Still

I asked a yoga instructor whom I greatly admire and think of often as a source of inspiration, Emily Garrett, for direction in finding a studio in my area and a video to use at home. She sent me to the website of a teacher in L.A., Erich Schiffmann, and recommended his book. I started reading the first chapter, "Stillness", today.

The author speaks of becoming comfortable with the truth of who you are, and how, through this process, you become better at everything you do. I remember my mother once telling me that when she did yoga her drawing improved dramatically. I must admit that this concept was one of the major forces that initially drew me to try yoga. I liked the idea of becoming better at the things that I love to do. Perhaps the discipline of practice in any form would help me dramatically! (I'm trying to tell myself that this is not a self-judging statement.)

So, I'm thinking about art. I'd only read the beginning of the article in the New York Times about the passing of the artist Robert Rauschenberg when I read Isaac's blog entry which informed me that we all three share the same birthday, October 22. I went back and read the entire article, feeling especially inspired by Raushenberg's words: "A lot of people try to think up ideas. I’m not one. I’d rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can’t ignore."

I clicked on "more articles in art" and was put on a page with a picture of a sculpture whose style was familiar to me. But this was about a new exhibit in Paris at the Louvre, this exhibit was not on display during my recent trip, yet I felt sure I knew this artists work. And I was right. Richard Serra's sculpture in the courtyard of the Orange County Performing Art Center is a huge part of my life, I walk by it every night. I've been thinking a lot about this piece recently. When I first saw it, I began to feel more at home where I live. When I then explored it further, I found that standing inside it and singing straight up, it is an echo chamber. When I returned late one evening to still my soul with a song for myself, a rude guard asked me to leave and said they were trying to keep out vandals. The vandals around here do some pretty good graffiti on the walls of the river, but someone is forever covering it up with grey paint. They don't cover up the graffiti in Paris. Richard Serra doesn't like it when people deface his art. I haven't been back inside the piece here yet, but I continue to draw from it aesthetically.

The article mentioned a piece Serra had made to display at the Pompidou, which made me think of when I was there, and how we compared it to the Tate Modern, and of the wonderful moment when I saw in person the painting of one of my very favorite artists of all time, whose name I had forgotten so many years ago, only able to see his work in the blurry, inaccurate hall of my feeble memory. And there was his name, under his painting, Clyfford Still.