priceless treasure

As a child I remember my grandmother often beamed with delight and said that my antics were “priceless”. But other adults punished me for the same behavior. Confused, I wondered, “Why do some adults punish me for the same things that make others laugh?”

An adult now, I understand: values. People are different and have different values. One person pays $103,579 for Alex Rodriguez’ 500th home run ball, another $103,579 for Zen Art, a third $103,579 to a politician so their religious beliefs become law.

“Value” is an adult word, the quality of a thing which makes it more or less desirable. Desire is goal-oriented. As a child all my needs were provided for. I had no need to desire food, clothes, shelter or love and lived in the moment. With no goals to drive me into the future, what I did was fun, play, an end unto itself.

Zen Art is the same: fun, play. Zen Art expresses the joy of a child playing, the joy of being.

Zen means meditation, being conscious here now. One can “be in Zen” painting a picture, tending a garden, cleaning a floor, loving a person. As a Zen artist, painting is my spontaneous dance with color and form. True, an elegant work of art is created as a consequence, but it is a consequence, not a result. The act is not goal-oriented, but rather a priceless treasure, the “value” of which is intrinsic in the act.

Zen mystic, Osho, called Zen Art “objective art”, saying, "Ninety-nine percent of art is subjective art. Only one percent objective art is based on meditation. The subjective art means you are pouring your subjectivity onto the canvas, your dreams, your imaginations, your fantasies. It has come from a chaos.

“Objective art is just the opposite. The man has nothing to throw out, he is utterly empty, absolutely clean. Out of this silence, out of this emptiness, arises love, compassion. And out of this silence arises the possibility of creativity. This silence, this love, this compassion - these are the qualities of meditation."

The adult world is more complex than a child’s. I have values now and need to provide for my fundamental needs. My values tell me what I need to do or not do to fulfill my needs in the future. Future brings in mind and tension if I am not meditative, relaxed, and watchful of the mind as I paint.  

In September 2005 I was very sick and for three straight days could not sleep. I was in a hypersensitive state the third night and felt I could easily float from the body and die. In that state I felt that the desire to live - the very desire - is a tension. Utterly exhausted but somehow relaxed in bed, I could feel the tension around the desire to live. I let the experience be a meditation, accepted the tension, let it be so, surrendered to dying. I let go...

It is a mystery why I did not die that night. Instead I fell asleep. I spent the next six days healing in a hospital. During a meditation afterwards, I had the insight that it was my fear of death and the resulting tension around my desire to live that had been keeping me from relaxing and falling asleep for three days. I realized, “I am alive! Now! The desire to be alive is a tension I don’t need.”

Since then my guiding principle has been “Be conscious, relaxed, here, now...easy is right”. This is the milieu in which I paint; and this is Zen Art: a love affair with color and form.

Meditation is natural, easy, and meditation and love are one. Just as when a pebble drops to the depths of calm, silent lake and circles of energy dance to the shores, the consciousness which grows at our depth in meditation manifests as creative love energy on our surface.

Every Zen artist expresses differently. My Zen Pearls™ Art is a synthesis of Zen calligraphy and a faux-pearl medium mounted on a silk scroll by skilled craftsmen is China. Each scroll reflects my unique expression of love energy created by being relaxed and conscious while painting. This energy is translated into the painting and is felt by sensitive clients who have commented on the relaxation and harmony they feel when in synchronicity with the Zen Pearls™ Art on the scroll.  

To value the ecstasy of love - when two beings dissolve into one - one has to have experienced such a union. There is no other way. To value Zen Art one has to have experienced the ecstasy of consciousness and love. There is no other way.

When a connoisseur values Zen Art and purchases it, everyone wins: the artist experiences the ecstasy of painting and the connoisseur experiences a priceless treasure which invokes relaxation and harmony, and provides elegant inspiration for years to come.