Images from an Artist’s Walk

Images from an Artist’s Walk

A view from an artist’s walk

I had attempted to go on an artist’s walk at Como, took the wrong highway, got stuck in traffic and when I pulled over I wound up at the University of Saint Paul campus. While I used to spend quite a bit of time at Lori’s coffee shop across the street, the quiet of the campus used to bother me and the friend I visited there was often prone to unpleasantness. However, this particular day, that friend gone from my life, I discovered that the beauty of the University of Minnesota Saint Paul campus is its quiet, along with its intriguing buildings. What do you think these are guarding, after all, especially when less than 100 yards away are the campus stables?

Images from my Artist’s Way

I’m going to start sharing images from my artist’s dates and artist’s walks. While you can find most of them on Flickr, I thought that every so often I’d bring you some meditative focii right here. The above is from a flower show – I may be sharing lots of images from my adventures.

Come for the Oxygen. Stay for the Sloth.

I seem to be having a thing with the Chloe the Sloth at Como Conservatory. Yet another botanist noticed that Chloe wakes up when I come along – despite it being in the wee hours from the perspective of a sloth. I’m apparently one of the few visitors who gets to see her face.

So, evidently, my spirit guide for my way through Finding Water is a sloth. I don’t know what that means, unless it’s some metaphor for my sleeping too much and not working enough. Today Chloe showed her face, a rarity – and she kept moving it towards me. A tour guide was guessing that my voice is similar to her zookeeper’s, and that’s why she responds to me. Which would be fine, but this is the first day I’ve ever actually spoken to her.

Now her movement can’t be too rare – other tour guides have mentioned favorite “Chloe moves” but all of them seem to think it’s rare. Clearly, I get more of a treat.

So what about my work is related to a sloth? Well, it’s pace, definitely – I work in short bursts and wander off a lot. What else, I wonder?

Artist’s Walk – the Pruning

I made my second artist’s walk this week (third?) after getting schedules straight with Mike. On these walks, I’m seeing two things:

1. the sloth is active when I come in.

This is notable because sloths are nocturnal/not so fond of sunlight and I tend to arrive around noon.

2. the activity that is part of the care of the garden synchronizes with the care I’m taking for myself.

In this case, the gardeners are pruning at the conservatory – and I’m pruning at home, going through my goods and cleaning things out. I have this theory that time actually slows down in January. I used to focus on wishing it would speed up, and how it made winter, the most difficult time of year, even more hellish. I’ve reset my thinking, however: that makes it a great time to take care of all that stuff I don’t have time to/don’t want to the rest of the year. If time is slow anyway, then I have lots of it to cleanse, donate, and reuse.

I’m enjoying seeing the pruning, and I’m trying to sync my prunint at home. Since last week I know how a clean desk where I can work easily and a clearly defined display area that I’ll be ordering track lights for. If you’re going to pick a project where you know progress is slow, might as well choose a time when time is moving slower to do it.

It’s also nice to get in the oxygen and really make the most of my artist’s walk – lots to breathe, lots to meditate on.