The Gift of Quiet Time

We are just emerging from the slow time in San Miguel de Allende. This season has given me new insights into my own consciousness and into this particular stage of my life. I am recognizing and claiming the changes in my aging body and vitality. Instead of lamenting the slowing of my energy, I am beginning to understand it as a gift: abundant quiet time for meditation, reflection, and healing old wounds. Perhaps I am moving into a time of balance. I find myself looking back over my long life and at the hundreds of paintings I have created during the past 65 years. Earlier in my life, I didn’t feel purposeful if the hours of my days were not filled with what I considered worthwhile, creative activity. There was always a new series to create, workshops to teach, new friends to welcome on studio visits, and new encaustic techniques to explore. There was always something ahead of me. Then, almost as if a door had closed, my adventurous, confident, enterprising life seemed to stop. But it didn’t. It simply changed. “I am abundant.” I am discovering that abundance doesn’t necessarily mean money or material possessions. It can mean the quality and richness of life—the ability to appreciate what is already here I am pulling older work out of storage and carefully considering the quality and quantity of these unsold paintings. For perhaps the first time, I am not striving to create more and more art. I am turning around and looking at all that I have already created There is something deeply satisfying about that. It is a slow process, but I am adding a new section to my website called Archives. I am proud of this work, and I want it to be seen again. Each painting must be photographed, measured, catalogued, and priced. I plan to reduce the prices as I add more work to the collection. I have reworked my website and am slowly building this new Archives section. It will be a work in progress for a while http://ezshwan.com Years ago, I taught an art marketing class at the University of Southern Oregon. Almost everything I taught in that class has changed because of the way we market art online today. But one thing hasn’t changed. I had to convince artists that no one was going to slip checks under their studio doors. The work must be seen. And sometimes it is the oldest work that unexpectedly touches a collector’s heart and finds a new home. Perhaps this is also a time of heightened sensitivity and intuition for all of us—if we allow ourselves enough quiet to listen. We can use those moments to claim our human experience in this earthy, mysterious play of life. I know that the arts have never been more important. Look for beauty. Create beauty. And trust the inner work. C