The Art of the Instant

Sweet moment in Wine country

As an amateur painter, I’m often chasing the fullness of an instant — the shimmer of light, a fleeting emotion, a passing hue. I am definitely not Monet with his obsession for shimmering light of lilies or Rothko with his timeless fields of color, but I’m fascinated by their gift: with a few brushstrokes, the memory of the past, the feeling of the present, and the hope of the future breathe together.

To seize the moment, as Horace urged with carpe diem, is to step into the paradox of time: fleeting yet infinite, fragile yet dense. The instant gathers past, present, and future into one convergence.

For the Poets we can hear eternity in a glance, the haikus find a world in the splash of a frog. Each moment passes, yet in passing it can open into meaning.

To seize the instant is to enter it fully — a glance, a gesture, a brushstroke. It is to let your memory, your feelings and hopes breathe together. It is being capable to let the fleeting become luminous, and the ordinary to reveal its hidden depth.