Keeping in Mind

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Watercolor by John Hulsey 24 x 42”

One of the greatest challenges in the artist’s life is that of maintaining one-pointed focus. At a time when multi-tasking is applauded and rewarded, going against the trend and understanding the great value of single-minded attention is, in itself, a difficult discipline. When we achieve this focused state, often described as being “in the zone”, time flies by unnoticed and our work seems to flow almost effortlessly.

The distractions of life and the pull from so many different directions (all seeming to be imperative) makes this perfect state difficult to achieve. But, we can train our minds to focus more readily on the work at hand and to exclude the distractions that keep us from being in the “zone”.

We’ve written before about the importance of having a space devoted exclusively to art-making, whether a well laid out studio or a corner in the basement and the value of maintaining a time to paint that cannot be vio…