Here’s an example of a guy discarding the traditional boxes and ladders and inventing his “thing” – doing, being and creating what he loves. I often talk about how art-making is a metaphor for living. I found this video of a sand artist and I just love, love, love the metaphors for living within his art-making process. Check it out…

I particularly enjoyed the following perspectives:

Drop the planning and scheduling and controlling

He says, “There’s no director. I’m not late. I’m not early. Nothing.” You’d think that a guy who does all his art-making on the beach would get to know the tides and plan things so that the tides don’t interrupt his art-making and destroy it. Nope. He’s totally content with fully investing in creating and he seems to have no fear or attachment to the outcomes. We spend so much time planning and scheduling our lives because we’ve been taught that controlling is the route to success and happiness. Well, notice how joyful and playful this guy looks.

Embrace impermanence and change

Like the other sand artist I blogged about before, he chooses to create with such impermanent materials. Think of traditional artists and the lengths they go to work with materials that are robust and will preserve the artwork in its original state. And think of how hard we work to tie stuff down and to create a sense of permanence and future predictability by building our forts and planning and trying to make long-term choices about our futures. How much space do we allow in our lives for truly welcoming impermanence and change?

Every artwork this guy makes gets washed away – sometimes while he’s still busy. I’m struck by the faith that he must have in his ability to create, for him to choose to create with such impermanent materials. Imagine if you had that kind of faith in all areas of your life? How agile, resourceful, creative and expansive would you be then?

Develop the ability to do both eagle vision and mouse vision

This guy has a truly phenomenal sense of perspective. He seems to be able to do both eagle vision (the big picture/ high level vision) and mouse vision (the immediate details and next small steps right in front of you) at the same time. I don’t know how he does that! Most of us tend to be stronger at either eagle vision or mouse vision, but the people who are most effective at creating what they want to create have the mental flexibility to easily and frequently shift between eagle and mouse vision. The more polarized we are in preferring either eagle or mouse vision, the harder we’ll find it to change gears and pop between eagle and mouse vision, and the less agile we’ll be in our creation process.

Appreciate beauty in everything

I loved the part where he talks about a guy who wanted to destroy his artwork and went about wiping it out in the sand. He says he came back and found the wiped out artwork afterwards and “It was an artwork in itself!” Instead of being pissed off that the guy wiped out his artwork, he saw it as an act of co-creation and looked for the beauty in it. How often do you get pissed off at other people who are messing up or obstructing whatever it is you’re trying to create? What if you saw their obstruction as part of the art? What gifts would you find?

You don’t need a lot to create your art

I love the simplicity of the tools he chooses – a skanky stick, a rake, sand and shells. No fancy expensive stuff that’s only available to a few exclusive people. Often we think we need fancier tools to be able to create more epic results. We put off creating until we can get those fancy tools, and we don’t notice all the resources we have sitting right in front of us, right now. What a pity.

And man, don’t you just love his passion?

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