On Attention | Studio Notes

02. February 2025 | Full Moon

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”
― Mary Oliver

Creative chaos.

When I get to the studio after work, I can easily get sucked in by the frantic, habitual urge to be “productive” and make good use of the couple hours I have to paint before I have to go home and cook dinner. I have absorbed that a productive person pumps stuff out and has something to show (a new reel, a new social media post) for their time spent on a given task. This pernicious conditioned belief stifles the slow blossoming of a piece that comes to life organically, surprising you as it grows, taking form on its own time, in the dark. Surface, unfocused busyness has also burnt me out on several occasions so I am more committed to uprooting it.

Instead, my priority lately has been cultivating a deeper quality of attention when working in my studio. My screentime reports show that, like most of us, I have not been immune to the commodification of my attention. We’re constantly preyed upon by extractive tech that chips away at our ability to concentrate keeping us scrolling, drooling, and online shopping. Attention fragmentation leads to overwhelm. It doesn’t feel right in our animal bodies to be everywhere and nowhere, disembodied. Sort of stimulated but mostly bored, never fully present.

There’s much more to say about building resiliency against the Attention economy in the Digital Age. For now, what’s distressing to me is that attention fragmentation has hindered my ability to enter the flow state necessary to open the creative floodgates. I’ve grown so distracted in the last few years and I’ve often confused my role as an artist with that of a “content creator”, filming reels as I paint, documenting, sharing, monitoring engagement... Constantly interrupting my process has rendered my focus shallow and my creative practice less meaningful. I seem to be doing more on the surface, but it’s not the work that nourishes my soul. I say no more, I take my attention back! My studio is now a social media-free zone.

Flow is key. Once you are in the fertile zone, your task magnetizes your attention. It’s magic. It gets you high. The more you do it, the deeper you can go, and the longer you can sustain that focus until it sustains you. Still, I recognize that it’s important to slow down too. I’m ever learning to balance my day job with my strong, at times neurotic, creative drive knowing that a rested brain is a finer creative antenna.

The creative process is one of getting stuck and unstuck, stuck and unstuck again. Each time, the stuckness is an opportunity to pause and recalibrate our intention with what is right now. We sit back, observe, listen, and enter a dynamic relationship with what we are creating. Taking it in, we become present and attuned to what’s trying to come through us and do our best to serve its process of emergence with the craft and skills we’ve accumulated along the way. With patience and care. It’s a fine balance between letting go of our initial vision and getting the work back on track when we’ve gone astray. We have to be in flow to do it gracefully. We have to pay attention.

Since the last time I wrote Studio Notes, I’ve gotten stuck and unstuck on a few projects:

• I’m writing an essay I hope to share with you soon exploring my attraction to serpent symbolism, a recurring visitor in my art. I’m revising/editing my draft and learning to accept that this is essentially 90% of the writing process. The finish line is ever receding in the distance but I’ll get there.

• I made good progress on a new painting (perhaps even the beginning of a new series) inspired by my big stoner love for ancient civilizations juxtaposed with the cyborg archetype that’s taken hold in the collective. I know, pretty cheesy. I liked where it was going until I painted the sky way too pink and now It’s not quite right. I sort of hate it and I am stuck. I have an idea of how I’ll fix it but it’s gonna have to wait a while because…

  

• I’ve started on a new exciting commission due in a month, a quick turnaround in my world. Stay tuned!

Finally, if reclaiming your attention appeals to you, I know no better tool than learning to draw and paint realistically—a practice offering direct feedback on your moment-to-moment quality of observation and focus. As an artist, I believe learning to see is more important than any other technical skill. If you’re in Victoria, B.C., join me for my Foundations of Realist Oil Painting workshop on February 22 + 23. I’ll share with you everything you need to know from materials to techniques, colour mixing and matching, and, most importantly, ways of approaching and seeing the subject. We’ll slow down and get in the flow together. All levels are welcome!

Thanks for reading Studio Notes. Leave a comment if you are so inclined. I’d love to hear from you, whoever you are. <3