Carav D’Ache Neocolor Aquarelle Pastels are smooth and beautiful and pure. I got a set of 10 in my seminar swag bag and they came packaged in a Ferrari red metal tin kind of like an Altoids Mints tin but way more Gucci.
My kids told me what Gucci means, it’s the first time I’ve used it and I hope I used it right.
These amazing pastels are made in Switzerland and are used by artists to express whatever it is that needs expressing.
So, with 10 new colors of exotic pastel wonderfulness I approached the blank, uncoated, rough textured white paper with excitement, confidence, and happy that I didn’t have any grand plan or worse, any expectation.
Because sometimes I’m disappointed with my ability to draw. I often begin with abstract lines, a wandering of mind that drives whatever medium I have in hand to meander the confines of the paper looking for a home.
Sometimes it takes a pleasing shape, and I feel that it’s successful. Sometimes it’s just like stretching before a run, getting blood to cold muscles and cartilage prepared for the challenge that lies ahead.
Having no idea where the finish line is, you have to start and trust the muscles you’ve built to get you there.
That’s the first rule, if you try to define the end at the beginning, there’s no use making the trip.
You just arrive at a place you’ve been many times before, that boring beige train station named “SAFE”.
Today my scribbles started the journey by following familiar old paths that are always treading water just below the surface in my mind.
But when I dive a bit deeper, try a little bit harder, I can get a look at all the things inside of me that make me, me.
It gets more difficult to see the deeper you dive, and the bottom never looks like you thought it would.
And that’s where I try to make something that matters. Everyday at different depths, using different tools, and a different me than the me yesterday.
Today I’m creating a piece of art that’s powered by brainwaves that are constantly moving like the tides, the waves, the currents and undercurrents.
Each color a thick to thin wire that make the connections to thoughts and to actions, bad and good, healthy and not, endlessly traveling to find a truth that may or may not be reachable.
The ancestral electricians who created my original operating system, and each generation that followed, set about making upgrades, installing patches, optimizing codes and so on.
I believe they meant well, and the system seems to run well, so long as it’s in service to the “greater good”.
Not for us. For them.
The owners.
The one’s who truly benefit from all of our labor, obedience and compliance.
I’ve come to realize that the original wiring was installed with pure intent, as pure and beautiful as the colors that I’m scribbling with, only to have the glorious machine slowly hijacked for the profit of a few.
The one’s that solemnly pin the purple heart on the lapel but have never faced the danger themselves.
Long ago it was decided that the population must be trained to sit in rows, raise a hand for permission to speak, go to the toilet, or get a cup of water. They label the circuits with words like “duty”, “honor”, “team player”, and the ultimate transistor for the motherboard, “hero”.
I think it would be good to put in a “change order” for our “foundational behavior” application to be updated, maybe a “tiger team” could be formed and they can “workshop” a shiny new app that would be “user friendly” and “intuitive” to the “client facing” audience to yield a “better return on investment” thus keeping our shareholders in a “generous posture” ensuring future investment.
And then, I’m sure they’ll find a way to make us all feel great. We will loudly cheer for the branding they created behind a crisp, on trend logo so we can energetically high five the people in our carefully defined and assigned tribes.
As for me, I will try to figure out, with my beautiful colors and non-team player mind, how they got us to feel guilty for raising a hand to question them in the first place.
I think it’s because they added a line of code in there to make us feel that way when we don’t go along with their expectations.
I will look closer still; to find a new path to re-route the signals so we can all update our software, form a new tribe and together make a break for it.
And I’m going to make the software available in a glossy, polished, bright Ferrari Red tin that is bold and Gucci and outrageous.
Then everyone can find beautiful ways to disagree.
