Constance Baltuck

Sure. Yes. Live in the moment. But...I also need to set goals for the future! Goals are what motivate me. In my work as an artist, it is thinking ahead to scheduled shows that gets me into the studio. Life is a playground of distractions: books to read, a garden that needs work, cleaning and organizing, meeting friends for walks and swimming; activities that require living in the moment, being physically and emotionally present.

Yet, once I'm at work at the easel, living in the moment, the moment slips right out of the space/time continuum and I am nolonger present. Deep into a painting, I disappear into what the work demands. I see and obey. The painting requires color here, lines there,shapes here and there, more color, more lines, more, more, more, until it's three in the morning and I've had no sense of the passage of time.

And when I return to the studio and see the painting, I study it in wonder. How
did I do that? How did it end up the way did? How? The answer is inexplicably simple; the painting told me where to go and what to do, and even managed to stop time while I was working at it. Weird! Awesome! Hard to get started. Hard to stop. If not for working toward the future, I would never experience getting so lost in the moment.