Since I am a consultant I am happier because I create stuff every day (not power points but systems). Working in tech purely as a business analyst and/or project manager felt tough at times. Not just because it was stressful, many meetings and tons of questions but because it was sometimes hard to grasp what we have achieved by the end of the day. We have made a decision. We had this meeting. We know how to spend the budget now. And now what? Nothing we could touch or we produced once we returned home. Obviously product owners in tech might not feel like that. And consulting is not just relaxing and happiness.
Happiness of people can apparently increase if they understand what they have done by the end of the day. Not just virtually but also in a way that we can touch it and explain it to our grandparents. So a friend took me to an art night. There will definitely be a result by the end of the evening. Good or bad but a result.
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| The art night starts, still blank canvas |
We met likeminded people in a big communal building full of artists, athletes, people reading books and much more. The room is already prepared with the blank canvases, we choose a sit and wait for the last attendees and start. There is a picture at the front showing what we will draw tonight. We will draw the dancer. Luckily we get to cheat and draw the outlines of the dancer on the canvas before starting to apply colour. Flip your canvas. Add the picture you want to outline and fix it to the canvas. We use little wooden squares that came with the canvas to fix it on so it can easily be removed again. Then we outline the dancer and sip on our drinks. People feel relaxed and excited to get started. The atmosphere is very good.
The artist moderating the evening starts painting the background and explains how we can smoothen the transition from one colour to the next. Our hands are moving in crisscross over the canvas. Brushes are brushing and no one speaks at the beginning. Everyone is totally focused on their painting. I forgot in that moment what project I am on and what things are on my to do list. It was just the painting and me and the colours getting absorbed by the canvas.
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| Finalising the background |
The artists moves through the room, asking everyone how we are doing and if there is something we want to change and we don't know how. Of course, this takes a bit of time. It is incredibly hard to stop. It was hard to just put down the brush, relax and drink the beer we ordered which latest throughout the whole evening! The artist came, checked with everyone. I relaxed for a second, saw everyone still drawing and got the sensation I need to keep doing stuff. That was an interesting experience. Why is it so hard to just relax? It was not a competition and regardless of how this pictures looks, my life will not change. I kept going and actually screwed up some things instead of stopping. Of course screwing up in drawing is probably relative anyway. But there was the picture at the front of the room we were all aiming for... It is hard to stop and withdraw from the feeling of perfection and success that drives my surrounding and me every day.
We came to draw the dancer itself. In the end, everyone picture looked totally different even if we all drew from the same original. This was wonderful. Every picture showed the character of that person, my was wild and lots of colours. My friends showed a very elegant dancer. I made the joke saying hers is actually a ballerina, mine is a contemporary dancer.
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| Our end results |
Overall this was a wonderful experience getting away from the everyday evening and it was incredible how present and focused everyone was. I was very happy in the end and proudly carried my painting home, so did the other participants. I guess it is not necessary to go to an art night to produce something and indeed a lot of people seems to go back to the roots. Maybe to find their own piece of happiness? Nevertheless trying things like that out is totally worth the experience.
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