1 year of Clean art: Week 3
This week of Clean art has been heavily inspired by meditation and my Buddhist beliefs. As I strengthened my meditation practice, I slowed down more in life and increased my awareness of my mind.
So much goes on in our mind and much of it unnoticed. Just like a lot goes on in our day and many beautiful things are missed. This week’s been about capturing some of those moments and fragments of consciousness.
Day 15 — Mountain

I enjoy writing. My most active period of writing was when I was 15 and met my first girlfriend. We used to write a lot of poetry and short-stories to each other. After we broke up, I stopped writing as much, but kept appreciating other people’s work.
This day, I felt like picking it up again and writing a poem as tribute to life. I wanted the poem not to have any ego or direct message. The message had to be poetic, somewhat hidden, like life itself. I searched for a character, someone unsuspicious, forgetful… and a grain of sand came to mind. A thing in itself yet part of a whole, going through its existence alone yet connected.
Day 16 — Night

When visiting Ukraine last summer, we would travel to many different people. Sometimes we’d visit two or three families a day, embracing old friends and meeting strangers. During a car ride from Dnipropetrovsk’s train station at night, I saw these two lonely people hunched over and sleeping under a bus stop. It was late and I doubt any bus would’ve stopped any time soon. An ad above them shared a message of selling your hair to a company. If you sold more than 50cm of hair, you would get a free haircut. The duality of these interlaced messages brought a strange sensation to mind.
Day 16 — Holographic Attachment

My girlfriend showed me some Cyberpunk-themed photos from a Youtube video. In the video, the people were flying around with drones and using high-end coloured LED lighting to create a cool sci-fi look. But as much as I’d hoped to enjoy it, my thoughts were drawn to the lack of substance in these pictures. There was no message, no particular intention save for garnering views and followers. The world in these pictures felt holographic: a stunning gimmick until you try touching it and realize it’s just a fabricated mirage.
Abundantly empty.
Day 18 — Bowl

I took this photo of my meditation bowl because I wanted to share more of my environment with others. By itself, it is a funny plaything. Strike it with a mallet and it creates a loud resonating sound. A hommm that lasts quite a while, until it fades into nothingness: a metaphor for our thoughts which arise, exist and fade away. Where do they come from? Where do they go? The bowl offers no direct answers but a questioning hommm…
Day 19 —Bridge

Not all days or artworks have to be meaningful. Sometimes it is enough to appreciate what you have or what lies around you. To many inhabitants of Bruges, this bridge is a nuisance and obstacle to their commute. But on this day, to me, it offered a moment of stillness. Being forced to stand still, observe the sky, the passing ships, the people with their bikes and cars, … This obstacle became an opportunity to meditate away from home.
Day 20—Mr Turtle

Further developing my idea that not all art had to be particularly meaningful — and feeling a bit unmotivated to think about a deeper concept — , I drew this little doodle about a turtle and his new home 🐢🌞
Day 21 — Blue Rose

We had a pretty rose at home which lived out its life. I let it be for a few weeks, thinking the petals would fall off and it would wither away. But for some reason, though its stalk was dry and dead, it kept its shape perfectly. I was keen to keep it this way, but the ground was getting moldy and apart from its beautiful petals, there wasn’t much else to admire it for.
Hence it felt like a good candidate for an artwork. I cut it, painted it cerulean blue and stuck it to a canvas I had intended for other purposes (but then art can never be too predictable). This dead rose was made immortal, having been given the colour of the sky, the colour one no one notices when there are clouds before it.
We never point at the clouds and observe: “What a beautiful blue sky”. We notice the shape of its inhabitants: the sometimes few and often many peculiar clouds — portals to our daydreams. But the clouds are impermanent, like the rose they will fade away when their time comes. The blue of the sky, similar to the backdrop of our awareness, may be the only thing really there once all is gone.
The end of the week
A calm and thoughtful week comes to an end. I hope to continue becoming more awareness of the life around me and the movements within my mind. Thanks for being here.
About the project
On 13 October 2019 I decided to make an artwork every day, using only the tools and materials I already had. Reducing waste, combating consumerism and appreciating what we have: those are this project’s goals. I am posting daily updates on my Instagram and weekly summaries on Medium.
See you next week!
