Twenty years ago, before the advent of smart phones and social media and while studying abroad in Florence, I disdainfully observed how so many other tourists seemed to admire the art and architecture almost exclusively through the lenses of their digital cameras.
Instagram dictates how I make art to a degree. Constantly photographing and posting the process detracts from the experience of creating. I’ll draw or paint something and then spend more time looking at a picture of it on my phone than at the real thing. It’s not how I want to look at art and nor is it how I want my art to be seen- tiny and brief.
What may have begun as a positive outlet for me some ten years ago has long since mostly transitioned to compulsive behavior and, as an artist, alcoholic and cancer survivor, this is plenty cause for concern. I do not feel sober when I use Instagram excessively and, like most bottles I’ve ever picked up, I find it extremely difficult to put down the phone. I don’t want to spend any more of whatever time I have left necessary doing things that don’t enrich my now seemingly more precious life. Replacement addiction. Inebriety. Instagram, caffeine and sugar. Coffee and donuts… and chocolate, but let’s not go to extremes. The old approach- cigarettes are okay as long as you’re not drinking. But are they really? Instagram may not cause cancer, but it does fill my mind with noise.
In Mary Lance’s 2002 documentary, “Agnes Martin: With My Back To The World,” the artist states that “if your mind is full of garbage, you know, if an inspiration came, you wouldn’t recognize it anyway. So you have to practice a quiet, empty mind.” While not all of what I see on Instagram is what I’d consider to be “garbage,” it has become increasingly difficult to sift through it.
I’ve only recently realized that I can ask for what to draw or paint. While meditating in the morning, I’m more frequently able to slow down my thoughts to the point where I can pose the question to the empty space between them and, when I do, an image appears. It’s not something I expect to count on every day but I do know that it’s noticeably less likely to work if I’ve taken in too much stimulation. One morning, for example, I managed to get very quiet and was given an image. That evening, I stayed up late in bed, scrolling, and the following morning was unable to get quiet enough inside to see anything. The effect lingers and I believe that it erodes my consciousness. Images don’t come as readily as they did when I was a kid. I have to work for them by working on myself in a spiritual sense and, regardless of the nature of the content, the politics, etcetera, the act of simply taking in bite-sized snippets of information at a rapid rate and without fully processing any of it seems to confound my psyche. I have the mental metabolism of a turtle.
In The Call to Create: Celebrating Acts of Imagination, Linda Schierse Leonard, Ph.D. addresses the difficult task of truly hearing what is deep within:
Pushing through dense jungle is like the effort needed to cut through the thickets in our psyche the chaos that clutters, confuses, and impedes our thoughts, feelings, and visions. If we are given the gift to hear the elusive birdcall, we must make the effort to trace it and follow it to its source. Only then will we be strong and ready to receive and honor the inspiration of the Muse by remembering, incorporating, and integrating her divine disclosures, revelations, and sacred truths into our lives, works, actions, and relationships. (p. 33)
It’s all mood-altering and I crave my natural state. Hungry for boredom, I want to explore it, sit in it and sow the soil. I want to truly see and not just look. It’s impossible to see anything on Instagram. Can I sit in silence? Can I stare at one painting for thirty minutes? An hour? The museum is two blocks from my home. I’ve been a hundred times but have never spent more than five minutes with any one painting. I ought to walk over and take a seat in front of one, any one. No phone but a notebook would be fine. I regret how little I’ve listened to actual paintings as compared to tiny reproductions comprised of blue light. Real paintings do not adversely adjust my brain waves and deprive me of REM sleep.
Part of me still asks whether or not, as an artist, I can afford not to be on Instagram. I’ve considered it to be all but necessary for the sake of exposure and indeed it has opened numerous doors to friendship, creative collaboration and even love. Lately, however, it feels increasingly overwhelming and less and less worthy of my attention. I’m just over it. I’m over the screen, the tiny squares, the noise. It all eats at me and makes me anxious, puts me on edge. I’m convinced that actually, as an artist, I can’t afford to be on it. I can’t afford to be taken out of the present every few minutes. The trees have told me as much.
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