Stimulating Calm

Prints on mesh hanging in Rachel Biffin's studio

I have a beautiful studio/office set-up at the back of my garage in my garden. Plants cluster around my laptop as I type. Artworks, in process, sit along the walls.

I even have some Pilates equipment to workout on. It is all very nice. Except …I can’t hear people buzzing, moving, and changing. I can’t hear signs of industry or creativity. 

Except for the boys’ next door occasional rock band practice (which fills my heart with joy), I hear a dog yap and a lawn mower every other day (Kate Dazeneaulds, owner of Work Life, wrote about this domestic milieu in one of her promotional emails recently) 

I need calm like every other human. Being calm helps me focus, relate to people, create, taste my food, tune into my body, observe my surroundings, and think critically. 

But for me, I realise, stimulation of the senses leads to my calm;

Deep, longform podcasts soothe me. Being in the bush for more than a day drives me batty. 

The swirl of the ocean is my ultimate de-stresser. Quiet yoga classes to a soundtrack of mid-aughts ambient beats, no thanks. 

Just as there’s no diet, or exercise regime that suits all humans, what we perceive as calm differs from person to person.

I keep this idea in mind when making my artworks; mostly abstract, often working in highly saturated colours, printed on mediums like commercial banner mesh, wood blocks, or aluminum. I want these works to inhabit that seemingly contradictory space between stimulation and soothing where I, and surely many others, find calm. 

Till next week,

Rachel