Diebenkorn getting bored

How we contend with boredom is possibly a measure of how willing we are to engage with our innate creative spirit.

American painter Richard Diebenkorn relayed this beautiful story in 1977.

“When I was a boy riding in the family car in the country (very bored) I aligned telegraph poles. As the car moved and the scene altered I might watch one in the foreground as it approached another in the middle distance and at the moment they coincided I would make a click inside my head. This became a game – basically quite simple – but lending itself to much greater complexity and difficulty as such as, where the situation permitted, stacking two poles to make a quite high one or the aligning of members in three of more levels of depth, the click always defining the critical instant when a notable visual phenomenon was occurring “out there.” The game has endless possibilities of variation such as when fence rails move like arrows or battering rams and strike stationary targets such as buildings or animals or simply form momentary crosses in the landscape. The game doesn’t require an automobile either, since while simply standing on the street an airplane may be seen, during that click, to be adhering to building face or to a telephone wire.”

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We don’t need devices or distractions or digital inputs to enliven our imaginations. All that we need is in front of our eyes already … if we’re willing to look for it.