Inspiration Fridays! What beauty is in your world?
What beauty is in your world?
What sound does the morning make?
“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” – Mary Oliver
Can you reproduce the colors of your favorite landscape against the brilliance of the horizon? What shapes are created in the folds of a paper bag? How do we express the feeling of velvet in paint so that someone can understand?
Sometimes our art is just about getting something out. Exploring, playing, letting go. But there are other times when our expression can go deeper. This kind of creation requires nuance and demands that we be present.
Gabriel Mark Lipper – Pilon’s Lunch – oil on panel
One exercise that I love to revisit, is to place an old squared out wooden chair in the middle of the room. I give my students three minutes to observe it.
Look at every detail, the way the shapes collide. Where do the different pieces of the puzzle meet and what shapes live in the in-between? How does the chair sit on the floor? What angles are there?
Now, remove the chair from the room or head out toward another room altogether. Draw what you remember. How is your looking? What did you see? There is so much discovery in this kind of seeing. We can learn as much about ourselves as we do about the subject of our observations.
Skip the visual diabetes. Instead of the homogenized saccharine beauty served up through the lens of AI or social media, try falling in love with something new by seeing it anew. Fall in love with what is in front of you. And then, share that love. We still need artists.