stop worrying about where you're headed.
the art of intention setting in the simplest possible way.
welcome back to imprints, thanks for being here. in this post…
📄 look where you want to go. → how to get where you’re headed.
✍️ origins. → of the 1/1 artwork, look where you want to go.
🎆 onward. → into 2024.
you know that feeling when you’re descending a hill on a bike, a motorcycle, a pair of skis? basically any form of self-propelled transport that produces a rapid acceleration…the wind picks up, your heart starts beating a pace faster and your mind starts to rattle off all the ways this could go terribly wrong. it’s in that moment when refocusing on the breath and pointing your gaze to where you want to be (safe at the bottom of this hill!) becomes paramount to success — not only in that moment, but to the entire endeavor.
look where you want to go.
think about it this way. if you let not only your mind, but also your gaze, go into the steep-ditch-full-of-brambles-bordering-a-gravel-strewn-path that’s precisely where your two wheels will follow, leaving you on your back and no better for your climbing efforts in the first place.
it’s crucial in moments of stress and anxiety induced worry babble to take control of the narrative. rather than worrying about where you’re headed, take a deep breath and look where you want to go.
the result, if done on repeat throughout a nerve wracking process is arriving at a destination of your choosing.
this is something i picked up while learning to ride a bike, again, as an adult. i’d ridden as a kid all over the neighborhood and often as my primary mode of transport to grade school. i had a pretty massive gap in bike riding practice from age 11 to 22. an entire decade+ without two wheels. so when i picked up cycling as a habit, first while in antarctica when an ex introduced me to the sport of cycling via the tour de france (which we’d watch while riding stationaries in the gym), and then while traveling + camping new zealand with a brand new bike in tow, my first as an adult. there was much relearning and technical know how to pick up that the flat desert rides of my youth didn’t quite impart.
one of these learnings was, you guessed it, to look where you want to go. in the case of a bike ride, that narrative continues as …and the wheels will follow. first up the hill, then safely down the steep descent, curve by curve. eventually landing you back home unscathed, full of endorphins and a bit more confident.
i’ve experienced the bike ride in both scenarios — with a head full of nervous babble that resulted in launching myself over the handlebars in the bramble ditch and the alternative, coasting down the curves aware of the fear, all while pointing my gaze ahead, turn by turn. the key to experiencing that second ride was a mix of patience, self-love and persistence. patience in the moment, self-love to get over the embarrassment of falling and persistence to show up at the hill again.
looking where you want to go may sound straight forward and, in concept, it is. practice is where you’ll find the struggle + the magic. isn’t this true of most things though? the practice is where we both meet, and overcome, the struggle. if each time the fear pops up we remember to point ourselves where we want to be, we’ll make it around the next curve and, eventually, those curves will add up to land us right where we’re meant to be.
origins.
the art featured in this post is something i sketched out a while back and eventually brought into procreate late this past summer. i’ve been navigating less physical and more-so-theoretical hills this past six months as i moved back across the ocean and set up a new home on the mainland. breaking through my own fears and realizations of where i want to be in the longer term has been a big theme for me this past year. i’ve learned a lot, but to put it most concisely: i’ve come to understand that doing things in my own time is a-okay.
onward.
where am i looking to go in the next year? onward with my generative art journey. my focus in 2023 has transitioned from hand drawn physical and digital artworks to coded artworks. both one-off and algorithmic. in the past couple months i’ve built up momentum and am currently curating a set of outputs from my first work in progress algorithm, [p]plane. i want to mark a moment on the blockchain for this algorithm before i transition it from processing to p5js and evolve it to a long form minting experience. i’ll send a note when i have those curated works ready.
in other related news, i received an axidraw pen plotter for the holiday this year! my family came together to buy this after listening to me nerd on and on about it for the past months. i’m spoiled and over the moon to explore this new tool. i’ve already taken to calling it eleven-eighty-eight after its serial number. i can see some coded 1/1s with plotted physicals coming in 2024. 👀
lastly, my year long open edition — another turn. — is coming to a close on december 30th. big thanks to everyone who’s claimed a free edition (76 editions so far!). i enjoy having a hidden reward for subscribers, so will be continuing this tradition and minting something new in the coming days for 2024. will send a note when i do!
when you hit the 🖤 it helps others discover my writing + art, thank you!
see you in 2024.
⚫️✨
dancing it out, into the new year…
beautiful 💗✨
love to see you writing again! <3