The Art of Seeing
 |
| At the Aquarium, ©Adriana Díaz, 2001 |
Soon I begin to teach
a painting class to senior citizens. Some have painted for years, so it will be
a very collaborative process. As I’ve been advised that some have problems with
their vision, I’ve been thinking a lot about seeing. I have a whole collection
of books on seeing: Some are about drawing, some are commentary on the way our
seeing is trained by mass media. There are also excellent reflections about
seeing in books about writing. Here, for example, is advice from the Japanese haiku
master, Matsu Basho: “ . . .when you see an object, you must leave your
subjective preoccupation with yourself, otherwise you impose yourself on the
object, and do not learn.”
This philosophy is
at the core of learning to draw. There is a wonderful set of books written (by hand)
by the late Frederick Frank, who taught drawing through that Eastern philosophy
of Basho. One of my favorite teachings from Frank is that if you cannot draw a
thing, you are not seeing it. Drawing is a practice of coordinating the eye and
the hand. So the drawing is a record of your seeing.
Of course we use
our sight on a daily basis to maneuver through the world, and we don’t have
time to stop and let go of our ego in order to commune with the objects around
us. In fact, John Berger, in his seminal series, Ways of Seeing, pointed out that “We never look at just one thing;
we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.” So, the
challenge in creating art, or in perceiving anything in a new way, is dependent
on stopping the eye, and focusing the self. Basho might say, let “the thing”
teach you. “The thing” may be an object or a person, a philosophy, an
invention, or an idea.
Seeing can be an
unconscious ability we take for granted, or it can be a practice: a way of
being fully present in the world. How we see is far more dependent on our
behavior than it is on the technical ability of the eye to see. You will be
amazed at how much the eye can show you once you stop and focus.
In the
Introduction to Freeing the Creative
Spirit, I recount an experience I had in college, when I was learning to
draw. Actually I was learning to see,
but the class was called Drawing 101. The intense seeing during drawing class opened
my heart and mind to how much of the world I’d never seen. It was difficult and
demanding, but amazing. Usually my sight reverted to utilitarian seeing as soon
as class was over. Except, one day it didn’t.
“One morning . .my
eyes didn’t go back to their old pattern. Instead, the sight I was cultivating
stayed with me, and as I left the art building and crossed the patio . . .I was
literally stopped in my tracks. Every boulder, every leaf, every wooden bench
seemed to be speaking to me.
I can only say
that I felt as if each thing were revealing itself and calling out to me. .
.The air, the light, the objects, even my own body, seemed porous and exposed.
A window to another dimension of life had opened to me. I felt stunned at
first, then privileged, as if I’d been allowed into another realm of the
universe.”
I stayed in that
state for two days, then “the window” closed. Nothing in my religious practice
had given me such an experience, though I’d been a devout Catholic throughout
childhood. So drawing took on the dimension of a sacred practice to me. Even
after “the window” closed, I felt that I’d been let in on a secret, a parallel
energy life of the planet. Seeing, the kind of seeing that Basho taught to
haiku poets, is also a powerful way of being a conscious and grateful presence
in the world.
