RichardH
07-29-2017, 01:56 PM
I recently listened to a talk by Gretchen Grant, the daughter of Richard Diebenkorn, about life with him. A lot of this talk (link at the bottom ) would only be of interest to a fan of Diebenkorn, and that moment in modern art when the non-representational vision leaped free from a long and gradual movement into abstraction. However, there is one thing she mentions, as almost an aside, that is at the heart of seeing when painting, and that is a good habit to develop counter to our usual way of seeing.
When RD made that creative leap into Non-rep painting, he had to help others see the way he could see. Gretchen describes being a teen and seeing the new work in his studio, and how he taught her not to see anything in it.
Naturally three things would be in play when she viewed the work. The first is pareidolia, selecting out visual patterns from random elements, like when you see an elephant in a cloud. The second would be looking for an abstract representation of something, and the third would be seeing symbolic meaning. In order to see the way he saw, those three habitual ways of seeing had to be dropped.
Now, our way includes all the normal ways of seeing, including the three habitual kinds just described. If you see an elephant in a cloud, you see an elephant in a cloud, no problem. Yet, sometimes we can see without projecting... where a cloud just is.
At one time I painted large landscapes from memory. The idea was to make them look "real" but "real" as they lived in memory. Pretty soon it was the skies that became the main subject, and for a few years I was able to make a living painting big pictures of clouds. I mention this because there was a particular skill that had to be developed when painting clouds that would give a certain "feel" to them. This was something myself and the gallery knew would make this work desirable. The feeling we wanted was a non-narrative "isness", or a sense of "pure" presence. Achieving this effect involved learning to paint clouds that would not trigger pareidolia. This was not easy. I remember one time while working this through, when I painted a sky that seemed truly "just this". But later, when friends came over to see it, someone pointed out the profile of then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in a big cloud. Everyone said something like "Oh wow.. yeah it's Mulroney". That was that. Learning to paint clouds that do not trigger any pareidolia took time, and it came down to training the brain to do a continuous background scan with a pareidolic eye. This sounds complicated but it was a simple reflex. The point I want to make is that once the paintings were truly non-pareidolic, and no one saw anything in the clouds, we had a successful run with this style of painting. It is possible though art and design to reverse engineer a pause in the habitual way of seeing. In this case by making clouds that were not like actual clouds in a key way.
If you have anything to say on the subject of SEEING and the creative eye, I would love to hear it. Please feel free to post any experience. There is no judgement here, only friends. :)
Here is a link to the talk for any modern art geeks who are interested..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTcgrjTVG_0
Gassho
Daizan
sat today/LAH
When RD made that creative leap into Non-rep painting, he had to help others see the way he could see. Gretchen describes being a teen and seeing the new work in his studio, and how he taught her not to see anything in it.
Naturally three things would be in play when she viewed the work. The first is pareidolia, selecting out visual patterns from random elements, like when you see an elephant in a cloud. The second would be looking for an abstract representation of something, and the third would be seeing symbolic meaning. In order to see the way he saw, those three habitual ways of seeing had to be dropped.
Now, our way includes all the normal ways of seeing, including the three habitual kinds just described. If you see an elephant in a cloud, you see an elephant in a cloud, no problem. Yet, sometimes we can see without projecting... where a cloud just is.
At one time I painted large landscapes from memory. The idea was to make them look "real" but "real" as they lived in memory. Pretty soon it was the skies that became the main subject, and for a few years I was able to make a living painting big pictures of clouds. I mention this because there was a particular skill that had to be developed when painting clouds that would give a certain "feel" to them. This was something myself and the gallery knew would make this work desirable. The feeling we wanted was a non-narrative "isness", or a sense of "pure" presence. Achieving this effect involved learning to paint clouds that would not trigger pareidolia. This was not easy. I remember one time while working this through, when I painted a sky that seemed truly "just this". But later, when friends came over to see it, someone pointed out the profile of then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in a big cloud. Everyone said something like "Oh wow.. yeah it's Mulroney". That was that. Learning to paint clouds that do not trigger any pareidolia took time, and it came down to training the brain to do a continuous background scan with a pareidolic eye. This sounds complicated but it was a simple reflex. The point I want to make is that once the paintings were truly non-pareidolic, and no one saw anything in the clouds, we had a successful run with this style of painting. It is possible though art and design to reverse engineer a pause in the habitual way of seeing. In this case by making clouds that were not like actual clouds in a key way.
If you have anything to say on the subject of SEEING and the creative eye, I would love to hear it. Please feel free to post any experience. There is no judgement here, only friends. :)
Here is a link to the talk for any modern art geeks who are interested..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTcgrjTVG_0
Gassho
Daizan
sat today/LAH