The Economy of Nightstand Dreams

"The Economy of Nightstand Dreams" aka Amor Fati 😉, mixed media on canvas (acrylic, ink, permanent marker, chalk pastel, tinted charcoal, liquid chalk, colored pencil, dryerase crayon, and a tiny bit of washi tape).

I painted this two weeks ago (seems so much longer than that!) when I thought it would take me several more weeks before I could walk outdoors by myself again. I was going through my menu of ways to cope with stress that did not require more use of my (cognitive) brain, and art was one of them 🥳

This was my first time to paint after having started the self-mastery work. Instead of just relieving mental stress, I was so happy to discover that the process of making art was also a great way to explore my feelings of (aesthetic) discomfort, and to practice just feeling them rather than try to make them go away.

For example, I don't particularly like geometric art (much less create it!). But I decided to follow the lead of my subconscious--as well as whichever of my decades-old, donated art materials still worked 😆--in the unfamiliar arrangement of shapes, choice of colors, asymmetry of patterns, etc. and allowed myself to see how far the discomfort would go.  I tried the discomfort on for size and declared the painting done or "good enough", when normally my Obsessive Perfectionist would keep looking for what "more" I could do to make it/me feel more comfortable.

"Nightstand Dreams" because these are the outlines of objects on my nightstand which I traced 😄 If the objects on my nightstand dream, what are they dreaming? 🤔😉

"Economy" or Amor Fati, because I just worked with whatever and wherever my subconscious and available art materials led me to. And really these color choices and placement came out because I would just use all the leftover paint from what I had accidentally squeezed out too hard before then using another color 😂 If there's something stronger that my creative impulse, it's probably my Optimizer's obsession with not wasting ANYTHING. I think in most of my life, it's been my constraints that have shaped my creative direction; it's actually harder for me to create when I have no constraints.

Also "Economy" because I want to explore more this idea of "less"/ "incomplete" and subtlety, and feeling ok with it.

But also Amor Fati because by doing this, I successfully shifted my attention from what I couldn't do to what I still COULD do and in fact hadn't done in years. An empowering and enlightening experience minus the usual baggage of having to produce something "worth" sharing.