1. Intro After a stalled beginning I began a-fresh after Christmas, inspired by a Eureka moment to draw inwards towards myself looking at meditative techniques to help produce work which conveys the sincerity of my research, hoping to portray to an audience my mindset and careful way I have treaded this project.

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2. Aim of Work Through meditation, meditative drawing, and considered reflection, I aim to create body of work which not only further aids my meditative practise, but also helps convey the ideas of mindfulness and meditation to an audience through the works sense of stillness and attentiveness.

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3. Mindfulness Description Mindfulness is the practise of being aware moment-to-moment. Feelings, perceptions and intentions are presented to the mind after triggers from the five senses or thoughts, ranging from anything past present or future. These “mind events” are part of the continuous stream of consciousness each of us experience.

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4. Stream of consciousness Task This is a side-note, but the next time someone asks you what you are thinking about, don’t say nothing, be honest. Retrace your steps back through your Stream of consciousness, verbally explain the meandering path your mind made, and try to explain each trigger, each stimuli that created the next memory or mind event.

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5. Mindfulness Origins While mindfulness has its origins in Buddhist religion, it is a fairly modern movement, taking great leaps in the last few decades. Now being present in hospices, hospitals, education and the prison system, the practise of mindfulness has become of great interest to psychologists and the mainstream public for its stress-relieving qualities.

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6. Slowing down Mindfulness is about being able to slow down, slowing down the thinking. The aim is to not do five task simultaneously whilst constantly thinking about what we’re eating next. Being mindful in your tasks is about experiencing what you’re doing in a deeper way, rather than skimming over the surface at lightning speed.

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7. Clarity Intuition plays a large role in the creative practise, the snap decisions we make on the instinct of our ‘gut’. Mindfulness helps induce clarity as there is less ‘noise’, less clatter, allowing you to be fully aware of the reasoning behind your decisions, being aware of your stream of consciousness.

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8. Focus Focus is being able to full engage in the current activity. Acknowledging when your mind wanders, and being able to gently steer back to the task at hand.

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9. Patience Being patient with your mind is key to mindfulness. As much as we like to believe otherwise, we don’t have complete control over our own minds, only with practise and being aware, can we learn to not give excess energy to wandering, outside thoughts.

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10. Insight Insight, and looking inwardly can help solve daily problems. Realise that ‘Eureka’ moments are formed from within, and being mindful can help these moments become less fleeting, and more fully-formed.

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11. Perspective Becoming a passive observer of your thoughts and emotions helps with the shrinking of small, trivial problems. By not being distracted by your emotions, and being able to observe the information without the clouding emotion often creates, it’s easier to see things in a new light.

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12. Mindfulness and Creativity Mindfulness lends itself to creativity really well, drawing exercises help calm the mind and help the user express without an attachment to what ‘should’ be produced, or what is expected. Drawing in the moment without strict rules or guidelines allows a freeing of the mind.

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13. Reflection During my project, I have endeavoured to look inwardly towards myself in moments of reflection, often scheduled, but sometimes not. Looking at how what I have created will hopefully go on to further strengthen my own meditative and creative practise.

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14. Meditation Stones The meditation stones became a part of my project to help further my need to feel a physical closeness with the material whilst meditating. The process of burnishing the surface only further lends itself to the meditation; the process from creation to eventual meditation has a very satisfying feeling of wholeness.

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15. Meditative Drawing: Description For me, the best way to describe my meditative drawing would be: “finding myself through losing myself within the drawing.” I envelop myself in the repetitive movements of the hand; allowing me to passively observe each small discrepancy in movement each one like deep chasms on the paper.

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16. Meditative Drawing: Reflection Each of my drawing sessions has a definite beginning and end. It begins with the tool on material, and ends with the quiet reflection of the results. I look at the evolution of the lines, the origins of the slight movement that echoes out across the material. Through looking back at the meditation I feel more grounded, more centered, and more aware of myself and how my movements translate into clay.

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17. Meditative Drawing: Continuation The meditative drawing naturally translated into to the process of welding after I recognised the cathartic nature of the practise last year. The glow of the arc on the metal, and the darkness that surrounds the line as it progresses along the metal has a calming feel. With the mask blocking out all peripheral distractions I’m able to easily remove myself from everything but the welds.

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18. Influence of Duncan Bullen Duncan Bullen, a Printmaker and lecturer at Brighton has been one of my primary influences for his outlook on his work and the way in which he writes about it. One quote that has resonated deeply with me “With concentration placed on stilling the mind and finding the quietness therein, little need is found of conventional imagery to decorate.”

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19. Bullen: Similarities The way Bullen speaks about his work also relates to the way I want to present my work to an audience. Through my work I hope to introduce people to the idea of mindful meditation, as I have been introduced to the practise. Bullen mentions his work is “Offering the viewer the needful experience of being “’the still point of the turning world.’”

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20. End While I am no means an expert, this Pecha Kucha has been a collection of my thoughts as I’ve been following my project this year. Whilst I feel as though I have only just scratched the surface of the breadth and depth of Mindfulness, I feel as though I have already gained so much from this experience.

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