Today I decided to do some grocery shopping as I was pretty much out of fresh fruit. So I went to hop on my bike to pedal there and…
discovered the front tire was flat. My initial reaction was, “crap”, but right on the heals of that I was suddenly VERY grateful. Now why would I be so grateful for a flat tire?
I’m going to leave you hanging on that question for just a moment to try and explain the broader reason I’m writing this blog post. First it has been a ridiculous amount of time since I’ve made a post. What can I say, I just haven’t been inspired to write lately. So I’m feeling a bit guilty for neglecting this blog and those of you who follow me here.
I’m guessing most of you have noticed that the world seems to be going a bit crazy right now. The various media seem to be pushing a lot of stories of fear, hate, blame, and general negativity. I’m as prone as the next person to get sucked into and wrapped up in those narratives it seems. However, that’s not what I want to be projecting out into the world. My artwork is about honoring ones inner light and sharing that beauty. I’d like my writing to reflect this in some way as well. I’ve been in a mental space often dominated with negativity and didn’t want to share that.
This gets me to the concept of gratitude. My life is really quite wonderful and abundant most of the time. I, like many others I suspect, tend to focus on problems, threats, or what is going wrong. There’s some biological impetus for this most certainly. To ignore such signals likely leads to lots of trouble and a short life. Yet there is a point where stewing over things no longer does any good. I often say that my training in art helped me learn to focus my attention. Then I found that where ever I focused my attention my perception of that subject deepened. Another way to say this that I tend to get more of what I focus my attention on. When I’m dwelling in negativity I might see more potential solutions to the issues, but I’m also going to be seeing more negativity. In order to find some balance in life I need to also be actively casting my attention to the positive, what I am grateful for.
A while back over in the forums of Permies.com I started a thread called Daily Gratitude. Here I tried to regularly share something, even some small thing, I was grateful for, and invited others to do the same. Alas after a while it just sort of dwindled out. Yet while I was actively engaged with the idea of daily coming up with something I was grateful for to share I found I became more aware and perceptive of all the fabulous things and people in my life. Of course this only makes sense. I was actively focusing my attention on this and thus I began to see more of it.
Something I like about teaching workshops is that quite often my students also become friends. In addition to time spent in class we frequently also meet for dinners. During my most recent workshops out at (shameless plug coming for my girlfriends new business!) the Urban Metal Studio in the Mesa/Phoenix area of Arizona there were many such dinners. At one my friend shared a practice she and her husband do before dinner. They take a moment to each express something they are grateful for that day. We all did that and it was nice.
Something I realized right then though was how much more meaningful this would be not as a sort of surprise thing happening during a dinner with friends, but rather as a steady practice one could contemplate and prepare for. If this were the case then during the day I would be putting some thought into what I would share. I’d be more aware all day of the good in my life, mentally sorting through it to select what seemed best to share. As a regular practice with others I’d also naturally have people to hold me accountable to this activity. I wouldn’t want to find myself the only one at the table with nothing to share. I expect this is the case for my friend and her spouse. They do this regularly and thus focus frequently on the good in their lives. This is probably part of why they are such wonderful people to be around.
It also struck me that this is a significant part of the common religious practice of prayer before each meal. It’s making a habit of focusing regularly throughout the day on the good.
So in the spirit of this sort of practice, and try and get me back into making blog posts more regularly, I am going aim to start offering up some “Stories of Gratitude”. I don’t expect it to be a daily thing. It just takes me too long to write a post to do this daily. However, it will hopefully be fairly frequent. They may be short posts, just sharing a small tale of something I find myself grateful for. Hopefully they will be things you can relate to as well and thus be reminded of how you too are similarly grateful.
So now I can come back around and finish my story of why I would be so grateful to discover a flat tire on my bike. You see when I parked it after my last ride the tire wasn’t flat. Normally when I get a flat tire, and I get LOTS of flat tires, it’s when I’m out riding it somewhere on the roads or trails. I try to always keep a spare tube and tools in my bike bag so I can make trail repairs. Usually such repairs are an annoyance but not really a big deal. If the tire had gone flat during my last ride though it would have been much more than an annoyance.
You see the last time I was riding it was after a long day hanging out with a buddy. It was about a 13 mile ride, with me getting home at about 1 o’clock in the morning. Oh, and I didn’t quite make it back before the thunderstorm hit! I had about 2.5 miles to go when the deluge began.
In truth I do enjoy my nights riding home from my friends place. I’m quite grateful for them. The land is usually quite calm. I don’t have to fight headwinds. The trail is never crowded. Often it’s just me on it the whole way. I might get serenaded by an ongoing chorus of frogs for miles. Outdoor cats often lounge on the trail at this time of night. Deer, fox, possum, raccoon, and bunnies are common companions as well. When the fireflies are out and the moon is full these night rides are truly magical.
This night I saw the potential forecast for rain, but decided to risk it. Around 5 miles from home I saw the sharp line of clouds indicative of a storm front. The lightening started up shortly after, still off in the distance a bit, but completely illuminating the landscape in momentary flashes. The wind picked up and a few drops began to fall.
Honestly it was exhilarating to be out riding through the night as the storm rolled over me. I thought about stopping to put on my rain gear, but decided not to. It was warm enough, and my destination was home where I could strip off sodden clothes and crawl into bed. Getting soaked didn’t really matter. I did indeed get soaked when those first drops became a downpour. It was actually quite fun, though I did wish for goggles with tiny windshield wipers on them at one point.
It was a glorious night, and my trusty bike got me home. When I saw that flat tire today though my gratitude was immense because I suddenly envisioned how the night ride through the storm could have gone totally different. Man it would have sucked to be trying to change a flat tire in the middle of down pouring thunderstorm at 1 am! That would have seriously altered the spirit of the adventure. Thank you my wonderful bike for getting me home then quietly deflating all your air as I lay sleeping safe, warm, and dry in bed. I am sincerely grateful!
Studio Snippet
Because it’s been a long time since I’ve written a new blog post it’s also been a long time since I’ve done a Studio Snippet. The new body of work I was playing with has sort of fallen by the wayside. I just wasn’t satisfied with how it was going. After a long time away I’ve found I’m quite happy to be back at my stump hammering away on vessels.
This is the current piece I’m working on. It began as an example for one of my workshops to show how hammer chasing can be combined with regular chasing. I’m happy with it so for, but not quite sure just where it’s going. At the moment I’m adding in a few more chased lines as I try and decide what’s going to happen for textured areas and final surfaces.
I’m happy to have a site where I can again allow comments. (I had to shut them off on my old website because the spam was simply uncontrollable!) So please I encourage you to share thoughts of your own. My general rule about comments though is just to play nice. Differing views are fine, but I’m not interested in engaging in or moderating verbal fights. If I feel things get out of hand, by whatever criteria I decide, I’ll just start blocking or deleting things.
Hi David. Nice to read you. I’ve been out of it, of sorts, as well. Covid has put me in a kind of a slump….
Your work-in-progress makes me think of a ‘Galactic Storm Trooper’s helmet’ as in Star Wars…Ever thought of making such a piece …?
Cheers
C
Thanks Claude, nice to hear from you again too! I think Covid has put many of us into something of a slump, myself included.
While it wasn’t an intention the storm trooper feel was something I noticed about this piece too. I think the way I’m using hammer chasing and regular chasing is what’s generating this sensibility. I do like the look but it bothers me some that it’s drifting farther from a more natural object feel.
I’m not likely to deliberately try making storm trooper armor and accessories, but I do expect to pursue this hammer chasing stuff more. 😉 We’ll see where it goes. In future pieces can I steer it back to looking like something one might find in nature?
David,
This is my first visit to your Blog, however I have followed your work for a couple of years and find it intriguing, and way beyond beautiful. I love your work and you have become a major influence in my own work. I’ not very good at chasing, but I’m working on it. I have been incorporating it in my jewelery making and adding engraving as well. It’s just a hobby, but it has become my passion. I want to thank you for what you do. Dan Reynard
Thanks so much for the comment and kind words Dan. Glad my work can help inspire you. I started my chasing on jewelry as well back in the day.