Really Seeing



I ran with scissors when I was a kid. Now a days we call it hyper active attention deficit disorder - HAADD. My late brother-in-law always said of my sister she had trouble monotasking. I do not know if the name is important. The bottom line is sometimes if you are running with scissors you miss what is going on around you to avoid tripping.

Since Lent began I have been occupied in two exercises I thought were previously unrelated. First I was giving up trying to reduce my life to status messages on Facebook. I undertook that exercise because I believed I was playing to my audience instead of being real. Any artist, actress, musician, performer or writer is prone to do that. Maybe it is why some very successful comedians like Johnathan Winters lost who they really were. It is certainly why some authors begin putting out formula mysteries and us readers drop them from our reading list.

Be limiting my Facebook participation to comments and responses to others and links that interest me I find the voices in my head are being ever so much more quiet. That was not true the first day or two when I even considered doing a blog that was just the status messages I wanted to post. Deprived of the quick one liner I find myself more interested in the posts of friends and more weighty discourse.

They other, seemingly unrelated endeavor was to take one week out of my 365 day photographic challenge and devote it to one subject. I picked a sterling silver creamer. I have added an object or two to the still life as the week has progressed but the creamer is the star. And just yesterday I joined it with the withered blossoms of my amaryllis which had starred in several previous photographs. It has made for a very meditative week. Rather like focusing on your navel. I am getting to know my subject very well.

Then a friend posted a quote of Edgar Degas - Art is not what you see but what you make other's see.

But first you must see. The difference in photography as opposed to taking pictures is capturing the essence so others can see what you saw.

To communicate first you must hear. The difference in monologue versus dialog is there are two people involved and two actions - hearing and replying.

Art is see and show. Conversation is hear and reply.

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