One of the best things about being at the Art Farm is the
lack of internet. Some of the buildings have it, but some of them don’t. Thankfully,
my studio is sans wi-fi.
I’m a writer. This means that a lot of my time is spent
writing. Some of that writing is done by hand in my notebook, but the bulk of
it is done on this here computational machine. This means that, when given the
opportunity, I often find myself scrolling through Buzzfeed articles when all I
wanted to do was check what year the Berlin Wall fell down. One thing leads to
another and next thing you know, you’ve wasted much time and mental energy on
useless crap.
The internet is the boob tube of our generation. I grew up
with parents who firmly believed that television rots your brain (scientists
have proven this to be true...) so I never developed the habit of watching
television. On the other hand, the internet provides another opportunity for
mindlessness, one that I indulge in quite often.
I don’t freak out in internet-free zones. In fact, I look
forward to these experiences because they provide freedom from this drug that
so many of us abuse without fully understanding the hold it has on us. But it’s
an ongoing practice to bring that laissez-faire attitude towards the internet
when I actually have it at my fingertips.

Back to the Art Farm. Without the constant pull of information and connection, both useful and useless, I am forced to resort to
other things to distract me, such as doodling, reading, or messing around with
my hula hoop. When I allow my mind to wander freely without the constant
stimulation of the internet, I am “staying in the room.” I have been hearing
this a lot recently from other writers and artists: stay in the room, they say.
They mean – with your work. It’s going to be frustrating and it’s going to be
scary and you’re going to want to give up. But the ones who stay are the ones
who make it. I intend to be one of those writers who make it. (Whatever that means!)
Creating art is like becoming a scuba diver. You gear up and
you dive in. It takes a lot of time to get down there, to get acclimated to
this different underwater world. You’re got to stabilize yourself on the way
down. You breathe differently down there. You move differently, too.
Writers should understand that we are deep sea divers; we
descend into this other world where different rules apply. Once we’re down
there, we want to make the best of it and see as much as we can, right? Of
course, we must be mindful of our oxygen tank, so we do maintain a hold on the
world above the water, but we must also allow ourselves to get lost in it.
Going online when you are creating art is like a diver surfacing
too fast. It’s dangerous for them, and for us, too. Entering the vastly
stimulating online world rips us from the world we are creating on the page (or
on the canvas). We lose our flow. It takes a lot of energy and focus to descend
into that sacred place of creation, and we should honor that process by not
throwing it away so quickly.
In a world without constant access to the internet, the
World Wide Web can return to its original function as a tool. Whenever I think of something I need to do online, whether it
be to send an email or look up flight prices to Tahiti, I write it down in my
agenda. The next time I get internet access, I set a limited time that I will
be online. Then, I go through my list of tasks and get them done, one by one.
Of course, I might find myself waylaid by a passing celebrity news story, but I
will honor the time limit that I have set. If there are articles I want to read
or stories that intrigue me while I’m online, I might save them to my computer
or keep the tab open so that I can read it when I’m no longer connected to the
internet.
Cultivating a space without the bombardment of
the internet allows for a deeper kind of concentration to happen. You can dive
deeper into your work because you don’t have this buoy keeping you on the
surface. You are more committed to your creation than to anything else at that
moment, and that is crucial. The artist must completely give in to their art;
otherwise, no one else will.
pictures from our recent Art Farm Walk / Open Studios!
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The Victorian or "Icky Vicky" |
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The TeaHouse |
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The Floating Barn |