Dreaming about success
Often when I turn on the shower and step in, I turn on a shower of thoughts and start dreaming. I’m not sure why it happens in the shower, but I think it is a favourable place to be flooded with thoughts and ideas. My mind also, unfortunately, wanders when I am painting. Over time, I have realised I have become a professional daydreamer. This is the wrong time and the wrong place to be dreaming about success and imagining the future. I feel the need to gain some self-mastery of my busy creative mind.
I used to think dreaming about the future was my reward for taking on an almost impossible creative challenge. At times, I have imagined having the ideal artist studio, making sublime artwork, relaxing and enjoying the lifestyle of being someone successful. I have learnt from thinking like this that happiness will always be a reward in the future.
Stuart Bush Studio Notes – Dreaming about success
One brushstroke at a time
The problem with allowing myself to think about a variety of things other than the task that is in front of me is that I am not as productive as I need to be. I lose focus on what I am doing and why I am doing it. This leads me to the questions, what is it I am trying to achieve? It is a feeling of floating down the middle of a fast-flowing river hoping to swim to a bank at some point.
I have become aware that if I am lucky enough to achieve what I want in the future, and I get there while being a daydreamer (which I now think is highly unlikely). I will always be programmed to look to the future for a sense of fulfilment. This realisation has happened after reading quotes like,
“when your fulfilment and sense of self are no longer dependent on the future outcome, joy flows into whatever you do.” From ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle.
I need to control my daydreaming or I will never appreciate what I achieve. It is important to realise I very fortunate in many ways. I should be grateful and enjoy this time in my life. It is the process and journey that is important, not some dream about the future.
Stuart Bush Studio Notes – Dreaming about success
Medium.com Stop dreaming and start working on your dreams
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Stuart Bush, The Quality of Absence print #stuart.bush #absence #artforsalebyartist
Untitled, 2004 mixed media on wooden panel #dapperlife #flaneurism #paintingonwood
“The biggest mistake as an art student, is to try to learn from an artist example. If you like Philip Guston, you can not learn from how a hand holds a cigarette, the motive from him. You have to learn to step one step further back. To understand the method without figures. How they do it before they do it.” Quote by Tal R. Playing around with gouache paint on paper in the studio #stuart.bush #gouachepainting #lineartwork
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Congratulations to Jenny Saville from London for winning my June print giveaway. The print ‘Just a feeling and not just the truth’ looks great at the bottom of your stairs, on your hall wall.
It was nice to meet you, talk, and chat by delivering the framed print in person. I hope your husbands gets better soon. Best wishes.
It is easy to feel helpless, like we are in the flow of the river. And we are looking for something to grab hold of. To pull ourselves out. This is where I think art can make a difference.
Connecting us with our sense. I hope my print can help to do that. I’m into beauty, but not pretty pictures. I want to make something that rattles you and makes you think. Art on your wall, and this print in particular, can help you to reflect on the moment, and the past and of course the present.
When you look at it once, it hasn’t sunk yet. It takes repeated viewing. When you live with an artwork in your walls and you see it everyday, the artwork slowly reveals itself. #printgiveaway #artprints #framedartwork
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