In celebration of the Aspen Art Museum turning 40 this year, CEO and director Heidi Zuckerman kicked off a project in January on the pages of Galerie. She began by sharing her journal for one week with our readers. A few months, ago Zuckerman spoke with artist Amy Sillman about the concept of a gratitude journal. The interview will be published in its entirety in Conversations With Artists Vol. II, a compilation of Zuckerman’s interviews with artists that will be released in October 2019 by Aspen Art Press (see the first volume here). Here is an excerpt of that conversation.
Heidi Zuckerman: A little more than a year ago, I listened to a Tim Ferriss podcast about how people start their days—he talked to around fifty people about their morning practices. I was already doing a lot of what they suggested, but the one thing I wasn’t doing—that pretty much everyone talked about—was journaling.
I had so many journals from my high school years through to my twenties, but then I stopped. In the last year, I picked it up again—beginning with a gratitude practice and writing what I’m grateful for each morning. A friend of mine sent me a five-minute journal that prompts me every day, and it’s the first thing I do when I wake up now.
Amy Sillman: Do you ever skip forward in the book and find out about tomorrow?
HZ: No. Every day is different, but the same, just like life. Each entry begins with a quote that gives you something to think about throughout the day. Then it asks you three things that you’re grateful for, three things that would make your day great, and one affirmation. I talked about this in a conversation I had at Galerie magazine in their offices recently. It inspired them to come up with the assignment I’m working on, and that you’ll do, where I’m writing my responses to specific questions for a week, and they’ll be featured on their website.
AS: It’s not embarrassing?
HZ: I don’t know. I had dinner with a friend last night, and when I told him that one prompt was to write one thing that made me feel loved that day, he looked pained; it was interesting. Maybe thinking about how you feel love made him uncomfortable.
AS: My shrink once said that anytime you peel away someone’s defense structure, they get angry. This doesn’t just apply to defensive people, but when anyone’s defense mechanism is removed. She said you can expect people to get mad if they lose protection. It was incredibly useful advice.
HZ: Did she share anything else that stuck with you?
AS: She was really old school, so didn’t say much, but wrote a lot in a notebook. In our last session, I finally asked her a question: what had she been writing in her book all those years? And what was she going to do with that notebook now I was leaving? Where would she put it? Would she ever read it again, or show it to anyone (which made me a little nervous)? She looked at me in horror when I asked that final question and said, “NO! This book is my reverie!”
It was the most interesting way to end. I realized that the whole time we were doing these sessions, she considered herself to be engaging in a form of reverie. I didn’t even know what that was exactly. A dream state? But she was writing things down…. It was a creative, imaginative space for her own thoughts. It was interesting to think about the concept of reverie and reflection as a quiet or private form of engagement.
HZ: I’m struck by the word “reverie.” She had to be so present to be able to describe it in that manner. When you are painting, do you ever think about being in a state of reverie?
AS: No, but when she said that, I felt like running home and being in a state of reverie! As a shrink, she’s clearly attentive to the dream, which is beautifully collapsed into the word “reverie.” I guess I would more describe it as getting my mojo. I’m not lucid-dreaming; it’s not a dream state.
Maybe one reason to work alone and not be interrupted by the phone, or work really late until you’re ridiculously tired (which I do all the time), or push yourself really far only to destroy perfectly nice things, is just to get yourself past whatever limitation you feel, way past commodity, past “likability”— someone else’s or your own. Is “liking” even a thing to care about? (Is “you” even a thing?)
When we go beyond our normal boundaries, we get into this mode of attention—an attentive flow. It’s like an intensely responsive, alive, observant, gentle, but also fearless state. And that fearlessness can provide the possibility for incredible destruction. There’s nothing to be protective of—you just do a thing and try to go really far with it.
