In pursuit of the state of the art

The trailhead

In 2019, I was navigating a career change that demanded a lot of my attention; so in the evenings, I would unwind with some art—sketching, doodling, painting. 

That summer, on my lunchtime walks, I spotted some inspiring things in my home city of Sheffield. One was a random painting someone had left in an alleyway, propped up against a wall, free to any passerby who wanted it. The other was a children’s book that had been left on a park bench wrapped in a clear plastic bag with a note inside that read, “Well done! You are the lucky finder of this book. You can decide to keep it, pass it on to someone else, or leave it for another child to find. Once you’ve enjoyed it, please rehide it (or another book) so that others can join the fun.” 

I didn’t take either of them but felt inspired by their existence in the world—I felt inspired by the human spirit to give with no expectation. 

As my birthday approached that autumn, I decided that for my birthday I didn’t want a party or gifts from anyone, but rather to do 33 random acts of kindness. And for those acts, I would paint 33 paintings—on canvases about the size of a textbook (8 x 10”)—package them in plastic envelopes with a little note for finders, and place them out and about in the city for people to find. 

I started by rounding up materials, getting in packages of canvases and acrylic paints. Then almost every evening after work during the month leading up to my birthday, I would pull out my drop cloth, my box of paints, and my stack of canvases, plop myself on the floor with a cup of tea and get to work. 

Sometime before this, through previous artistic endeavor and exploration, I had thrown away all my paint brushes and had decided to paint with just my hands. This allowed me to be expressive and connected to the medium and helped me to let go of the desire to do art that is just re-creating images of reality—which is how I trained and learned to do art, by painting and drawing more realistic subject matter. 

Painting with my hands allowed me to be expressive and create colorful imagery that I liked by layering on the paint. Through this, I realized my own little process that allowed me to work on 5-6 paintings at a time with ease. By adding paint in layers, I was able to do a base layer in one sweep, then do a second layer, maybe a third layer with some contrasting shapes to add a bit more depth. It was an iterative approach. 

To top it off, I’d use a paint pen to draw on little patterns and shapes to give the paintings a sense of movement, rhythm, and vibration. 

When I paint like this, I feel like I’m visualizing the intangible, ineffable parts of my experience. Like the feeling you get when you listen to a song that speaks to you or the feeling of flow state. 

I finished these paintings just as my 33rd birthday arrived, and topped them all off by sweeping some gold paint along the sides of the canvases. I popped each one in a clear plastic envelope with a little note to finders and then set off into the night with a friend to help me drop these across Sheffield. 

I left the paintings out like easter eggs across Sheffield on the 3rd of November, the night before my birthday. I shared a post on Twitter to let people in my network know there were paintings out in the city to be found. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much reaction, but I was wrong. 

The next day, our local radio picked up the story and asked me on air for an interview while a correspondent was out hunting for one of my paintings in Sheffield! The following week, I was featured in a write-up in a local paper. 

And as people found my paintings, I received a lot of touching DMs and mentions on social media.

I learned that you really do reap what you sow. I sowed seedlings of colorful artwork out into the world, and I reaped the rewards with all the positivity that came back to me. 

The additional reward was the sense of accomplishment of completing an art project for someone other than myself. It was for the community. I felt incredibly grateful for the way Sheffield had shaped my life as an outsider coming here to live and work. And I have this deep belief that if you have a gift, you should give it—you should share that gift. So, I practiced that. And then I got rewarded. 

I didn’t get paid. But I got rewarded. And those rewards became my motivation.

That motivation triggered my artistic fly-wheel. I found the currency of inspiration that I needed to keep going. After that first drop, I decided to set myself a big audacious goal and give away 500 paintings. 

I cannot remember how I settled on 500. I just wanted to do something big. 

So, I’ve been pursuing that goal ever since, and I’ve completed and dropped 225 to date (in cities across the UK and Europe) and hope to reach 500 by the end of this year, 2023.

I like to think of art as a state as if it were a place, or a channel of energy that’s flowing around us always—but I know all too well, it’s a state that can feel hard to access or get into. My life has been dedicated to the pursuit of that state, of that fine area on the edge of now and next—in the maelstroms of energy, and emotion—where in a flash something new comes into being that feels closer to truth, to sacred beauty. 

In this Substack, I want to share with you my experiences in pursuing art, insights into my creative processes, and lessons from projects I’ve done in both the personal and professional realms. 

If you’ve read this far, thank you! This is a new project for me, my goal is to write to you every 2 weeks. Like everything I do in life, the door is open for iteration. So I may switch things up or try a different tactic, but I’ve got a lot more to share so stay tuned. 

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