Looking at Things

How we see, or perceive, is a complicated business. There is a long history of shifts in our seeing. In medieval times a painting of a phoenix was not just an image of a blue bird (possibly shaped like a chicken with a long neck), it was Christ to the viewer, possibly seen as if in a vision. The artist knew that any person who looked at the work would respond with this emotive understanding. In our century, even when we know that the bird is supposed to stand for Christ, we no longer have the ability to see with eyes, free from all intellectualism. Now, it is up to the artist to guide the viewer toward sharing what we feel.

So, your job, as an artist, is to locate your own response to what you see in the world around you and to find a language of marks and colors that take the viewer along your path. You do this by trial and error and by reverie.

Reverie is something hard to come by. Ideally, there would be no phones, no TV, no babies on your lap, and having thrown your watch into the brink. Well, maybe dropped in a pocket, at least, mentally. But, sketching will take you there with distractions all around you.

Whether you are at home, traveling, or waiting, just waiting, try selecting your sketchbook rather than a magazine or the computer or IPhone and spend a small length of time alone with what your hand does. You will find that the relationship of moving your hand, making lines, making choices, will lead you closer to losing all sense of time, leading to imaginative reverie.

OK. You might have to set a wee alarm so that the chicken in the oven does not get burned.