Golagai 2, from a recent painting series exploring orbs and fluidity
I arrived in Maine 10 days ago thinking a lot about two particular ideas culled from the book This Will Make You Smarter, a compilation of short but provocative answers to the Edge Question 2011: “What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?”
The first was the answer to that question from Daniel Kahneman (and author of the book I read with fervor last summer, Thinking, Fast and Slow. The “focusing allusion” is that proclivity we all have to distort our read of the world because of a predisposed belief, idea or fixation. In his short essay Kahneman does his inimitable dismantling of common wisdom (for example: “When you think of rich and poor people, your thoughts are inevitably focused on circumstances in which income is important. But happiness depends on other factors more than it depends on income.”) My interest in Kahneman’s focusing allusion is how it operates on a more personal. I shift my view of things constantly based on the last book I read, the last painting I loved, the last compelling analysis of the political landscape. I’m aware that I am susceptible but it happens anyway.
The second idea is from Charles Seife, author of Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception. Seife’s essay is about the concept of randomness. From his essay:
Our very brains revolt at the idea of randomness. We have evolved as a species to become exquisite pattern-finders…Our minds automatically try to place data in a framework that allows us to make sense of our observations and use them to understand events and predict them.
Randomness is so difficult to grasp because it works against our pattern-finding instincts. It tells us that sometimes there is no pattern to be found. As a result, randomness is fundamental limit to our intuition; it says that there are processes that we can’t predict fully. It’s a concept that we have a hard time accepting even though it is an essential part of the way the cosmos works. Without an understanding of randomness, we are stuck in a perfectly predictable universe that simply doesn’t exist outside of our own heads.
Provocative ideas, both. But neither deterred my eyes from seeing the orbs and spheres I have been exploring in my studio everywhere in the landscape of Small Point. Whether micro and macro, they just kept appearing. And delighting me over and over again.
Martin Scorsese once advised a young filmmaker that “your job is to make your audience care about your obsessions.” What a great directive! So with that in mind, I invite you to take a look at one of mine.
Deborah – welcome back! And thank you for these luscious images; they enrich my (already deep) appreciation of your ‘orbs and fluidity’ works …
Thanks L. It was a wonderful week. So much time just sitting, watching, being still. I thought of you many times.
Deborah – thanks for this visual feast for my failing eyes. What joy in seeing all this you must have had and continue to have. Obsession, yes, but of a most compelling sort, best exercised in silent awe. G
G! How wonderful to get a message from you. I think of you so often. I like that challenge, obsessions best exercised in silent awe. Be well my friend.
Very compelling! These images give me a little insight into the source of your inspiration for your marvelous paintings.
Painter Terrill Welch (at Creative Potager) takes some wonderful photos of the sea that you might enjoy. I particularly like her images of sandstone.
Glad you had a lovely time off the grid.
I took a few days and went up to Philly. Totally saturated in art; the Barnes a bit overwhelming (no one person should ever have owned so many Renoir), the Rosenbach (a little gem, the Sendak illustrations a delight), Mutter Museum (fascinating medical science). I loved the Bruce Munro light installations at Longwood Gardens; they were magical at night. Also stopped at Brandywine River Museum on way to Longwood; I’d hoped to see Wyeth’s studio, which only recently opened to the public but no tickets remained for tour that afternoon.
Lucky you! I haven’t had any time in Philadelphia yet but this is a great list if I can get down in September. Thanks for the heads up on all these exhibits plus Terrill Welch’s site.
Wonderful images, and enlightening alongside your beautiful painting.
Altoon, it is a luxury for me to spend 10 days just watching nature. I think of this as daily practice for you. And as you know so well, the silent vigil of watching the world in its rhythms has an impact that is hard to language. Thanks for your comment, I always appreciate hearing from you.
Deborah, what a lovely glimpse into your sublime world of orbs and spheres. I have a similar obsession with the multiple patterns I find in nature and the more one looks the more one finds. I do find it curious as to why some of these patterns stand out more clearly and beckon different people at different times…perhaps they are a reflection of our inward states?
Holly, they do feel personal, these proclivities that we encounter. I like the mystery of that appeal and the fact that it moves and morphs over time. Thanks so much for your comment.
[…] Entire post at : Slow Muse < Prev Next […]