When I get a moment of light breaking through, an epiphany, a moment of clarity, I heed the urge and reach for a piece of scrap paper. It might be months later, or even years, when I encounter this scratch paper note in a pile of them on my desk, Read more…
Sometimes keeping it moving one step forward at a time is all we can do as creators. Or sideways, backward or whatever direction keeps the motion motioning. Like when I’m on my bike, near an intersection and trying to sustain even the tiniest movement while waiting on vehicles to take Read more…
For the past six years, I have woken up every morning and made journaling my first priority. With rare and reasonable exceptions. Well, first priority after brushing my teeth, drinking a glass of water, and getting a cup of coffee to place next to me while I write. Six years Read more…
As my wife, Becca, and I sat down at the brewery in Gunnison, Colo., the college-aged kid who would serve us our lunch asked if we were local or passing through. We were part way home after having picked up some photographs from my latest art show. Becca told him Read more…
As a teenager in high school, I’d occasionally poke my head into the art classroom or look through the window of the door. I was curious. I’d look at the drawing tables and potter’s wheels, and the students’ artwork hanging along the walls. And I’d wonder what it was like. Read more…
Random thoughts pop to my mind from time to time, inspired by a brief experience in the world: a song lyric, a line in a book, a fleeting sound or sight on a walk, or any of the above in a film or TV show. Or from anything else. Ideas Read more…
Overview: In this short solo episode (ep 142), Adam Williams considers the phrase “life practice” and why it’s not more widely used in society. He considers how honoring the process of practicing at life creates space for learning, compassion and evolution. (Released on podcast on Mar. 15, 2023) Also on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, YouTube, Google and Read more…
tapaḥ-svādhyāyeśvara-praṇidhānāni kriyā-yogaḥ (PYS 2.1) “You must be fueled by a burning desire to continuously study the Self, which is only available in the present moment, and to devote your self wholly to this effort – these are the actions to be taken to attain Yoga.” ~ Sharon Gannon, Jivamukti Yoga Read more…
Overview: In this short solo episode (ep 132), Adam Williams shares the pure gold of what we’ve been looking for and a way to get there, amid his reflections on Maya Angelou’s line, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” (Released Read more…
Overview: In this short solo episode (ep 131), Adam Williams shares a creative life practice he calls his Log Book of Doings (and other thoughts and practices). It’s a practice of presence, accomplishment and motivation. (Released on podcast on Jan. 31, 2023) Also on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, YouTube, Google and other players. EP 131 SHOW NOTES, Read more…
Overview: In this short solo episode (ep. 126) on the Humanitou Podcast, Adam Williams stands at the intersection of creative intentions and oopses, where truth lies in the inexactitude of life. He explores the practice of listening to the intuitive and recognizing “when something artful this way comes.” (Released on Read more…
I wrote something last week about New Year’s Eve and the false attachments we have to it, “Beyond the Constructs, We Live in Deeds, Breaths & Heartthrobs.” The essence of that might be the magical and mundane fact that new beginnings surround us. It is not tied to the Gregorian Read more…
Time and again I look at something I’ve created and feel some childlike wonder that this thing before my eyes happened at all. Gratefully. Only minutes before, this space, now so colorful, textured and full of story and life, and provocations for the curious onlooker, was a blank canvas, nothing Read more…
Circles have been regarded and created as spiritually significant for several hundred years, at least. They especially are connected to Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhists create mandalas. Mandala, in Sanskrit, means circle. Zen Buddhists create ensō. Ensō, in Japanese, means “circle form.” In the first line of the foreword written by John Read more…
In the era of smartphone selfies and social media sharing, I have found myself questioning the intentions of the selfie-maker, including, on occasion, myself. Why do people fill their social feeds with photos and videos of themselves posing and puckering and exposing, and even dying to get that special, envy-inducing Read more…
From the time we’re kids, we’re taught that the rules of society serve harsh punishments for stealing, for plagiarizing, for being unoriginal. All while we’re being socially conditioned to conform and ultimately be … unoriginal. Should it be any wonder artists often are seen as non-conformists, as rebels, as different Read more…
From the #showyourwork and #creativeprocess files … In my daily visual creative practice using the Procreate app on iPad, I’ve been exploring the simplicities of abstract line drawing. A lot of portraits. With blue eyes as the essential (and most obvious) thread that ties them all together. I’m exploring something Read more…
I’ve been contemplating the value of creative practices for a while now. But I’ve been mistakenly doing so, lately, as if it was new territory for me, as if I’ve never tapped into the power of it before. And then this morning I remembered a series I wrote as creative Read more…
I feel scattered in my creative interests and actions. I create this and that, pull on this creative thread and then pull that one, and follow where they go. I am drawn to a lot of ideas and ways of visually expressing them. So my interests spread, and my skills Read more…
A year ago, I wrote something as a response, a moment of clarity, around a perpetual question that nags at me: Why am I doing this? Like many artists, the path is unclear. We’re responding to an urge that rises within us. We’re breaking norms. There is no given market Read more…