The Eye of the Woodsman

I remember learning about vanishing points in art class at Gage Park. We had to take at least one semester of music and one semester of art. Or was it two semesters? Whatever. You could get out of the music class by joining the band or the chorus, and you could substitute mechanical drawing for art, but I did neither, so I defaulted to music and art. I found the music class interesting, but the only thing I remember from the art class is those vanishing points.

I know that you are interested in architecture, which ties into your interest in art. I guess that I look at trees like you look at buildings, although I never had an interest in drawing them. As with buildings, there's a lot more to trees than what the average person thinks. No two trees are exactly alike, not the ones that grow naturally anyway. Plantation trees look quite similar but, even they are not exactly identical to each other. Lots of things affect the way a tree grows. There's genetics of course, but environmental factors also play a big part. If a tree grows in a field all by itself, it tends to spread out wide but, if there is competition from other trees, it tries to grow straight, reaching towards the light. If something interferes with the way a tree is trying to grow, it will try to compensate by growing a different way.

Of course my interest in trees is not just about aesthetics. When it comes time to cut a big tree down, you have to really pay attention or it can land on you or otherwise fall the way you don't want it to. If it hangs up on another tree, there are a number of ways you can get it down, but they are all time consuming and involve a certain amount of danger. Better to do it right the first time.

It is said that he who cuts his own firewood warms himself twice. Truth be known, you handle the same wood more times than that. First you cut the tree down, then you cut it into manageable pieces so you can get it home, then you cut it into smaller pieces that can fit into your wood stove, then you pile it up and let it dry out for six months or a year, then you bring it into the house, then you put it in the stove and, finally, you remove the ashes from the stove and take them back outside.

Before you even start that process, you have to decide which trees to cut this year and which ones to leave for another time. I'm always looking at trees and evaluating them. Does this one have a future? If I leave it be, what's it going to look like ten years from now? A hundred years from now? Sometimes there's a tree that ought to be cut, but it's too dangerous or inaccessible for my taste. I'm not going to live long enough to cut them all, so I sometimes leave the inconvenient trees for Mother Nature to take care of. After all, if it wasn't for me, she'd be doing them all herself anyway.

Okay, so how did you manage to cut yourself? Don't feel bad, it happens to the best of us. Maybe if you tell me how you did it, I won't make the same mistake someday, although I probably already have.

the eye of the artist 2

That thing about where the eyes are in the head was a revelation for me. I still have the painting and I remember the day. Afterwards I signed up for a drawing class based on that Right Side of the Brain book. Interspersed within are these little examples of how a person drew before they got into the book and how they drew a few months later, and the differences are just amazing. I thought it was a bit of hype, but a few months later I was way better.

Another thing is perspective, how lines go to a vanishing point. I remember as a kid when I would draw sidewalks, because sidewalks are important in a kid’s life, and I would always have this dilemma where I knew that the cracks in the sidewalk were parallel, and yet when I looked at them they were converging toward the center, and I have to admit it, I didn’t quite believe what I was seeing because I knew that those lines were parallel.

One day when I was subbing, in the sixth grade I think, we were doing some kind of art, I saw one of the kids, and you could tell he was one of the better artists in the class, it seems like all classes had one or two artists that their classmates considered a really good drawer, but he was putting in his sidewalk cracks with those parallel lines. Ah, at last a chance to actually teach something. I explained it to him, I took him over to the window and showed him the sidewalk outside. He thought about it for a while, and then he went back to drawing in the cracks as parallel lines.

The other thing about the way the artist sees things is that once you get into the habit of looking at things you can analyze them, you are never bored. If you are sitting in the doctor’s office you begin to notice what kind of ceiling the room has, what kind of molding, how the corners intersect, what about those windows, single pane, many panes, what kind of curtains? And then you even get to thinking about how you would paint it, how you would start the painting, what you would leave out, what you would move around, like maybe the receptionist desk would look better over there on the other side of the room.

That knife thing, it is just like a three inch pocket knife, and there is no way it got dull the little that I use it (I was cutting cellophane off a candy cane when it happened) I doubt it has had a chance to become dull.

I do remember that bit about sharpening a knife though from when I was a Boy Scout. I was in the boy scouts for four or five years, never got past tenderfoot, never really wanted to. I liked the hanging out and goofing off, but the rest of it didn’t appeal to me at all. Sleeping in a pup tent in the middle of the winter, ugh. When that wind of the wild that called to you came breezing into my room, I shut the window.

Who Woulda Thunk It?

I don't claim to have ESP, but I have a funny feeling that you never sharpened that knife since you got it. I don't know why I know that, I just know it. It may sound counterintuitive, but a sharp knife is actually safer than a dull knife. That's because you have to use more force with a dull knife, and it's prone to slipping off your work and into your finger or some other body part. As with art, there is a certain amount of mystique associated with sharpening a knife but, in my experience, it's mostly bull shit. Anybody that can use a knife can learn to sharpen one.

What you need is something called a "file stone". It's a long course stone with a handle on it. I've had mine for decades, so I'm not sure how easy they are to find anymore, but most hardware stores used to carry them. People will tell you to put oil on the stone, but don't do it. You will wear a little off the stone each time you use it, but that just means it's working. Get in the habit of using the whole length of the stone so you won't wear a dip in the surface and it should last you all your life. If you drop it on a hard floor it might break in two, but you can still use the pieces for years. It would be easier for me to show you how to draw the knife across the stone than to describe it in words, but maybe somebody in your building knows how and can show you. There are lots books and magazine articles about how to sharpen a knife but, for some reason, most of them are wrong. Sex is the only subject I know of that has more misinformation associated with it.

What you said about the apple reminds me of a story: An elementary school teacher stood up in front of her class with her hands behind her back. She said, "I'm holding something behind my back, it's round, and it's red, and it's good to eat. What is it?" Little Mary raised her hand and said, "It's and apple!". The teacher said, "No, actually it's a cherry, but at least it shows that you're thinking." Next the teacher said, "Now I'm holding something that's round, and orange, and it's good to eat. What is it?" Little Judy raised her hand and said, "It's an orange!" The teacher said, "No, actually it's a tangerine, but at least it shows that you're thinking." Then little Johnny stood up with his hand in his pants pocket and said, "I'm holding something that's round, and long, and hard, and it has a big red head on it. What is it?" The teacher flew into a rage and ordered Johnny to the principal's office for talking dirty in her class. As he was walking out the door, Johnny said, "Actually it's just a stick match, but at least it shows that you're thinking."

What you said about the positioning or the eyes was a surprise to me, just like the first time I heard about Galileo dropping those two balls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It's funny how you can believe something because it seems to make sense, and then one day you find out that it's just not true. It's a good idea to challenge your assumptions once in a while, isn't it.

Have a nice, healing weekend!

the eye of the artist

I think the artist does look at things differently than other people, but that is something they have learned, not something they were born with. When I first took up watercolors, I just kind of painted from the head. If I saw an apple, my mind registered it as an apple, and since I knew that an apple was red and round so I painted a red circle. At one point I was painting a group of witches and Pat, the teacher, stopped by and told me that I had painted the eyes in the wrong place on the head, that the eyes are actually in the middle of the head, midway between the crown and the chin. Well if that wasn’t the craziest thing I have ever heard, but then she pulled her hair back and put her head in front of me, and dadgum it but she was right.

Actually it’s a common error among beginning artists. The area below the eyes has the mouth and the nose, and all this interesting stuff, while the forehead is pretty boring and a lot of it is covered with hair, so we just think it is bigger. Pat guided me to this book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It has this whole thing about the left and right side of the brain which I only half believe, but the main thesis is that one of the problems of the beginning artist is that he thinks he already knows what things look like, like the apple and the witch’s eyes, so he never really examines things.

Once you start looking at things you notice where the eyes actually are, and that the apple is not really round and that it has a different shape depending on what angle you look at it from, and it is kind of a dark red, and it isn’t the same color all over, and as a matter of fact if you look very closely at it, until your nose is touching it, there are all these patterns of spots and lines and whatnot. And I haven’t even mentioned the reflections and shadows.

I have more to say on the subject, but last Christmas my nephew gave me a pocketknife for Christmas. The way they package things these days it was very handy. Unfortunately I am not so handy, though I guess I can take a little pride in the fact that it took me over a year to slice my finger, so that now I am typing with a big wad of toilet paper scotch taped to my left index finger, and the going is slow so I’m signing off now.

What you See is What You Get

 People do lots of different things after work and on their days off, but I doubt that most of them attach any philosophical meaning to it. If you ask them why they do it, they will just say that they like it, or their friends like it and they like their friends. There might be a few oddballs like us who try to find the deeper meaning of things, but I doubt that they are the majority. Even we oddballs only do what we do because we like to do it, so we're not all that high and mighty ourselves.

I've got a theory about art. I think that an artist sees things differently than a regular person, sometimes literally and sometimes figuratively. I read something once about one of the Impressionists, I think it was Monet. Isn't he the guy who made his paintings look kind of foggy, like you were looking at them through a dirty window? Well, whoever it was, I read that he might have actually seen the world that way. It has been speculated that he had some kind of undiagnosed vision problem and believed that things looked the same way to everybody else. On the other hand, maybe that's just the way he believed the world should look. Even if you guys don't literally see things differently than the rest of us, you may "see" things in your subject that we don't notice. Maybe you're trying to visualize the spirit of the thing. You can't see a spirit, but you can speculate about what a spirit might look like if you could see it. Music is certainly that way, only it's done through sound rather than eyesight.

I forgot to tell you before, but I clicked on the link to the preview of your coming art show at the Ten Cat. I found it interesting to compare your paintings to the photographs. While your work is clearly recognizable as depicting those buildings, it's certainly not exactly the same as the photos. Your buildings are a lot more colorful, and the lines aren't as straight. I have said before that I don't know much about art, so don't take this as criticism, it's just what I noticed. At least I can tell that they are the same buildings. Some of what used to be called "modern art" doesn't resemble anything in the real world as far as I'm concerned, but maybe it's not supposed to. Maybe it's not about what you see at all, but rather what you feel. 

Anyway, I think that your buildings are prettier than the ones in the photographs, although I might be a little nervous about taking an elevator to the top floor of one of them. That's probably because we are used to thinking of straight lines and square corners as being more stable than something that's a little out of plumb. Truth be known, mountains don't have straight lines and square corners, but they seem to be pretty stable. I guess it's all in how you look at it.
                              

man does not live by bread alone

Man does not live by bread alone. Well I wondered where that came from, and sure enough it is from the bible. Well religion that is certainly something more to live for than bread if you believe it, then there is family, or some kind of political theory, or some sports team, and I suppose art is in there somewhere, and for some people I suppose bread is enough in itself.

You know when you’re at work, you really don’t have to think about anything else, you don’t have to worry about what to do, the boss tells you what to do. Oh you can try to have fun at work, you can take pride in your work, you can try to advance, but you don’t have to do any of those things, because you are at work, and you are earning that paycheck, and that’s all you need to do.

But then you come home, and then what do you do? Are there people who just eat supper, maybe watch a little tv and then go to bed? I guess there are, actually it seems like there are a lot of people like that, confronting a poll about what they do when they get off work, I bet a lot of people would check the box that says Nothing.

I think the idea that art is something special, that artists are special people who have some kind of vision and can reveal some truth and that doing it or appreciating it can enrich you and make you a better person, is something relatively new, dating from maybe the last few hundred years. Before that the artist was more of a craftsman in the service of religion or some ruler, he did what they wanted him to do and wasn’t expected to come up with his own ideas. Anymore the artist is supposed to come up with his own ideas, it’s not enough to paint a pretty picture of some mountain, he has to explain why he chose that mountain, why he put that cloud there, and then he has to have some theory about art.

You would think that would be a burden, but I think most artists like to have a theory. It pumps them up, makes them look more important. They are not merely a craftsman, they are a philosopher, a deep thinker.

There is a way to build a skyscraper or to play third base. There are certain steps you can take and if you follow the rules you will be successful. But there are no set steps that you can follow and be sure of painting a great picture or write a great song or whatever, you just kind of aim at it, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

Art is a ragbag of stuff, and if you submit it to the crucible it falls apart, contradictions occur, and some of it makes no sense, but you can’t cut them out because then you are left with a handful of dust.

You can talk about it, and I do a lot, but I don’t think you will ever come up with something where you can say this is true and that isn’t. I think sometimes people take it too seriously.

Art For Art's Sake

I agree that the development of agriculture was a quantum leap for humans, but they had been human for a long time before that, evolving their brains and social structures to the point where they were capable of developing agriculture. Hunting large animals and fighting off rival clans probably taught them how to cooperate for a common purpose and to communicate with each other in order to facilitate that cooperation. Bipedalism likely developed when, for some reason, they decided to come down out of the trees. Maybe the trees became scarce, or maybe some groups had to leave the forest because it was getting too crowded. Once they started ranging the plains, walking upright enabled them to see farther over the tall grass. Then, since they weren't doing anything with their hands, they took to carrying sticks and rocks around.

Art may have started out being just another form of communication, but it developed into something more complicated. It was partly for entertainment, but it was also to express ideas that might be hard to put into words at the time. There also seemed to be an element of pride in it. "Look, see what I can do!" Why else would they make those stencils of their hands? At some point, it took on a mystical or religious meaning, maybe because some people were better at it than others. If you can find a copy of the January, 2015 issue of National Geographic you should read that article about the first artists. You, being an artist yourself, might get more out of it than I did. Even when I was composing simple folk songs I never considered myself to be an artist. I don't know why, maybe because folk music used to be produced by regular folks, which is why they call it folk music.

That's an interesting theory you have about art being used to manipulate people. Most of the people I know, however, don't need to be manipulated to work for a living. Their paycheck is all the inspiration they need to get up in the morning and go off to work, and they wouldn't know the meaning of life if it fell on their heads from the sky.

Happy New Year!