Our studio at the Evanston Art Center faces south. Needless to say, we greet an overcast sky with a sigh of relief. On a sunny morning, we pull the shades.
When the shades are pulled, the sun coming through the cracks creates a dramatic pattern on the floor. Now, you can ignore that, seeing it as literally what it is, the sun coming through the cracks.
But you can also go into exercise mode. You can switch your perceptual apparatus to seeing the whole picture. Instead of labeling what you see (floor, light, people, easels), you can flatten what’s hitting your retina. Yes, flatten. It’s what you do when you paint an object (three-dimensional) on a canvas (two-dimensional). You create a composition on a flat surface.
Well, you can also do that as a composition exercise—whenever and wherever you are. As a further aid, there’s your phone camera. You’re never without it. The camera flattens everything you point at into a two-dimensional composition. Thank you, Mr. Gates, Mr. Jobs, et.al. You’re never without the opportunity to see at this more conscious level.
What’s extra wonderful about those light strips on the floor is that they appear as the most striking, most important thing in the composition. They read as positive space. Ha, gotcha. It’s always thrilling when your expectations are overturned. Negative space reads like positive space. And people, who normally count as positive space, are relegated to the shadowy part of the background.
You may now slide that insight into the light of day.
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
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artamaze by Katherine Hilden 