{"id":501,"date":"2010-10-23T23:24:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-23T22:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/2010\/art-making-and-the-big-silence\/"},"modified":"2010-10-23T23:24:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-23T22:24:00","slug":"art-making-and-the-big-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/art-making-and-the-big-silence\/","title":{"rendered":"Art making and The Big Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been art making all week…tired, happy and frustrated as I always think I can achieve more in a day than I actually can (why is that? anyone else have this weird perception of time?!)<\/p>\n

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As I work, I normally flit between listening to music on the iPod to talk radio (BBC Radio 2,  4 or 5 depending on my mood!). What do you listen to while you work alone? Art making is often a solitary affair – days on end in a studio – and I do often wonder what my fellow artists fill the silence with. Do share… <\/p>\n

Well, on Friday I felt an impulse to just turn off the noise and work in silence.<\/p>\n

So I did.<\/p>\n

This is not new – I have done it before and I like the brain space it gives for my thoughts to tumble out. But I realised that, after half an hour, I was getting tetchy and restless with the lack of external stimulus so I ‘compromised’ and put on classical music (no words). <\/p>\n

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It got me reflecting on my relationship to silence. I have often heard that silence – time to be with just yourself – is a very, very important thing. Years ago, I heard from a beautiful and influential spiritual man called Gordon Cosby, that if we all just sat in silent meditation for 20 minutes a day, the world would be a radically better place. I believe there is deep truth in this. I also recall being at the top of the Italian Dolomites about 6 years ago and being deeply<\/i> affected by the total silence at the top of the mountain. The peace and sense of connection to a greater One<\/i> was palpable. Still, despite this sense of knowing<\/i>, I do not practice silence.<\/p>\n

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Last night, hubby and I collapsed on the sofa in that Friday night kind of way.  We flicked on the TV and stumbled upon this amazing BBC documentary called The Big Silence<\/b>, showing the journey of 5 people embracing silent meditation for the first time. I was mesmerised and (at the end) moved to tears by their journey (part 2 and 3 are yet to air). If this issue speaks to you, please do click here<\/a> and watch it (you have 20 days left from the date of this post to see episode 1 online). Let me know if you do and what you think…<\/p>\n

The programme has really affected me and as a result , I am going to make a conscious effort to have longer periods of silence while I work and to overcome my restlessness in the absence of external noise and stimulus. Have you undertaken a similar journey? I would really<\/i> love to hear. I will let you know how I get on!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been art making all week…tired, happy and frustrated as I always think I can achieve more in a day than I actually can (why is that? anyone else have this weird perception of time?!) As I work, I normally flit between listening to music on the iPod to talk radio (BBC Radio 2,  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,12,21,37,28,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artful-living","category-deep-thoughts-and-reflections","category-developing-as-an-artist","category-rhythm-and-rituals-for-life","category-relaxation","category-soulful-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glitteringshards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}