Not everyday, but most days I can manage, it’s a little hot water with some lemon, about 5-10mins of stretching and straight into 20 minutes of mediation.

I do this first thing out of bed in the morning, when I can. I’m in a new chapter of life without a fixed home base, which is exciting but worry, anxiety and over thinking enjoy creeping into the mind and body in this transitional time and this helps to work with it and settle it. (And if you are thinking, I suck at meditating or I can’t. I think the misconception is that you will sit down and your mind will go blank and if it doesn’t your doing it wrong. But I’ve found its more about watching where your mind goes and catching yourself in these moments and bringing it back to center).

I just moved into a new shared studio space in Mexico City.

It’s in a part I haven’t spent much time in called Centro. It’s the historical downtown and it is a chaotic symphony of people, shops, sounds, smells, vendors, cars, churches, performers, barkers etc. I walk from an apartment I’m renting from a friend about 20 minutes to the studio most days. It’s one of the most alive and continuously bustling places I’ve ever been. In stark contrast to my last studio stint which was in Pioneertown, CA. In that place I would open the back door of the tiny house / studio and there was a silent 300 acres of protected land with nothing human constructed to be seen. I’m curios to see what this change of scenery does to new idea developments.

On the mental state, as I mentioned before I work with meditation as often as I can. I also couple that with lectures or talks from people like Ram Dass and others. It helps to keep a center in a world that without fail is always fluctuating and changing. On the physical front, it feels good to be in a city without a car. I am walking or biking everyday and that feels good to have as a base level of activity. Always room for improvement and more structure on all of this.

I’m into this new series of paintings that has been an interesting road thus far. I am dipping back into the human figure in my paintings after about 12 years of not working with it and it has posed exciting thoughts and challenging technical questions. I think I know what thoughts I want to convey but kind of expanding and reinventing my technical approach to how I apply paint to a surface.

“Trying to understand can get in the way of understanding”

- JONNY