Once I suggested my friend who was fatigued from office work to take a short break and start again when feeling fresh. She replied that she can’t even think of sitting idle, doing nothing. Nothing — ‘doing nothing’, ‘saying nothing’, ‘thinking nothing’ — is something that scares people off, for some it is something inconceivable. But this nothingness, whether of space or time, is something interesting and opens doors to new and interesting experiences and insights.
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I am not sure whether I understood the the book Think Like An Artist Don’t Act Like One by Koos De Wilt correctly. The title seems to suggest aspiring artists not to consider their art merely as a set of skills or their profession, instead to inculcate an artistic mindset and lifestyle so that everything one does has an aesthetic or an artistic element in it. I was sure that this is what the book is about and that it would be full of motivating, inspiring and stimulating passages that would keep the creative fire aflame within me. This is important because in arts, like in any creative pursuit including science, it is very common to succumb to monotony and lose interest or initial vigour. Thus, any words of encouragement and inspiration are always helpful. I wonder how far would creative people go when left only to their own inner fire, without any encouragement from outside.
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In my early youth, I loved strolling on my terrace looking at stars, enjoying cool breeze and letting my mind wander off in random thoughts. This favourite pastime got interrupted when I entered PhD. But I remember that day when, without any thought or intention, I climbed up the stairs to the hostel terrace and spent not just couple of minutes, instead around 2 – 3 hours. However, this time they were not random thoughts, instead I was looking at my life lived till that day. It had been a long journey and hopefully I still had a long way to go. To my own surprise, I had a strong memory and recollected quite well all the major and minor incidents of my life. It was a refreshing experience as it put my whole life into proper perspective showing the journey of life as a single showreel.
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In my conversations with parents concerned about their children’s future, I always advise them to make their children invest in arts and books. Here I use art in the broadest possible sense, which includes fine arts as well as performing arts. If you indeed love your children, you must think of their future, and provide them with something which would support them whole life.
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If you want to be successful in any form of art, you need to practise it regularly in order to hone up your skill. Otherwise, any gap in your practice would slide you back and erase whatever little progress you had made. This way you would find yourself forever beginning from scratch and never making any considerable progress. But easier said than done. If you are an artist, you would know that making a piece of art is easy when you are in mood or it is your hobby, but it loses its charm when you have to perform on demand. And here the demand is ‘regular practice’. Sometimes you do have the will and discipline to get up and sit at your working table, but have no idea where to start — what to draw and how to start with it. Note that here the first stroke is the most difficult step, for once you have overcome that hurdle, then the art would by itself pull you into it. Thereafter it becomes easy. But the first step — the artist’s block as it is called — is the most difficult phase. If you ask me, personally I do not consider it to be any issue. While sketching, I start drawing whatever object is lying in front of me.
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Pradyot 