THE ORIGINAL WINDOW
Y0UR EYES
We should accept the eye as a ‘window’ somewhere between the outside world and our own inner being. Most specifically, it is a window between the outside physical world and the inner workings of our brain. It is my contention, after many years of teaching and working as an artist, that we must choose which side of this window we prefer if we are to be fully cognizant of the nuances of this relationship. Are we on the inside looking through the window where we can gain easy access to conveniently pull the blind when it suites us? Or are we preferably focused on the outside world allowing reality to glare through the window like a bright spectrum of light, speaking to us possibly in foreign images that we may be too frightened to stop to see and comprehend but which we must ultimately choose to see if we are to be enlightened? In childhood I had no difficulty letting the light in so to speak. Children have an incredible gift for seeing. I loved seeing things and I believed that my ability to draw and paint came from the fact that the world was projecting itself upon me rather than my mind imposing itself and looking out at the world. I needed to share that experience. I was shy about many other things but never visually shy. Each and every object to be seen was fascinating and challenging as it is with every child. From an early age I liked to draw because it helped to construct my own visual world, which gave me greater creative potential.
We all need to choose and keep a childlike innocence when it comes to the visual world. Like Picasso the problem is ‘how to remain (become) an artist once we grow up’. Like every child, self-awareness is always lurking around the corner ready to install a stop sign. Our tendency is to further this habit into adulthood. Certainly we are special because we have a conscious ability to see ourselves and we can actually step outside of ourselves and be self-aware. But too many stop signs can deter our trip. Self-awareness is an incredible gift. It is unique to us as humans on the face of the earth and perhaps in the entire universe. But it has its negative aspects as well.
In addition to being too self-aware and thereby self-conscious, other HABITS also got in the way as I grew up. There were the pressures of having to be logical, having to follow the rules of being practical, being afraid of making mistakes and afraid of being foolish, and, last of all, afraid of not being creative! Although it wasn’t always necessary for me to be creative, and it certainly wasn’t anyone’s job to force the issue, I became aware and saw the indifference to creative effort all around me. Not many mentors, if any, were encouraging this remote trait. I noticed that others could get by without being so. Everything was fine if I followed the rules. As time passed, I began to realize that something was wrong: something very intrinsic was missing. Like a good actor I threw myself into a role that I could play, but which did not appear appropriate. Creativity kept lurking out at me from around the corners. Creativity soon became a question of personal integrity and along with being a social issue. It was then that Art began to make sense and I continued to draw on every opportunity. I was going to be creatively motivated no matter what the cost and Art was to be my salvation.
Our vision is not extra baggage. We can’t just pick it up and pack it like a camera when we go on a trip. With God’s blessing, it is constant and remains with us persistently and relentlessly. This is rightfully so. It is an eternal reminder that we are human. By allowing images to pass through our eyes as a lens, then and only then, are we capable of honestly responding to those images in a fair and unprejudiced way. Too often, just like taking the camera along for the ride with our baggage, we open our minds casually when it appears comfortable or suitable. Being visually aware can occur at all times, not just when it is convenient. Visual awareness is more like a sensation of being solicited by physical things, rather than the opposite process of projecting oneself onto the physical world with our own intricate bundle of personal limitations. We need to be willing to open up visually and let the physical world talk to us and try not to impose ourselves on it so often.
What can we possibly see if we are not visually responsive and open to the presence of the “ten thousand things” which the Zen monk wants us to acknowledge and draw? We tend to see usually what we expect will be there. In addition, science tells us that we use only a small proportion of the brain. Some say ‘slightly more than 1% of the brain!’ ;others go up to 20%. This refers mostly to left-brain oriented patterns. The brain is divided into two parts, which will be discussed in detail. With this knowledge of the two hemispheres it has now become possible to encourage people to utilize the right side of our brain as well as the left and resultantly increase the total percentage of brainpower. This could possibly double our intelligence! At least it can be greater than the low figures suggested by science.
What happens when what is there is not what we expect? Are we apt to disregard it? The answer is an obvious yes. When the image doesn’t fit the expected we often turn our backs. This is not necessarily an intentional act on our part. It is mostly the result of a long conditioning of the brain from experience to eliminate what doesn’t at first appear to be important or appropriate so we can continue to believe that we GAIN CONTROL and have POWER over the physical world. This is a serious abuse we incur with our sight on one of the greatest gifts we inherit called the ability to abstract. Simplification is not intended for ignorance. It is a natural process incurred to bring focus. Betty Edwards in her books on drawing states very clearly about our disregard for visual facts: “the brain often does the expecting and the deciding without our conscious awareness and then alters or rearranges, or even simply disregards the raw data of vision that hits the retina...” It is this disregard of the data where a serious limitation exists which shortens our capacity to visualize. I encourage her suggestion that “It is possible to put the brain on hold thereby permitting one to see more fully.”
The subject of color is an excellent illustration of visual prejudice. Advanced Color Theory ought to be taught thoroughly in every elementary school system and not reserved for Art classes in a higher Ed 101 Art class. Color is a unique part of our lives and not many people know much about it. The fact that color prejudice and ignorance is prevalent is a sad fact of the human condition and reflects our education and unwillingness to expand our appreciation. Color theory is unfortunately more often considered as a Science class, or an Art class, not as a General Ed class. This occurs in the visual world due to oversight in our educational system. Color preference with most people is often nothing more than a good example of visual disregard and a reflection of a limited capacity to see.
Here is an excellent example:
A clothing customer upon entering in a fashionable New York clothing boutique flips out a chart from her purse and proudly reveals to the designer that she has “taken a course on her color (makeup, clothing, accessories, etc.). In doing so she may have acknowledged her need for help as far as color is concerned, but she also exposed herself to another serious problem. She is showing colors which she has been told that she looks best in and around in her environment. That’s fair. We all need a little help now and then. She has reached out for consultation. So, she looks good in that red ‘ON HER CHART’! She looks good in that blue ‘ON HER CHART’! In short, in seeking advice, she has allowed herself to be programmed to respond to particular colors in reference to her persona. She has established this with the help of some expert.
When it becomes time to make a sale, the salesperson adroitly shows her a purple dress! “NOT ON MY CHART!” she says. She looks good in RED and BLUE! NOT PURPLE! It is simply not on the chart! Quickly she displays her annoyance and retreats. The salesperson with great savoir-faire convinces her to be kind enough to try it on. Being good-natured at heart she retreats to the dressing room and returns to the floor dressed in purple. She looks in the mirror. Everyone tells her she looks ravishing. Even customers tell her so. She stares at the mirror.
Does she see herself in the dress? No. It is not her red or her blue. IT IS NOT ON HER CHART AND SHE IS NOT GOING TO RISK IT. Even when it is explained that red and blue make purple, she ‘understandably’ acknowledges from past education that both colors make purple. She learned that much about color in school. But the color analyst did not include it on the chart! The truth is she is capable of recognizing purple, but the “raw data” is too much for her to accept. You might say that she is traumatized. Not only is she disregarding the image in the mirror, but also she also readily ignores all the people who are telling her that she looks great!
Visual prejudice is disturbing for the recipient, but also to the perpetrator. The course our customer invested in probably did more harm than good in the long run, but that is for her to judge. Obviously the short run experience in the mirror was not going to be of much assistance either. The mind has a disturbing way of taking control un-consciously over our other conscious attributes and capabilities. It has a nasty habit of blocking out many potential opportunities that the eye and the brain together might be trying to establish. In the customer’s case, programming shrank her visual world so that it became impossible for her to see the reflected clear image in the mirror! The money she paid never opened her eyes to see, but created visual filters to supposedly guide her in her choices. In addition, anticipation and expectation also helped to close the blind from inside the window. The most the course did was to give a false sense of security and managed to condition and offer additional blinders to narrow her choices. We will investigate these blinders, which are referred to as visual filters.
It is in the opening of your eye as a window, with your mind as an unexposed film with a full spectrum of detail passing through, when the full potential for seeing can be fully realized. Yes the brain can be trained. By habit we allow it to think in patterns and these patterns give us potential comfort. But who actually needs to be comfortable when it comes to the actual process of opening our eyes? The concept of visual comfort is ironic and absurd. Anyone who has the slightest ambition about life knows that all comforts are relative anyway and visual comforts are no different. Today there is an overwhelming and depressing focus on seeking psychological help and analysis for every one of our human conditions. We have so many ad hoc syndromes floating around inside our persona that it is becoming difficult to sort out the reality. We need only to review our social problems and the criminal system evolving around them. Our customer is one excellent example of reaching out in the wrong direction rather than personally developing a knowledgeable foundation to work on. It only supports her insecurity. It is sad that most people can’t learn to recognize their own innate potential and know that they don’t need someone like a ‘color specialist’ at their side to show them new patterns or especially to instill a positive consciousness about themselves. The situation is more like what we don’t need, rather than what we need. We don’t need any more specialists with fancy degrees to advise us on how to behave and see. We have a God given talent built-in if we only give it a chance. What we need to search for are individual opportunities “to see” and the MECHANICS of how to open our eyes.
Aldous Huxley wrote “The experienced microscopist will see certain details on a slide: the novice will fail to see them. Walking through the wood, a city dweller will be blind to a multitude of things which the trained naturalist will see without difficulty. At sea, the sailor will detect distant objects which, for the landsman, are simply not there at all.” Robert H. McKim
The mirror image of the dress in the illustration is a reflection of the lady. The color and the garment changed from the one she wore to the store. Can she learn to open her eyes and see that reflection? Yes with proper corrective training. Right now her mental conditioning prevents it. Not that people don’t need advice at times, but self-reliance can be much more satisfying and self-rewarding. She did not address the mirror and prevented it from talking. “Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?” We will exercise the witch’s potential with our own Cinderella. However, don’t be afraid. Hopefully you are more educated than a witch. She may have been very clever, but if anyone needed help, she was the culprit who needed an analyst with her evil mind. Our customer just needed pointing in the right direction. The witch’s motives were all screwed up. Our customer’s motives were right on, but her method was wrong. She simply was not being as clever as necessary when guided by our own time-honored motive to improve. To take and seek advice often comes easy, but improvement has its price.
Our customer is one isolated example of visual prejudice incorporated into the psyche of the individual. There are many visual syndromes we have picked up along the way that this book will discuss and which need to be reviewed in detail with a sincere motive to drag them to the trash. Color experience is only one clear example of the lack of human sensitivity to the real visual world. We can also be shy, sensitive, inexperienced and in need of help when we are in new surroundings. There is no question about the psychological implications, but we do not have to limit our appreciation of other visual opportunities because we are afraid. Franklin Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!” His reference was to war, but I consider the quotation relevant to what is happening to society today as a Visual War because of what it is happening to creative potential! Fear can trickle down to every aspect of our lives. This is especially true of our fear of the visually unknown. The witch wasn’t afraid of the mirror. She was exercising her control over it and testing her dominion over fear. Her gaze into that mirror remains forever as the perfect literary example of visual prejudice brought about by a desire to control. Fear is a very real emotion for most and one that can close the blind to our seeing clearly.
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