Lately I've been thinking about how important it is to put down the screen sometimes. There are things happening around us all the time to observe, and I think noticing them can help shift the way we approach everyday life.
Our mindset is something to be protected. I know for me, when I'm inundated with feeds, scrolling and fast-moving content, my mind has a harder time focusing and that can open the door for anxiety. I get caught in the trap of doom scrolling too, and sometimes I'll stop and think, what am I hoping to find? What am I seeking? Why do I feel so heightened?
Recently I've been remembering what things felt like before devices consumed so much of our attention.
What was it like to wake up in the morning? Maybe you watched a little news before heading off to school or work. Riding on the bus or in the car, I can remember staring out the window and noticing the seasons changing the landscape from lush green to warm autumn tones and eventually the dark, sunken gray of winter.
I remember what it was like to experience something without feeling the need to document it or capture the moment so I could remember it later. Now I can take hundreds or thousands of pictures, knowing I'll probably forget to ever look back at most of them.
There was just more time to look around.
My curiosity started young. I can remember staring at the trees through my bedroom window and being fascinated by the way the wind moved through the branches. It was like the trees were characters talking to each other. I would notice patterns in the clouds and watch how they changed slowly as they floated across the sky. I noticed the loneliness of the moon and the contrast of the bright white against the night sky.
At church, I would stare at the chalkboard after it had been erased. I could almost go into a trance looking at the chalk left behind, making out patterns, figures and forms in the marks.
When I was a child, all of those things felt magical.
I still do this.
Sometimes I'll catch myself staring at patterns in the floor and start seeing the outlines of faces or waves of hair. It's almost a meditative trance. I'm not really trying to find anything. If I stare long enough, things just start to appear.
I've realized this isn't very different from what happens when I'm making art.
A lot of my work begins with marks. I don't always know where they're going or what they're going to become. I get absorbed in the process and eventually I start seeing something. Maybe it's a shape, a figure, a face or some kind of movement. I notice it and respond to it, and that leads me somewhere else.
Maybe I never really stopped looking at things the way I did when I was a child.
I'm still fascinated by light contrasting with shadows, sharply or softly, and by textures, repetition, movement and patterns. Photography became another way for me to explore those things. My camera roll is full of pictures that probably wouldn't mean much to anyone else. A texture, a shadow, a pattern on the floor or something strange I noticed while waiting somewhere.
Sometimes I think I'll use those photographs as references or textures in my work. Sometimes I do, but a lot of the time I don't.
And lately I'm questioning whether I need to capture everything I notice anyway.
There is something different about simply experiencing something without immediately reaching for my phone. Watching the clouds move without photographing them. Seeing an interesting shadow knowing it will change as the sun moves. Letting something be temporary.
I don't want to romanticize the past and pretend everyone was more present before smartphones. I'm sure we found plenty of other ways to distract ourselves. But I do remember having more empty spaces in my day, especially as a child. There were stretches of time when there wasn't anything being fed to me to look at.
My mind had somewhere to wander.
Maybe that's part of what I'm trying to protect now.
As an adult, when I give myself that space, I can still feel some of the awe I felt as a child. The wind moving through the trees can still make me stop. I can still stare at a pattern until I see a face emerge. I can watch light move across something and wonder about the shapes it's creating.
Those things were happening the whole time.
I just have to remember to look.
