When I'm asked what five books I'd
personally choose to have were I to be marooned on a desert island
(insert Mount Desert Island joke here), this would be the definitive list:
1) sketchbook
2) sketchbook
3) sketchbook
4) sketchbook
5) sketchbook
But seriously, this was in part prompted by the observation of how many folks say that they are "bored" in their Facebook status updates. Gotta wonder what that's like, and it makes me grateful how awesome just a simple blank sheet of paper can be, at least for those of us who are easily amused. The other inspiration comes from seeing so many folks on vacation here in Acadia park their cars along the Park Loop Road, or out on Schoodic Point, pop the trunk, haul out some foldup chairs, and simply sit, for hours, out on the rocks, watching the ocean, listening to the waves. Beats pretty much anything TV any damn day.
When I told a junior high Spanish teacher that I was bored, she looked at me and said, "Intelligent people are never bored." I have never been bored since. After all, I was intelligent, right? But I discovered there is always something to observe, pay more attention to, learn. One just has to use one's senses more fully.
ReplyDeleteOne of my answers to the question as to "how did you start cartooning?" was the fact I spent many hours in grade school daydreaming when I was supposed to be paying attention in class. Years later in college the habit payed off as far as paying attention: there's research that people who doodle are actually *more* tuned in to what's going on around them, and how background noise serves to help focus (one reason why camping out in cafes can be a paradoxically productive environment). Hence when lecturing in my art classes I encouraged folks to have out sketchbooks to "take notes."
ReplyDeleteThat and the old line when it looks like I'm staring off into space doing nothing I'm actually working - daydreaming is an overlooked and underrated skill.