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To experience something slowly over time, in order to find deep satisfaction and pleasure in it, is to savour it. We linger, connect, sense, and feel, allowing the qualities of the experience to take up space within us. Through the act of slowing down and opening to the experience, we come to know and feel more deeply the gifts being offered in that moment. Art-making benefits from this experience of savouring. The more willing we are to spend meaningful time with our work, the more we receive—it fosters a deeper understanding of ourselves, which we can then bring to the vision we hold for our creative work. I consider art-making to be a relationship, both to the self and to the work. Like all relationships, it requires commitment and attention. We need to nurture that relationship and sustain the connection over time, through all the inevitable changes that may come. What supports us in doing this is returning, again and again, to why this relationship matters, and savouring its beauty and its capacity to expand our experience and understanding. So often we are swept up in getting somewhere—to an outcome, a result, a place of more ease. In doing so, we don’t always allow ourselves the grace of lingering, or of doing something for the pure joy of the experience itself. We have so much pulling at our attention now, asking us to quickly shift from one thing to another. We skim and scroll, stop and start, lose focus, and then claw our way back to what we actually want—and need—to be doing. It’s exhausting. We are yanked around by the sheer volume of what is available, intoxicated by the endless options for our attention. Like many of you, I question how this serves us—or our art. In many ways, it feels counterproductive. If we can’t slow down enough to reflect on our lives and our creative work, how can we know what is true for us, and what we want to express through our creative voice?
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