Exploration

Travel revitalizes. Even the most conventional tourist knows this. Transported away from schedules and familiar sights, our senses are reawakened. It is easier to see when the sights are uncommon; easier to smell when the scents are unfamiliar.

To achieve this state without ever leaving home is more difficult still. It takes great discipline, resembling the Zen practice of shoshin, or beginner’s mind, in which a childlike sense of anticipation and awe is brought to all of life’s experiences. But the payoffs for artists, who barter in a sensory economy, are great. By accessing a travel-like state, an artist can capture emotions, colors, and the other raw material that makes their work ring true. As Zen master Shunryu Suzuki writes,

"In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”