By the second week of January, the gym is quiet again and the new notebook has four pages filled. It isn't a lack of discipline. Most resolutions are written by a version of us who doesn't exist yet, and then handed to the one who does.
This year, try something smaller and much harder to fail.
A word instead of a list
Choose one word for the year. Not a goal, a direction: slower, lighter, curious, enough, home. A list can be broken by 14 January. A word just waits for you to come back to it.
Then give it a painting
A word is abstract. A painting gives it a body you can look at on an ordinary Tuesday.
Caspar David Friedrich's The Monk by the Sea could hold a word like "space" or "enough": a tiny figure on a strip of sand, facing an immense sky. Technical studies have shown that Friedrich first painted boats on that sea, then painted them out. He kept removing things until only what mattered remained.
Caspar David Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea, 1808–1810. Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
How to choose your word and your painting
- Sit down with a coffee and a blank page. Write how you'd like this year to feel, not what you'd like it to contain.
- Circle the words that come back more than once.
- Choose the one that makes your shoulders drop a little.
- Look for a painting that feels like that word, not one that illustrates it. Browse a museum's online collection, leaf through an art book, or walk through a museum with the word in mind.
- Keep the image where you'll meet it: a postcard on the fridge, on your desk, between the pages of your diary.
If you're unsure how to pick, here's how to choose art by feeling, not by colour.
Living with it
Once a month, spend a few minutes with your painting. Does it still feel like your word? Has the word shifted? It's allowed to. You're not keeping a promise to a stranger. You're keeping company with something beautiful. And if a few minutes turns into more, here's how to look at one painting for ten minutes.
A gentle way to begin the year
The First Letter is a short sensory meditation on receiving a letter, with a sample of our magazine "(meditating) On Art". It's free, and it might be the softest thing you read in January.
Remember to take as much time as you need, and meet me at the next one.
Love, Evi