The lost art of taking it slow

Nature and art — two realms in which we feel the benefit of slow and deep immersion. Be it in an art museum or on a mountain trail, attention given is attention rewarded.

John Muir preferred the word “saunter” to the word “hike.” The latter implied speed. His point was that rushing through the natural world you’ll miss much. He recommended slowing down — to observe — to linger. In this way, the wonders of nature reward our attention, unfolding surprises. Sauntering does not imply lassitude. Instead, it provides the chance to be alert to the subtle happenings and timings of nature.

The cardinal rule for practicing the art of taking it slow: leave your iPhone at home.

I could be accused of having a good grasp on the obvious when I mention that our smartphones have drastically changed the way we encounter the world. These addictive devices now stand between us and direct experience. As our phones mediate our understanding of the world, I wonder what’s gained and what’s lost. Through them, we try to pin down, catalog and archive moments. In the past, inspiring moments would have fluttered by on butterfly wings, leaving traces, sometimes indelible, on our memories and dreams. Now, it is as if, without the phone we were never really there. Did we actually see what we saw?

Tourists mob the Louvre to take selfies in front of the “Mona Lisa” because it’s famous. Do they actually see it? Rather, they time stamp the fact of them being there, fleetingly, in life. And what of the less well-known masterpieces in the surrounding galleries ignored by the crowds? Similarly, a million identical iPhone shots of Yosemite’s Horsetail waterfall when, lit by the February sun, it is transformed into Firefall, proclaim, “I was here!”

But if we leave the gizmo at home and step out into nature, we find we are enfolded by an unfiltered realm of mists and winds, birdsong, sunlight on tree bark, cloud shadows, moonglow and dark skies. These are physical sensations.

As our technological reality reshapes us, there is little doubt the mile-a-minute distractions at our fingertips are affecting not just individual psyches but our collective brain as well. In minds full of random information seductively presented, is it any wonder there is less space remaining for thoughts of the natural world and the reality of natural fact?

The much-discussed problem of “nature deficit disorder” among children is symptomatic of a societal distancing from nature. I worry that nature has taken a back seat in the national consciousness and that people aren’t paying attention to the dismantling by corporate-controlled politicians of environmental safeguards and protections of wildlife, land and sea. This is a particularly critical moment in which attacks on our last wildlands threaten to undo decades of conservation measures.

There is, traditionally, an area in civilization we call art, which is meant not only to enhance human life but to provide a window into wonder. It is a place for contemplation, consideration and sometimes the absorption of fundamental truths.

Ultimately, it is metaphorical for nature itself. A place in which to be fully present. A path along which to slow down and ponder. At its strongest, art also can prompt us to question received notions.

Nineteenth-century American painters of the Hudson River School, in presenting grand landscapes, attempted to transmit a sense of nature’s transcendent sublimity. Painters like Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) came West to depict the magnificence of such places as Yosemite and the redwoods. The monumental paintings conveyed not just a feeling of nature as sacred but also as worth preserving as an identifying attribute of the young nation.

Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) famously depicted Yosemite and the West through his mammoth-plate photography. The work of artists such as these spurred Congress to preserve wilderness tracts across the West — better late than never.

The San Francisco Bay Area was destined to become one of this country’s centers of the arts. That the natural backdrop of the region was beautiful and relatively intact added to the mystique.

But lately, the art culture of the Bay Area has lately taken a series of heavy blows, by which I mean venerable art institutions are withering and blowing away with increasing frequency for a variety of reasons, some economic, some societal and some technological.

The Bay Area’s cultural crown jewel, San Francisco, is a relatively small city with famously world-class amenities.

It has historically been a magnet for artists because of a critical art infrastructure of not-for-profit art schools, university art departments, foundations, museums, alternative exhibition venues, commercial galleries and top performing arts institutions. As an alternative to the nation’s art capital of New York, San Francisco has supported a brave and thriving regional art ecology.

All of this is recently at risk, as one institution after another closes its doors. The rate of closures is accelerating. The initial blow was the ending of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s long-running support of the local art community through its Artists Gallery. Since then, our two most prestigious art colleges, the San Francisco Art Institute and California College of the Arts, and the renowned university art department of Mills College have shuttered or are about to do so. The di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art in Napa has announced it’s for sale.

Dark Ages do recur. In the absence of art schools, the lack of education in art will lead to a lessening of interest and a diminishment of our social community. As the local networks that support the ecology of art continue to fray, what will the Bay Area become?

Nature and art each expose us to wonder. The story here is that there is a link between the unraveling of our connection with nature and the reduction of our connection with the ennobling parts of our culture through art. A society losing touch with both art and nature is adrift.

Good local places for sauntering in nature (without a phone): trails of Mount Tamalpais, Ring Mountain, Mount Burdell, Samuel P. Taylor State Park, Marin watershed lands, Point Reyes, Marin Headlands, China Camp State Park, Hamilton Wetlands and Stinson Beach.

Good local places for sauntering in culture: Sausalito Center for the Arts and Marin Museum of Contemporary Art. In San Francisco: Minnesota Street Project, the Legion of Honor, de Young Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California Academy of Sciences and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. In the East Bay: the Oakland Museum of California and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

An artist, whose paintings are held in many museum collections, Marin resident Jeffrey Long has backpacked the mountains of the West and hosts the blog Konocti Post. His art can be seen at Jeffreylongstudio.com. He can be reached at jefflong@jefflong.com.