"Asheville Garden" from the Pastel Landscapes Series
Dec 18, 2017
"…development can mean…the far more conscious reception of daily life through the use of… powers of reception very much finer than those we employ." Maurice Nicoll, The Mark, p. 24.
Working from life requires me to perceive what is in front of me. My first two semesters in art school, we all attended Still Life Painting, Cast Drawing, and Figure Drawing/Painting classes. The expectation was to see the true forms before us and translate them into two-dimensional representations. Separating my pre-conceived notions (of an arm, a flower, a face) from the physical reality before me was near impossible-- my teachers constantly pointed out my mistakes. This was my training in draftsmanship. Mixing oil paints to match the colors in life was another discipline equally about seeing, and again the beginner art student (me) received constant critiques.
In the midst of this humbling, sometimes humiliating, academic art training, there was a transformation of my experience of visual reality. My left brain, full of judgment, ideas and imagination, learned to quiet, while my right brain became active, focused on the shapes, forms, colors, lights and shadows of my subjects. I discovered that when I make the effort to see what is actually in front of me, my perception comes to life. Colors seem richer and more varied. Lines and forms appear organic and full of movement. The physical reality has not changed, but my relationship to it has.
I feel truly blessed to be an artist who works from life. While working, and often for some time after, I inhabit a world of beauty. This blessed experience helps me read Nicoll and ask questions: what is a conscious reception of daily life? Can I receive visual impressions even when I am not making art with my right brain? What are the other aspects of daily life, besides the visual, that can be consciously received? Finally, what is needed inside me to be open to receiving?