Momentary Constellation

Last post I said you can practice turning your attention to ON.  Yes, you can, and it’s wise to practice.

Musicians, for example, practice.  Even very advanced performers practice scales.  This practice will shine through when they’re performing on stage in thrilling, ecstatic passages of a piece.  The practice itself made this ecstasy possible, but the practice itself is not ecstatic.  It’s discipline.

I walk into my kitchen one morning, my to-do list for that day writ large in my brain.  As I turn to the fridge, my jaw drops and my eyes pop. I either had never seen this light effect before or it happens every morning but I’m just always behind in my “attention practice.”

I grab my camera and click.

This is not a great moment in the history of photography.

Why, then, is it valuable?  Because it records a constellation: the alignment of

• the angle of the sun
• the placement of that bamboo plant
• the moment I entered that room
• my attention on ON

The photo reminds me that such an alignment is possible.  It happened. It doesn’t happen every day and it’s worth paying attention when it does happen.

Next, we’ll look at Derain.

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/11/24/attention/

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Attention

NOW WHAT!!  You want us to look at your boring geraniums in your boring kitchen???!!!

What caught my attention was how the afternoon light made the stems glow. On the right, see that?  See how the stems are outlined in yellow?

How would my camera see that?  As I framed the shot, before I zoomed in on that light effect, I noticed intimations of the Golden Section.

Not one, but two.  In the green lines, the square is on the left.  In the pink, the square is on the right. As a bonus, the red blooms define the corner of the next square in the Golden Section sequence.

In my peripatetic readings I recently came across a quote from Nicolas Malebranche: “Attention is the natural prayer of the soul.”   He had to talk like that because he was a Catholic priest trying to stay alive in 17^th century France.  He’s classified as a rational philosopher, working in the shadow of Descartes: notice the word “natural” in front of “prayer.”

1600 years before that,  Epictetus said:  “You become what you give your attention to. If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will … and their motives may not be the highest.”  Epictetus was born a slave in the Roman Empire and became the teacher of Marcus Aurelius.

So, the difference between boring and ta-dah! is not out there in those overwintering geraniums but in that switch in your brain.  You can practice throwing your attention switch.  You can pivot from worry about your to-do list to…attention, now.

Nicolas Malebranche, 1638-1715

Epictetus, 50-135

Marcus Aurelius, 121-180

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What Does That Say?

As soon as you see the letters you want to know what that text says. Notice, however, that you don’t get obsessive about it. There are two reasons for this. One, the letters are not clearly outlined and the surface of the letters is painted in a chaotic, gritty manner. Two, the other surfaces of the painting lead you away from the text area. The red lines pull you to the upper right. The white triangle functions like an arrow that directs your attention to the right. The result is that your intellectual curiosity pulls you to the letters and at the same time you’re visually engaged by everything else. You find yourself moving through this painting, wondering how it works on your mind. Good thing.
It’s quite an accomplishment to have text in a painting without having it dominate the viewer’s attention.
Painting by Jane Donaldson, acrylic on canvas, 30” x 20”.
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Beyond Realism

The merit in this drawing lies in the fact that the artist/student, Maggy Shell, went beyond the literal depiction of these still life objects.  The realistic depiction of the canisters and the drapery is skilled enough, but that’s not what makes this drawing interesting.

What makes it interesting is that there are three distinct motifs: ellipse, chaos and triangle.  The ellipses form a nice rhythm on the top layer.  Under the ellipses comes the chaotic, cloud-like, wafting swoosh of the cloth. (Green) The precision of the ellipses and the indeterminacy of the cloth make for a dramatic contrast, one highlighting the other.  The cloth, furthermore, is ambiguous:  is supports the solid cylinders but at the same time appears to be insubstantial and not supported by anything.  Ambiguity adds tension and tension is a good thing in art.

Enter the triangle, always a provocative shape. (Pink)  Where does this come from?  Two sources: 1) Among the cylinders there was a box with a partially open lid and under the white cloth there was some triangulation of additional fabric.  2) The imagination.

You guessed it, I’m rooting for #2.  The dark triangles at the left and right edges of the drawing are pure invention.  Notice how the triangles, pointing toward the center, focus your attention and keep you IN the composition. And it’s in the center that the geometry of the cylinders meets its opposite, the amorphous drift of drapery.  We have a little drama here. So, of course, we pay attention.  And paying attention is what the whole thing is about.

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