trees | The Direction of Intention

Gain Some Perspective [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 6, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

If you’ve not yet bumped into Piet Mondrian’s paintings of trees, this is your chance. Not only are the paintings beautiful but if you’ve ever scratched your head at his more famous abstract/geometric paintings, you will find the forest through his trees. Things are not always what they seem and, in the era of contemporary art, it is necessary to grok the context in order to fully appreciate the content. Of course, that rule also applies in this age of info-tsunami: content rushing across the screen is regularly embraced whole-cloth – sans context – so truth and lie have equal standing.

In the art world, placing content (an individual painting) into context (the historic era, the long-body-exploration of the artist’s work, the source of the exploration) is called “gaining perspective”. Because things are not always what they seem, it is drilled into every artist to regularly stand back, to clear their eyes, to get perspective on their work-in-progress. It is also (or used to be) drilled-in to offer the same courtesy to the work of other artists. Stand back from snap judgments. Check the sources. Understand the exploration. Grasp the historical context. It is never as simple as “liking” or “not liking”; appreciation opens a vast color palette beyond the numbing mindset of thumbs-up or down.

Gaining perspective and learning are the same thing. The most well-educated people I know are not lawyers or doctors. They are actors, directors, dancers, and painters. Gaining perspective takes a lifelong dedication to questioning and researching and double-checking. It is to peek behind the curtain of popular and not get caught in the current reality spin. It is to know that things are not what they seem. It is to know that reactions are easy answers; questions take time. Gaining perspective takes time.

Sometimes she stops so quickly that it propels me forward a few stumbling steps. While I tumbled forward she knelt at a puddle and aimed her camera at a leaf. Or so I thought. I have learned (daily) that she sees things that I do not. I have learned that my assumptions are almost always wrong. She smiled when she stood up. “Look,” she said.

I gasped. I was terrifically wrong. The leaf was nowhere in sight. The reflection of trees in a puddle on the asphalt trail. A festival of texture. A masterpiece of illusion. Piet Mondrian must have knelt at a puddle reflection just like this! “Trees through an icy window,” I said.

Things are rarely – if ever – what they seem.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TREES

share it. like it. support it. comment on it. research it. question it. doubt it. grok it.

buymeacoffee is exactly what you make of it.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Education, Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: abstract art, abstraction, artistry, assumptions, contemporary art, content, context, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, easy answers, education, gain perspective, illusion, information age, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, lie, perspective, Piet Mondrian, Piet Mondrian's trees, questioning, questions, reality, research, seem, seeming, story, studio melange, the melange, trees, truth | Leave a comment »

See Through The Trees [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 14, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I was about to paint a new composition over an old canvas. Kerri flung herself in front of the old painting claiming that she loved it and had recently admired it. I wrinkled my brow at the impossibility of her claim. The old painting was an experiment I labeled “hotel art.” Also, it was sideways in the stacks. IF she admired it at all she was admiring it sideways. Standing between me and my canvas she said in all seriousness, “Do what you want, it’s your painting.”

Now, I will never paint over that painting. First, because I can never forget the face she made when she sprang into painting-savior mode. It melted my boorish heart. Next, because her “Do-what-you-want” manipulation was so unmasked and shameless that I’d suffer deep guilt for the rest of my days on earth if I did what I wanted and dared touch my dreaded hotel art. It’s no longer my painting. It’s become a moment that I adore, a memory that I cherish.

The new painting, had it made it into the world, would’ve been called, “Trains Through Trees.” I’ve been making sketches for a few years but, until recently, never arrived at something I liked. It’s a narrative. Our favorite yellow trail circles near railroad tracks and often on our walks a train rumbles through. For weeks Kerri made a series of videos, trying to catch the movement of the colorful graffitied train cars through the trees. Train performance art. I loved her excitement at the approaching train as she raced to a good spot to take her video. Those moments inspired an idea for a painting. The dreaded hotel art was the ideal canvas shape.

Two passing moments collide. The trains through trees. The painting-savior. They speak volumes about our life. Tiny moments like a hot cup of tea on a cold misty afternoon. They warm me. And, aren’t all of our days rich-rich-rich with the best moments of our lives, if we only took the time to notice them?

read Kerri’s blogpost about TINY MOMENTS