Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Category: Environment

  • Get Your Head Out

    Get Your Head Out

    Shame on you. That’s not what I meant. I am suggesting that you need to get your head out of the day-to-day FOMO rat trap most of us are caught up in and reconnect with the amazing world around us.

    How much time have you spent on social media this week? How many times did you check your phone in the last 24. hours? Is Facebook where your face is more than with the people around you? Did you successfully keep up with today’s trending happenings? Did Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) keep you glued to your screens because you’re, well, afraid of missing out? How many hours of TV did you watch yesterday?

    Missing what's going on
    Isn’t that … Oooh, look at this!

    If you identified with this assessment, congratulations! You are exactly what the American tech giants have trained you to be. Or remember that great line in Men In Black “Gentlemen, congratulations. You’re everything we’ve come to expect from years of government training.“

    Yes, I’m being harsh for emphasis. But this heads-down, isolated, tech-centric phenomena is recent. It has mostly happened in about the last 10 years. We have allowed ourselves to be deluded. Social media should not be the center of our world. Several other things are much more important. I won’t go into my list, because they represent my values and I am not attempting to sell you on mine. There is, though, one I want to discuss here.

    Reconnect

    I believe it is more important now than it ever has been to reconnect with the world around us. When did you last take actual time to look at things around you? Have you turned off the radio on your commute and looked out the window? Have you turned off your music and listened to things? When did you last stop to be amazed by a sunset?

    Well who am I and what do I have to say about this? I’m nobody important. But I have started doing just what I am recommending. And I am an artist. As an artist, I am in a position to observe the world with a different eye, a different point of view. At this time, my point of view is strongly driven by the theme of reconnecting. I hope to help people along this path.

    Addiction?

    How do you reconnect with the beautiful world around you? It’s not easy. Just like it is not easy to quit smoking or drinking if you are addicted to those things. Yes, I believe social media and entertainment has become an addiction for many of us. First step is realizing your state. You might actually have to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning and say “Hi. I’m _____, and I’m a Facebook addict”.

    If you say that to yourself it will help you start to see the situation in a different light. You might look at yourself and realize you just spent another 2 hours on Facebook (or whatever). Now the kids have gone to bed and you didn’t spend time with them or even interact with them much. Lost opportunity, again. But for what? What about that social media was more important than your family?

    I recommend a little book by Svend Brinkmann, “The Joy of Missing Out“. Or a similarly named book “The Joy of Missing Out: Live More by Doing Less“, by Tanya Dalton. (I do not receive any compensation from these). They have the time to express it in much more depth.

    What can I offer?

    But I’m just an artist. What can I offer you? I can offer images of the amazing world around us. Not vacation shots or selfies at the beach. Rather, thoughtful views of life going on all around us that you do not see unless you slow down and look. Things that help us to remember who we are and where we live.

    This kind of art is not just about pretty pictures, although the things we want to reconnect with will typically be pretty. It is something that gives us a shiver. Art like this can cause us to think and remember. It makes us stop and quietly say “wow”. It reminds us of what brings us peace and rest.

    Note, I’m not a happiness guru. I am not selling a formula for being happy. I am trying to help you reconnect with the world.

    If you surround yourself with images like this it will remind you, every day, what is out there. It will remind you to look and listen, to reconnect with the world.

    Check out my images at photos.schlotzcreate.com. Perhaps some of them will resonate with you.

  • Why Hang It On Our Wall?

    Why Hang It On Our Wall?

    We’re all on a journey. Life is a journey, not a destination. Having guides or at least signposts on the journey helps us to hold to our path. The Images we choose to feature on our walls are representative of our signposts.

    I’m not going as deep as the introduction sounds. This is not an offer to be your guide and I am not hanging out a “Life Coach” sign. My point here is that images are one of our guides in our journey. And they are ones we get to choose.

    Through recorded history, and even earlier, people have made, commissioned, kept, and wanted to see images. There is something inherent in our makeup that makes these valuable to us. Why is that?

    I think images help us in various ways and those ways evolve with time and maturity.. We are alone on our journey, but we are all together. Our journey is unique, but very similar to each of the billions of people who have come before. Pictures can help remind us that we are not a freak. We are a lot like everyone else. They can represent goals we aspire to or document moments we want to remember. Images on our walls can calm us down or make us think. Our moods are influenced by our environment. Our selection of pictures to surround ourselves with is a significant tailoring of that environment.

    Telling a story

    OK, that’s pretty dense. Let’s unpack it some. People tell me that pictures tell a story, or at least good ones should. I’m not sure that is as true as many artists think. To me a good image gives us the raw material we use to construct our own story. Story is at the heart of our being. We are so tuned to think in stories that when we see a picture we often construct a story for it in our mind. Where was it taken? What were they doing? Why was this happening? What does it mean? I’m sure most of us have found ourselves looking at an image that intrigues us and asking these questions.

    The old saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words. This isn’t literally true, of course. But a picture can capture a whole story for us. The story we construct for ourselves for an image can have great symbolism and a deep meaning. Or it could just take us to a happy place and give us peace when we consider it. Looking at an image on our wall that we see every day brings us into that story we have made in an instant.

    Why have pictures

    What are we looking for, then? There are many reasons to surround ourselves with images. Some that come to mind:

    • Remembering friends or relatives. We want to be reminded of those who are important to us. Pictures can keep them close to us, even take us back to significant events or times. The pictures are there even after they are gone.
    • Remember a peak event in our life. Maybe it is a wedding or starting a business or graduating from college. Whatever it is, looking at the picture brings back the memory of the event.
    • Pictures can feed our aspirational needs. Maybe we love the sea and fill our walls with sea images. If we love to hike or bike we might have grand landscapes showing the areas we want to be in. Maybe it is a mountain we plan to climb or a river we want to kayak. No matter what it is, we tend to surround ourselves with images that give us a warm feeling.
    • Pictures can make us think. Sometimes surreal or abstract images serve to stimulate our imagination. Or, depending on your makeup, it may be an image with lots of detail or strong composition. They can give us a little shot of energy when we glance at them.
    • Pictures can just be calming. Many people appreciate images that are peaceful, pastoral. This often involves nature or natural things. Because it gives us a sense of connectedness to our environment. It reminds us of the natural world out there that we don’t see enough of.
    • Pictures can also give us a sense of continuity. Historical subjects or old things can give us a sense of being part of a longer story. One day I will write on wabi-sari. That’s a Japanese philosophy that reveres things that age with character. But it is a lot more than that. It requires more space than I have here.

    So why do we choose pictures to hang on our wall? It varies with each individual and their situation in life at the time. But in general, good images give us a sense of place and a continuity with the longer story of humanity. Choose your environment carefully.