Learning how to improvise.......

Before I started to paint, I used to do a lot

of analog photography. 

I loved it. I loved improvising with shutter and

exposure time, push them to the limit

and then watch what would happen.

Showing some of my photos to a friend, he asked:

''Have you tried using Adobe Photoshop?''

Never having heard of it I answered no.

''I think you may find using it as an editing tool

interesting, and if you want, I can download 

a copy of it for you to try out.''

Fast forward three weeks and I am spending all

my free time trying to learn how to use Photoshop.

I even bought a book on ''How to use Photoshop'' but

it didn't make much sense to me, so I did what

I tend to do when I want to learn something new; 

I improvised.

In a Simpson episode Lisa asks Homer why he doesn't

like Jazz. Homer answers: ''Jazz? Pfft!! Why, it's not

real music, they just make it up as they go along.''

Improvising can perhaps be defined as ''making

something up on the go'', or figuring something out

on the ''fly'',  but in my view it can also be defined

as a kind of mindset.

(Just ponder this: An improvised story is created at the same

time as it's told. So is an improvised melody when it's played, 

a painting when it's being painted, a dance when it's performed,

or a solution to an unexpected problem.)

Uncertainty is not something most of us find

easy to deal with. Many of us probably prefer to be

in control, organized, prepared, have plans at the ready,

knowing what or where the potential pitfalls may be, etc.etc.

The catchphrase ''going with the flow'' may probably even be somewhat

anxiety inducing and stressful for some of us.

But here's the thing, sometimes even though we have

prepared, checked, and planned, unexpected stuff happens.

We then have a choice of either trying to figure out a possible

solution(improvise) or just ''quit''.

As a professional musician, I have experienced innumerable

occasions when the unexpected has happened.

Suddenly there was an unexpected equipment failure.

If it didn't get fixed, there could be no show.

No show, no payment.

So, one had to improvise, which in most cases

meant grabbing the ''gaffa tape'' (duct tape) and becoming

very creative. (Gaffa tape, a musician's magic ''wand''.)

Improvisation though often connected with the arts,

 is much more than that,

 ''improvisation'', says Stephen Nachmanovich,

''is intuition in action.''

Improvising is something most of us do every day

although we may call it something else.

''-No marmalade? But I always have marmalade on my toast in the

morning. I guess I could just have some peanut butter and jelly

today though."

''-Wow, it's really raining hard. Maybe I'll just take the bus to work

today instead of the bike.''

In order to create a sense of control and certainty in an uncertain

existence, many of us find comfort in routines.

(We often sleep on the same side in our beds, we make our beds

the same way every day, we have the same breakfast, we go to bed

at the same time, we do our washing on the same day, etc.etc.etc.)

But here's the thing as I see it: there are two sides to routines.

They comfort, but only when intact. Once there is an interference

and any of our routines broken, we often experience anxiety and

discomfort. If our mindsets are too rigid and opposed

to change, may I suggest that we are more easily unsettled than

 if we have a mindset that has embraced the ''art'' of improvising.

''In the long history of humankind(and animal kind, too)

those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively,

have prevailed.''

(Charles Darwin)

about the image: a photo taken of a little girl

holding a red balloon, then subjected to hours of editing

in Adobe Photoshop

''Heaven''? Is there such a thing?

This painting is titled ''On the way to Heaven''.

Why?

As much as the thought of dying is not an easy one to

come to grips with, sooner or later however, we will all have to

grapple with it.

Because let's face it, none of us are getting out of it.

When my son had barely turned one years old he

had his first life threatening asthma attack.

As the hospital staff did all they could to keep

him breathing, I was told to leave.

I stumbled out of the emergency room barely conscious

of what I was doing.

With legs of jelly I walked outside.

It was raining.

I could hardly breathe, my heart was pounding,

and my whole body shaking.

I prayed. ''God, if you can hear me, please keep my

son alive''. Over and over I repeated the words like a mantra.

As if in a trance I walked back and forth in front of

the emergency entrance repeating my mantra.

Until somebody tapped me on my shoulder and said:

''You can come in now. Your son is in an oxygen

tent to help him breathing. The medication has started

to work and he is breathing easier now. He

will be okay.''

Is there a God or something above,

an essence of good, an essence of love,

that's far beyond and above all physics,

 hovers in the realm we call meta-physics?

Is there an equation, some scientific practice,

that defines for us, with mathematical exactness,

that what we can see and touch with our hands,

is not all there is, merely what we understand?

We are a species invested in knowing,

fully committed to always be growing,

to explore and probe less trodden paths,

to find the answers to questions asked.

Prudent and fastidious and persistent as we are,

the fact that we're all mortal, we ponder from afar.

We know from death and dying, there is no escape,

 so we make it more pleasant and call it ''pass away''.

Maybe there is a God or something above,

an essence of good, an essence of love,
though it's far beyond and above all physics,

 and hovers in the realm we call meta-physics.
(Citizen Z)

about the painting: acrylic on canvas, quite large
suggestion: stare at it with an open mind and it will surprise you
what you will ''see''.

Dance as if no one is watching.........

It quickly became obvious to me when I started to paint,

that in order to paint the human form, I needed to do

some serious study.

Since I did not have any live models at hand, I decided

to buy some wooden figures that I had noticed that

they sold in art shops.

After I had bought the figure's, I spent weeks on positioning

 them and then sketching or painting them.

Strange though it may seem, I discovered that even

though the figure's had no features and were quite

difficult to manipulate into human-esque positions,

it was still possible to make them convey emotions.

Alas, eventually, I felt ready to move on to

human beings. 

But how? I still had no live models.

 I had a light-bolt moment.

Aha!!! Dance magazines.

Excitedly I went to my nearest News agency and bought

any magazine that had dancers in ''movement'' in it.

As luck would have it, I found a ballet magazine that contained

a lot of glossy and beautifully shot photographs depicting

the most amazing dance movements.

I filled a sketch book in a few days.

Perhaps they were not all sketched a 100% anatomically, but I

loved doing them. 

I acquired a whole new perspective and respect for the art

of Dance and dancers. Especially ballet dancers.

Much to my surprise I found myself seeking out

movies to watch that contained dancing.

Any kind of dancing really, because I had a last

realized what a truly magnificent art form Ballet/

and any kind of dancing, was.

I bought more magazines, even second-hand dance books,

just to keep studying the human form in movement.

 One late afternoon I found a photo of a boy dancer

I felt that I just had to sketch.

Problem was, I had run out of paper and canvas.

Scrambling for any bit of paper I found a roll

of brown wrapping paper. 

The paper was cheap, brown, rough, and what I used to

use for wrapping my paintings in.

Never mind, paper is paper, I thought.

I ripped off a piece, grabbed my black and my white charcoals,

and then did a sketch of the boy.

(The result is the image at the top of this post.)

Perhaps ''dancing as if no one is watching''

is something we could all benefit from doing every now then.....

"Dance is the hidden language of the soul.''

(Martha Graham)

Too much going on? Press the pause button.........

I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel like

I just want to put up my hand and say: STOP!

There's only so much (emotional) information

I can deal with at the time.

Long ago I watched  a movie that made an indelible

impression on me. I tried to find it on IMDB, but no

luck.

So, I remember it being titled ''Dis-soc-iation'', with Emma Thompson

playing the lead. Actually, she was the only actor in the

movie. Basically, the movie was shot from the

perspective of us(the viewers) being inside Emma's head

and in that way ''witnesses'' to all of her thoughts.

After the movie finished I was utterly perplexed.

I asked myself: what on earth was this movie all about????

I looked up the word dissociation: ''Dissociation is a mental process

that nearly everyone experiences at some point in their

lives. Often we may dissociate when we are going

through traumatic or emotionally stressful times. "

Reading the definition of dissociation still made little

sense to me. I decided to put it in the ''too hard'' basket.

And there it stayed until the end of last year.

Like a blade of grass making its way through layers of

bitumen, the word fought its way through layers

of my subconscious until it could no longer remain

there. It surfaced in my consciousness.

I Googled it.

Short version: ''Disconnecting from the here and now.''

I would hazard a guess that most of us engage at

times in daydreaming, mind-wandering, or ''zoning out''.

Experiencing the odd occasion of ''the mind going

blank'', or feeling as if there is a disconnect between

the mind and body.

Which, according to those in the know is considered

as ''normal''.

(Sitting in a dentist's chair having a root-canal, a bit of 

dissociation can be very useful I discovered the last

time I had one.)

In psychoanalytic theory, dissociation is considered a

''defense mechanism'' as it can help us momentarily

''exit'' or at least mute stressful, emotionally charged, 

and difficult thoughts and or memories.

(Especially for children growing up in abusive

environments.)

Perhaps it is a bit like pressing the ''pause'' button

in order to allow our minds to process what we

are experiencing in the now?

I was once the sole eyewitness to a car crash. When the

police interviewed me as to what had happened, my 

mind was blank. All I could remember was the sound 

of the car hitting the tree head on. Until two weeks

later when I suddenly remembered it all.

My mind had released the pause button.

There is a lot of stuff going on in the world

right now, and a lot of it is quite scary.

Perhaps a little ''mindful'' dissociating every now and

then may actually be helpful?

Go on, take a little time out in your mind to

wander down a sunlit path to that still,

glistening, clear blue lake in the middle

of the enchanted forest.

about the painting: acrylic on cardboard

How trustworthy are memories?

Memories.

A word often defined as a faculty of the brain by

which data/information is stored, encoded, and retrieved

when wanted or needed.

I guess, perhaps one could say that it is a bit like a

''virtual time machine'' that allows us to re-visit moments

and experiences from our past.

(Where this takes place and exactly how our brains do

this marvelous bit of ''magic'', I leave up to you

to Google.)

Recently I have been pondering what happens to a memory

once we have stored it away. Does it stay intact like a photo,

or is it malleable?

Whatever emotions we may have been experiencing at the

moment when the memory was made, do they stay attached

to that memory or do they change?

So, here is what I discovered when I started to do a bit

of research into memories: They always change.

Daniella Schiller of Mt. Sinai School of Medicine says that

memories are malleable constructs that are reconstructed each

time we recall a memory.

Our memories are not like ''files'' that remain the same

every time we pull one out.

According to Schiller each time a memory is revisited

we do a bit of editing.

Although unwittingly, our now edited memory becomes the

''real'' memory.

So instead of our memory being like a file,

a memory is more like a story and with each re-telling

of that story whatever emotions that were originally

attached to it, change.

Schiller says that:''My conclusion is that memory is

what you are now. Not in pictures, not in recordings.

Your memory is how you are now.''

In other words, memories aren't written once, rather,

they are re-written each time we remember them.

You: Hey, do you remember that old, fat, matron

who used to yell at the top of her lungs at us every day?

Old school friend: Old? She wasn't old, nor was she fat. She 

was only in her thirties and I remember her as nice.

Perplexed you start to protest: nah, nah, she was old.

Old school friend: Nah, you're not remembering right.

Who is right?

Does the term ''right'' even apply?

My first visit back to my childhood home years after

I had moved out was very intriguing.

My room, our house, our garden, was so much smaller

than I remembered it. Actually, everything seemed smaller.

In an instant many of my memories were edited.

Research is showing that emotionally charged events

are remembered more and in greater detail than

events less emotionally charged.

Although, that does not necessarily mean more accurate.

Strong emotions can skew the way we view an event,

which in turn will affect how we remember it.

Those in the know suggest that emotions acts at all

points of the memory cycle- that is at encoding,

consolidation, and retrieval.

(as in learning/remembering the info, making sense out 

of the info, accessing memories/info)

So, can memories be trusted? How true are they?

Well, that depends on one's definition of ''true''.

They are definitely malleable it seems.

But, that's a good thing methinks.

Hindsight can be very useful.

We can ask ourselves questions for instance.

What kind of mood was I in when xyz took place?

Was I present in mind?

Could I have misunderstood some aspects?

Was I distracted?

Have I embellished the memory? Etc.etc....

According to Daniel Kahneman: we are

always searching for causality, re-framing events

to fit into a context and we are ready to

believe things as long as they fit fluidly

into that context.

There comes a time in your life when you

have to choose to turn the page,

write another book or simply close it.

(Shannon L. Alder)

About the image: Acrylic on canvas, a memory of walking

through a spring forest

The magic of fireworks.....when being 5 years old

The above image is part of a painting I painted titled:

''Jimmy gets a talking to....''

The painting is made from a photo I found in an old magazine.
Under the photo it said: A New York policeman warns a small Asian boy
of the dangers of running into the middle of a busy street.

Jimmy
It's the 4th of July and fire crackers are colouring
the skies. On Jimmy's block everyone has shut their shops
and are standing in the street watching the fireworks as
they explode above their heads.
Jimmy's mother tightens her grip on Jimmy's hand
and draws him closer to her.
As one after the other fire cracker bursts into a million
sparkling lights the people on the street oohs and aahs
and clap their hands.
Jimmy stretches himself to be as tall as he can, but all he 
can see are the backs and heads of the people in front of him.
He jumps as high as he can, but he still can't see.
His mother tightens her grip again.
''Jimmy, stop jumping!''
''But I can't see Mom, I want to see!!!
Lift me up Mom, lift me up!!''
His mother bends down to lift him up,
but she quickly realizes that her back is not up to it.
''I'm sorry Jimmy, I can't lift you. My back is hurting
too much right now.''
Baking all through the nights for the last two months
has taken a toll on her, not to mention being seven
month's pregnant at that.
Jimmy decides to make a run for it.
He knows that there is a stack of pallets
just up the street because he has climbed them
lots of times.
He waits for his mother to loosen her grip again
and as soon as she does, he runs.
''Jimmy, come back this instant!'' he hears his mother 
shouting, which he ignores. After all, he's no baby
anymore, he's five years old.
Bopping and weaving in between the cars still driving
up and down the street, Jimmy runs as fast as he can
towards the pallets.
Two of his friends standing on top of the pallets, sees
Jimmy and shout out to him: ''Hurry up Jimmy, you're gonna
miss the show!!!''
Just as he is about to start climbing up the pallets,
strong hands grab him around his waist and pulls him back.
Towering before him stands officer Berk.
Jimmy decides to stare at his shoes. He knows that he is
in trouble.
Officer Berk bends down so that he can look Jimmy in the eyes.
''Jimmy, look up. Look me in the eyes. You know that
what you did was dangerous, don't you?''
Jimmy tries a furtive smile.
''So, what have you got to say for yourself, lad?''
''I just want to see the magic in the sky but
I'm just too small.''
''Let's go and find your mom Jimmy, I bet she
is really worried.''
Before Jimmy knows it, Officer Berk has lifted him on to
 his shoulders.
''Can you see now, Jimmy?''
''Oh, yes!''
Jimmy claps his hands, and oohs and aahs
 as the fireworks explode against the dark
evening sky.


As they say: ''A picture paints a thousand words.....''

Sometimes it takes a crisis for us to learn........

The girl with the far-away look in her eyes.

What is she seeing?

It's a beautiful day. The sun is shining and there is a mild

breeze rustling the leaves in the trees.

Our cat is still waiting at the door to be feed, the birds

are still tweeting, the crickets are still chirping and 

that annoying dog across the field is still barking.

Just another ordinary day.

Well, not really.

Looking back at history, mankind as a whole has faced

threats to its existence on a number of occasions.

Whether those threats were man-made, nature-made, or

a combination of both, they have all been very costly.

Costly, but also informative. One of mankind's strengths

in my view, is that we seem to learn ''things'' from our

ordeals. 

Our men and women of the ''frontier''...scientist/psychologists/

biologists/ sociologists/researchers/physicists/etc.etc.

take the information/data/stats from the ordeals and then 

transform it (when or if possible) into appliable knowledge.

Once we know how to overcome our threat, we move forward.

Right now however, we are in our ''gathering info'' stage and for most

of us it is scary.

Unfortunately, when we are scared we often do things

that in hindsight we probably wished we would't have done.

It can be difficult to take the ''high road'' when we feel that

our family's existence is threatened, so we need to be mindful

of the truism: United we stand, divided we fall.

We may not like being told to stay home,

 remember, there are those who have no home.

We may not like being told to not hang with our friends,

remember, there are those who have no friends.

We may not like to be told to stay with our families,

remember, there are those who have no family to stay with.

We may not like to be told what we can and cannot buy,

remember, there are those who cannot afford to buy even

the essentials.

We may not like to be told that we have to do our jobs from home,

remember, there are those who no longer have a job.

While our men and women of the frontier work day and night

to find a way to overcome this threat, the rest of us can

assist them by not running amok and so cause unnecessary

and avoidable damage and pressure to an already

difficult situation.

''It may not feel like it,

but every new day,

we are given

 the opportunity

to choose

what kind of person

we want to be.

Whether we want to

overcome life's obstacles

or be overcome

by them.''

(Citizen Z)

about the image: photo edited in Photoshop