Dear Ones,
You’re invited on a journey called “from GIST to JOY” , which is something new I am offering.
from GIST to JOY - CUSTOM creativity and expression lessons. $40- $80. per hour. sliding scale
from GIST to JOY subscription: $124. per email subscription: receive a monthly email (13 total) with painting images, gist to joy techniques and more. Gist to Joy nurtures artistic appreciation with an exciting back door, philosophical, interdisciplinary twist AND offers choices of exciting new ways to explore your own creativity in new ways - with interdisciplinary cross fertilization.
from April 1, 2022 to April 1, 2023. pay via PayPal to order.
Subscribers are welcome to request private, individualized Gist to Joy coaching, to swim deeper into the seas of interdisciplinary artistic appreciation and personal creativity practices introduces by the emails received. Mind you - artistic disciplines run the gambit - of primary, secondary etc. artistic interests exercised or merely conceptualized in ones own life. Individuals have the freedom to simply muse over the concepts received in the emails and to engage however much or little one wishes. I will present playgrounds for subscribers exploration - a buffet of choices, sniff, eat, walk by, devour - return later….
GIST to JOY is an exciting avenue of artistic appreciation and cultivation for all forms of expression. It was inspired by an invitation I received by Dr. Vance Reese, of Brevard Collage, in January 2022, when he asked me if I’d be a guest lecturer for his class "Music and the arts in dream work” for a Wednesday morning, February class. I eagerly said “100% YES! “
With such a broad topic, I asked myself “HOW can I possibly make this lecture pertinent, and relevant to all students themselves, regardless of what - if any - specific artistic discipline(s) within their lives?” My answer - dive deeply to the core factors of art.
All art is an act of TRANSLATION
by sensing the GIST,
getting conscious of the gist,
consciously expressing the gist in a form of choice,
expressing the gist
and if done creatively, with love and respect, results in joy.
VOILA
GIST to JOY celebrates and nurtures the core techniques of artistry from conception to expression, inherent in the universal foundations of human creative expressions.
I eagerly accepted then contemplated - what to offer for that 60 minute time. Later, I imagined this series of offerings to nurture the art of dream work, and the essential tool box helpful to ALL form or artistic appreciation and creativity. I hope you will join me on this journey with this email subscription AND go the extra mile with private custom coaching!
GIST: meaning here = the essence, tone, flavor, character, unique spirit of the subject.
JOY: meaning here = fulfillment experienced by expressing the GIST honestly and creatively in a transformative, meaningful, soul watering way. (not mere representation)
CONCEPTION: meaning = becoming conscious of the gist and discovering the correct placement of form for the expression of the gist
EXPRESSION: = the gist conceived and successfully put into form in which it can be experienced outwardly in linear time by oneself and potentially others-in the form(s) of choice.
OK now ready, set, let’s explore!
This blog serves, in part, as a review of the lecture to the February 9th lecture at Brevard College.
First let’s start by building a GIST TO JOY tool box of skills for this adventure!
(We will also cultivate exercises which can be employed toward various forms of artistic experience and expression.)
In order to find the gist, it helps to be present, relaxed, alert, aware and concentrating.
In order to find the gist, it helps to deliberately learn and practice how to identify qualities of being.
The 5 step focus is a powerful technique which I’ve been using and teaching for decades. A few students, years later, have told me how this technique has a powerful and positive impact on their lives!
The 5 step focus has 5 steps!
Step 1 = focus your mind of your breathing and posture.
Be conscious of when you are inhaling and when you are exhaling.
(Tips: be aware of the soles of your feet. settle into your pelvic cradle - let it support you, relax the muscles around your belly button and relax the muscles of the face, include tongue. Elevate rib cage, stretch top of neck and gentle, slightly lower chin. Gently close fully or partially your eyes - keeping eyes relaxed.)
Step 2 = continue step 1 and add to your concentration all you can hear.
Step 3 = continue step 2, mentally scan and relax body head to toe, deliberately breathe deeper and slower and add to your concentration olfactory awareness.
Step 4 - continue step 3 and add to your concentrated focus, heightened sensitivity and awareness of your choice.
Step 5 = continue step 4, put fingertips together; pinky to pinky, pointer to pointer and so on, and add - without eclipsing - to your concentrated focus, all you can see.
PS ( Be gentle with yourself, if an invading though comes - so what ? - let it pass like a scene beyond a window in a train, if while you focus on hearing for example, you also smell the aroma of coffee or whatever - so what - that’s fine ! - simply make sense of hearing the dominant focus as best you can in that moment)
Each step is for x amount of time determined by the practitioner. As a music teacher, 30 seconds a step minimum is suggested.
Ideally, life is a perpetual step 5 - without the fingertips together and while moving physically through activities.
Benefits of 5 step focus:
strengthens awareness, perception, and concentration, in general and towards nuance, plus
increases memory, relaxation and it is rejuvenating. (I’ve found its an excellent meditation for hyper intellectual people, people who have busy minds, and/or trouble meditating in general.)
Students who practice 5 step focus retain much more and perform any linear task much better, such as linear performance of any kind. Improves dexterity.
5 step focus enhances ones ability to dream lucidly as well as sense and recall more nuance within dreams.
The CREATIVE FOCUS: is the 5 step focus only one images that one is practicing the 5 step focus.
So, for step 2, you imagine what you hear…. and so forth.
(Tip : imagine that you are practicing the 5 step focus in a garden, where you are safe, and in a garden which has some sort of form of water in it. After you imagine what you see in step 5, - put your fingertips together, open your eyes and practice the 5th step of the 5 step focus in present linear time as best you can.)
BENEFITS of The CREATIVE FOCUS: intensely strengthens one’s ability to concentrate and imagine.
OPTION to include: The 6 step focus: is the 5 step focus with the added philosophical questions;
WHO is listening/sensing with these ears/etc.,…
Just as a dreamer can become a lucid dreamer in a dream, can a person become a lucid dreamer in life? If life is but a dream, who’s dream is it? Who creates the dream? Who co creates a dream?
Discerning GIST and expressing GIST
It helps to use contrasting possibilities to narrow down, to hone in on and identify gist of a dream - (or character, place, etc. ) and express it.
If one has just awoken from a dream for example, an example of contrast technique is this:
Would how you feel emotionally be best expressed with contracting, folding, withdrawing physical movements, or with opening, unfolding, expansive physical movements? “ “ Stationary or fleeting?
What colors would NOT be appropriate to express the emotional tone of ______ dream, painting, composition, character etc.? Which colors, movements, rhythms, shapes, sounds would possibly be congruent with the tone of ____ character, place, feeling,
There is so much to explore here!
Variations of focuses to deepen, broaden, and customize tool box.
Dream journal tips: (Dream journal can be a metaphor and easily customized and translated for other purposes)
it helps to start with a basic chart:
List:
DREAM TITLE - give your dream a title to help you recall the specific dream
tone = state emotional tone(s) of dream - state emotional volume of the dream - how intense where the emotions?
category: dream of flying, looking for something, being chased etc…
characters = state characters
places:
hooks: what are visual or memory hooks to recall the dream
Jot down possible forms of translation the express.
I know this is so basic, but however it is helpful for more than dream journaling.
It helps at times to have these techniques for other art forms.
MUSIC INSPIRED BY A DREAM
go to MUSE ECHO page on this website (oboebrilliance.com)
scroll down and listen to wood wind quintet : IX STAGES OF PURIFICATION
be in step 4 of the 5 step focus while listening
Listen for the GIST of the different sections
Listen to the character behavior of the different instruments of the ensemble.
How are they working in similar at times and at other times - contrasting ways in relationship?
parallel - in addition
_____________
Painting featured:
Below is a painting which can serve as an example of technique GIST to JOY ….
I was commissioned to paint what ever I wanted, however using a specific palette including gold, and purple, and to be somehow similar - related to another - painting I had done a year or two before, which the client mentioned.
I intuited the gist that the client wanted something bold, mysterious, and encouraging.
GIST = BOLD< MYSTERIOUS, ENCOURAGING, SOOTHING
Palette = gold, violet - I decided pink and deep blue
to achieve the gist with these colors I wanted a strong form for bold with gold, and bold strokes of movement but in unexpected ways for mysterious, lightness of white and pink for encouraging and rich blue for soothing. While painting however, i have to FEEL and embody these feelings and make sure what I was painting was congruent with the task.
If I were dancing this, I’d use strong vertical movements with arms uplifting and moving out, returning to a slightly modified torso.
If I were setting the painting to music - I’d create a scale congruent to the colors and instruments appropriate to convey bold and mystery. Perhaps a mix of winds and brass. Oboe, trumpet, flute and french horn.
If you were writing a movie in which a character was to unveil this painting with a dinner - what would you you serve for dinner? What would the dining room look like? Where would it be located and who would attend? Candles? If the chalice were to become an actual chalice, what character would drink out of it? Describe the character in as much detail as you wish. What kind of dreams does that character have? What kind of goals and wishes?
Enjoy. feel free to email me kathrynjpotter@gmail.com with any and all comments and questions.
Thank you and best wishes,
Kathryn J. Potter
