comes an inner stillness. It’s the lessened mental chatter one experiences with practiced meditation. It’s no wonder that art is used as therapy. After I’ve completed a painting I often feel that I’ve hit the reset button on my thinking. And physically I’m more relaxed.
Eckhart Tolle, famed author of “The Power of Now”, has it right.
