Kat Eye Studio

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The Space Between

I have been struggling with my art. Yes, I’ve been playing and exploring, but struggling too. Learning something new is like that. The delight of new discovery. The wonder of the first, sometimes accidental, success. Then comes realization of intent. And with it the struggle to recreate what was first encountered by serendipitous accident.

For weeks, since creating this piece called “Looking Through,” I’ve been staring at it on my photo display. Trying to figure out what makes it resonate with me so much. How I can create other pieces with a similar feel.

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It’s been a struggle. Lots of experimentation and failures. Many successful in their own way, but not the same as Looking Through. Finally, this weekend I created another that’s on the right track. I finally figured out one of the secret ingredients that had been eluding me — the space between.

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The next day, as I was getting ready for yoga, I was wondering what I should do with myself. I had two days left in my holiday weekend, and no major plans. No classes to prepare for, since I’ve rescheduled to take the summer off. No big exhibitions to print and frame; I’m all ready for June. Newsletter written. No looming deadlines. My head started racing off onto new projects and new ideas. I started thinking of what I should do next, making plans. I suddenly stopped short, realizing…

For just a little while, I need to live in the space between.

What did I clear my schedule for this summer, if not to create space? Space for being, instead of doing. Space to take care of body and soul, instead of mind. Space to explore, and see what happens.

Even as I struggle to bring intentional openness into my art, I struggle to stay here, intentionally open, in my life, too. There must be something I need to learn here, in the space between.

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Happiness is a Choice

I am often surprised by how the seemingly simple choices I make affect me in larger ways.

My choice to settle in to the place I live, instead of holding myself back. My choice to play around with mobile photography and see my everyday in new ways. My choice to spend less time on the computer and more time in the woods. All are simple choices, but they have come together in a profound way.

I didn’t quite realize it until my Mom emailed me with a comment this week after my Silent Communication blog post, and I wrote back, “I am falling in love with Corvallis all over again.” I am. I am seeing what this place has to offer me, as it is.

It was a choice. I could have continued to hold myself apart. I could have continued to wish I was somewhere else or that Corvallis was something other than it is. I could have continued to hang on to who I was in a previous time and place. But I would have missed what was right in front of me for the taking.

We have choices in how we approach our life, even if we don’t feel we do. A lot of that choice is around accepting where we are or how things are. And by accepting what is, you open yourself up to what could be. The phrase “bloom where you are planted” comes to mind.

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We could be planted in the rockiest soil, but that may be exactly what we need to bloom. We just have to let our roots grow, and find the nourishment waiting for us in the earth below.

I’ve talked about this shift for me here on the blog often over the last six or eight months. I’m now realizing how deep this concept of choosing acceptance can go. It can mean the difference between dissatisfaction and happiness.

This doesn’t mean we need to stay in a place or a situation that doesn’t feed our soul. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t make plans or strive for change. But having a measure of acceptance for what is can lead to greater appreciation and happiness of our current state. If you aren’t happy with where you are now, will you truly be happy in some new situation? We often think changing the place or the job or our body is the answer to our woes, when the answer truly lies within. It is available to us in the choices we make.

I choose to accept what is. I choose to be open to what is available to me right now. I choose happiness.

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This Way

I believe each and every one of us know deep down in our hearts the direction we want to go. It might be a secret longing, but we know.

The problem is, we let other things get in the way of moving that direction… Be it our fears or doubts or other commitments and responsibilities. We often spend our energy coming up with reasons why we can’t follow the path our heart sets for us, instead of spending energy removing the roadblocks or starting out along the path.

It often takes something bigger, a crisis to nudge us over those barriers and along the path. Sometimes we need the obvious arrows pointing the direction we need to go.

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I was reminded of this as I hiked in the woods this week. I’ve been longing to hike on a regular basis for months. My heart has been yearning for this quiet time in the forest; my body has been asking to be moved. There is a happiness and contentment I feel when I get out and hike which spreads out into the rest of my life.

I started to rearrange my schedule and responsibilities so I could get out regularly months ago, but then I let other things get in the way. I made excuses and distracted myself. And then my shoulder started hurting, which became the arrow pointing me along the path in the direction my heart was already telling me to go.

My heart knew all along what I wanted. My body and my head knew too. Why did I have to wait until there was something painful to make the change? I’m looking closely at this, to see what I can learn.

Do you know where you want to go next? What is your heart telling you to do? Maybe it’s as simple as mine, walking in the woods. Maybe it’s something bigger. What can you do to move in that direction now? Look at what you need to rearrange, what you need to change, and start down the path. If you don’t, you might find an arrow or two appearing, making sure you know the way.

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Breathe Deep

It is interesting how realization comes.

Sometimes, a realization blindsides you, leaving you surprised and blinking in the bright light. Unable to move for a moment or two, from the shock of it.

Other times, a realization comes upon you as a gentle knowing. There is a subtle nod of “yes, that’s right” as the idea slips from unconscious hints to conscious understanding. It was there all along.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve had a softly growing realization of the feeling I want to create with my art.

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I want my art to create a pause. I want it to create a space, a brief moment, in a busy life to allow for a deep breath. I want my images to give a gift of greater awareness, a chance to notice the world in a different way, and connect with heart and soul.

No small feat, right?

But as I’ve looked at my Photo-Heart Connections over the last months I see this theme of “pause and breathe” in so many of them. This is what my heart is telling me I need to do, for myself. This is what my heart is telling me I need to share.

This is what other people have told me about my work for a while, regardless of subject or process. I’ve heard the term “contemplative” used. I’ve heard other descriptions, but the one that stuck with me most recently, the one that nudged this desire into consciousness, is my friend who told me my work allows him to “take a deep breath.”

So there is nothing new here, just my conscious realization that I want to cultivate this feeling. I want to seek this. I don’t want it to be one in ten or even one in two. This is what I want my work to be about. I may not always get there, but it will help to have an idea of where I am going as I create.

It’s a subtle transition, from
capturing my experience of the world around me
to
creating an experience from the world around me.
A shift from passive to active. A shift from unconscious to conscious.

I breathe deep, and exhale a gentle realization.

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Too much of a good thing

You know that saying…. “Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.”

So. Very. True.

Too much of a food you love, and you can get sick of it. Too much passion for something and you can get burned out.

And too much computer time can injure you. I’m struggling with a sore shoulder right now, which comes out of too much mousing on the computer. I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was the marathon editing session I did on Saturday to prepare the Liberate Your Art swap video. 215 photos that needed to be straightened and cropped. the same motions again and again. I should have broken it up a bit more. Now I’m really going to have to cut back, or I risk a permanent injury. The pain is always the reminder to cut back.

It all aligns with what I want to do anyway… Spend more time outside as the weather is nicer. Hike in the mornings. Hang out with my son. Cook more from scratch. Read good books. Capture and create images that make me pause and breathe, like this one.

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Thankfully carrying an iPhone doesn’t cause the same stress on my shoulder as carrying my dSLR, and editing on the iPad doesn’t cause the same kind of pain as mousing on the computer. Maybe there is more than just my creativity at play in this newfound love of mobile photography. Or maybe I’m just lucky that I’ve got this alternate creative outlet, or I would be incredibly frustrated at the pain and might work through it, damaging myself further.

Either way, the pain is my body screaming at me to change course. It’s just too bad I have to get to this point to get my brain to agree.

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On the Other Side

I’ve come out on the other side of the craziness, and have figured out a few things. Don’t you love it when that happens?

It all started with the pause several months ago, and then I followed my instincts and restructured a few things in my routine. Then came along the crazy travel period, which swept me along without much time to think. Lots of fun, all good stuff. Now I’ve landed on the other side and am putting myself back to rights. Along with the chance to push the reset button on my routine, I see where I’ve landed is a different place.

Or maybe, the same place but a different perspective.

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I’ve shifted my focus, to include more local.

That’s probably a lot of cryptic nonsense if you don’t follow my blog closely, so here’s the quick backstory: I started my blog and got the idea for much of what I do as an online business while living in Italy. I was separated from most of the people I interacted with creatively by a few time zones and an ocean, so my whole focus was online. I moved back to the US, my permanent home, and started Kat Eye Studio. Again, the focus was online classes and my online community. Slowly, slowly, as I’ve settled in over the last couple of years, I’ve been finding a local creative community. I’m part of art guilds. I’ve starting teaching classes in person. I’ve been presenting my art in person, in exhibitions and fairs. I’ve brought it local. And my photography has been changing. Expanding.

Now I’m seeing that part of the shift I made a couple of months ago gives me more space for local activities. I’m the president of the PhotoArts Guild this year. I was juried in as an exhibiting member of the Corvallis Art Guild. I’m participating in more local exhibitions. I’m taking more local classes. I’m proposing an exhibition at The Arts Center next year. I’m planning to teach a couple of workshops here in town this summer. (Details to come soon.)

And I’m spending more time focusing on my own art. Looking at where I want to go, what I want to do, how I want to develop.

There is nothing wrong with online. It’s a fabulous place to be, and I’m going to stay here. I love what I do here… writing on the blog, the classes, the interactions with people from all over the world, the ability to connect from anywhere. I’m realizing though, through many strands this past year, that I can’t be 100% online with either my business or my art. I needed to get my art out in the real world, to print, exhibit and share, and I need to get myself out in the real world too – interacting, teaching and learning in person. To be a whole “me,” I need to find a balance between the online and real worlds.

It’s interesting to recognize this transition, now that I’m on the other side. I believe it’s a continuation of the “settling in” I’ve felt over the last year. And it’s a reminder that once again, following my intuition, rearranging things to make more space a couple of months ago, was the right thing to do.

Where do you fall, with your own art and your interaction with others around art? Is it mostly online or local? How do you balance the two?

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