Pandemic Life: Relaxing & Meditating With Repetitive Artwork

By Christine Sloan Stoddard

The gentle lull of lazy summer days hasn’t hit yet and it won’t this year. It’s an anxious lull. In quarantine, I’ve resorted to taking baths like I’m a newborn again. I even use baby bath and pop a rubber ducky in the water. Bubble baths are part of my new normal. I indulge in other little ways as I can, mainly through eating decadently and watching movies without my former art school snobbery. But it’s not just my downtime that has taken a shift; it’s my work, too. ​

One specific shift I have noticed in my creative practice is my output of repetitive artwork. I don’t mean redundant artwork, where I harp on the same themes or visual imagery from piece to piece (though I’ve certainly been guilty of that.) I mean repetitive artwork as in visual art created by repeating the same motions or tasks over and over.

​Maybe it’s drawing or painting a circle or a dot or a particular kind of line. They could be nearly identical from form to form or play on the same rift and slowly evolve into a new form. Either way, the visionary aspect of the work is there. I sit at my desk or kitchen table and fall into a trance as I create. This repetitive mark-making relaxes me. If I do it long enough, uninterrupted, it becomes meditative. I prefer falling under the spell of mark-making than under the curse of anxiety. 

Not that it’s really a choice. But I have found my coping mechanisms and this is one with a high success rate. 

It reminds me of a photo one of my friends took on the Lower East Side. It was a marker drawing on plywood, à la Keith Haring. Underneath the frazzled figure, the artist had written “Art is the only thing I can concentrate on right now.” I can relate, though it brings me some shame. Though I read and try to stay up on current events, sometimes I’m quicker to throw in the towel than I’d like to admit. Out come the colored pencils when the media exhaustion hits.

I’ve heard from people who knit or crochet that the repetitive movements relax them. I have never excelled at either of those things, or really tried them to be honest. For me, repetitive mark-making fills that hole, even if I don’t end up with a cool scarf or pair of mittens when I’m finished. I often encourage clients to try repetitive mark-making. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about a film script or a social media strategy. When I notice a client’s tension or inability to scale a wall, I encourage them to play. There’s a freedom that comes with doing something so simple and unstructured. Debating between using the neon green or Kelly green marker next? It doesn’t matter; the choice is yours. I stick with that marker a while until something else begins to flow or I’ve filled the page.

The drawing you see above is meant to replicate a mosaic. I made it using markers, colored pencils, and pen. I created it for a small Zoom group of adults with disabilities who meet with me for a weekly art workshop. I made the drawing while thinking about gardens and how much of New York City I missed exploring. Once I formed one circle, the rest came easily. There was no pressure to do anything but create and fill the page. That was all I asked my students to do: create and fill the page. We don’t know what tomorrow brings (and vulnerable populations always have the most at stake), but at least we can complete this task. 

Fill the quiet hours of quarantine with circles and dot and scribbles. The longer you do it, the less you start to worry. At least until tomorrow.