An Artist’s Vision of Yoga
By Nicholas Howey, January, 2020
Having spent decades in the New York art world, moving my tent to Bridgehampton ten years ago was a lengthy transition. I decided to investigate yoga as an exercise and a way of evolving and changing my life. Yoga Shanti felt like home as soon as I reached the reception desk. The quality of the classes caught my attention. I found the teachers to be extremely skilled and quite diverse, presenting precise and exacting anatomical sequencing, appropriate balance and timing, along with restorative yoga even with a touch of shamanic innuendo tossed into the mix. These very different visionary and personal approaches have a connective thread with their own feel and gravity connecting with their individual experience and history.
My abstract paintings are about pure color overlaid with forms that are pulled from my own made-up alphabet incorporating a sense of play. There is no reference to the human figure, nature or landscape. More about emotion and looking than anything else. The art and beauty manifested in the asanas subtly pushes the yamas and niyamas (speaking truthfully, experiencing spiritual exploration, espousing pure details, being generous…) forward into the practice and sets a tone of well-being.
A special form of comradery surfaced through new-found friendships and acquaintances with writers, real estate brokers, models, chefs and other artists and local business owners. A sense of being together becomes part of the equation along with a combustible sense of humor and, for me, the expectation of surprise on this small piece of land surrounded by water. The whole experience is an overdose of beauty. To completely close out the outside world with savasana and collect one’s thoughts of the day is to me one of life’s greatest luxuries. This exquisite calm at the end of class is unmatched in feeling and a long-lasting gift to oneself. Our role is piecing this masterpiece together as it continues to form and reinvent itself over the length and shape of one’s practice.
Grateful to Rodney and Colleen for their more than brilliant leadership, tireless dedication to yoga and their own brand of special magic.
May the New Year shine through the universe as your best and brightest one yet.