I know, a little "Man Bites Dog" headline, huh? But since you are here anyway
I was lying to some little kids again. I mean not lying, lying but tossing some bullshit that all of a sudden I began to smell. I was in a Title One school (poorest kids in their county) teaching them to write a blues song to help them understand the difference between character traits and feelings, which for a first grader is at the top of their cognitive limits. (Feelings change in the story, but character traits persist to define how a character will behave in the story. Hopefully character traits can also change through education, or we are all kinda screwed, but you see the simple difference right?) I was drawing a picture web of ideas using characters from their story about a fox and a mouse and was drawing a really, really shitty fox. I mean worse than cave man on cave wall shitty. (No offense to our ancestors meant some of them drew better than I did.) I told the kids that as a musician I tend to pay more attention to my ears so I practice music but not drawing. All this is sort of true, but what was a stinking lie was the implication that somehow this preference defined my character trait as a musician guy who can't draw. It sent me into introspection on my long drive home. WTF? Why was I shitty at drawing and was it really based on my sensory preference? Or was it something that had just been overlooked in my education, cast aside as something adults don't need to know how to do? What other area of knowledge is it acceptable for adults to perform at a first grade level? (Oh sorry that is a two digit number and I don't do math that high!) As I reflected on my art classes I remember being taught how to use certain mediums, but never having anyone show me how to draw. It seemed to be accepted that some kids were "talented" (I am beginning to hate that word as a total cop-out in art.) and they could do this magical thing called drawing. And then there was me, a special Ed artist to this day. Was this just a limit I needed to accept, or had my educational system failed me? I needed to know, so I went to the library and took out a big stack of how-to-draw books including one on drawing animal cartoons. In a few moments I knew I had been selling myself and others a bill of goods about me being able to draw as a limit. With some simple instructions I could draw a very passible fox for my class the next day, as well as a very cute but simple mouse. I had just never been shown how to draw one, and some of it was counter-intuitive. So I still sucked at drawing in general but in the specific I could pull off a fox and a mouse. And it was still magical how they went from a real picture of these animals to the stylized few lines that defined them, so I had even more questions now. How did the guy (or doll, I'm still in my Film Noir phase) first discover how to SEE what lines mattered most? Relevant side discussion: If you come up to me after my blues show and tell me you like my music, I will thank you and then ask if you play an instrument. If you tell me you have no musical talent but would love to play guitar I will tell you that anyone can learn to play simple chords on a guitar and have a blast playing most of your favorite music. My practiced spiel includes the fact that I have taught many people to play guitar who never thought they could, and it is a simple matter of having someone show you where to put your fingers (Youtube) and then putting your fingers on strings for 15 minutes every day till you groove it in. Some go away inspired, some go away dubious, and some just go away. But some actually do what I suggest and write me glowing thank-you emails. So for music I believe that talent is overrated as far as personal satisfaction is concerned. We may never have the raw talent of Jimi Hendrix, but he was a legendary practicer too, so it is still up in the air concerning this NatureNurture balance. But I had never applied my own theory to myself with drawing till now. Back to the main story: We have all probably owned this book, I know I did, but never worked through it: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. I got the latest edition from Amazon and let her guide me. Within two chapters I was drawing so far above what I thought I could ever do. I realized that this is a huge gap in education, and an amazing opportunity to understand altered states of brain functioning. (more on that later.) Now don't get me wrong, I am a beginner and am still on the "suck" continuum in my final products. But now I see where I need to go, I see the path before me. It will take time, but the time spent is so enjoyable I am sorry I didn't discover this before. In a nutshell, what my girl Betty (Now THAT is a noir-chick name!) turned me on to were some critical concepts about how people SEE in order to draw accurately. It turns out that most of us draw through the filter of our conceptions because we don't know how to tell our hyper-verbal brain functions to chill the F out while we try to actually SEE something that may not make conceptual sense, but happens to be the way things look from that angle. If we see a cube we KNOW that each side is equal, but if you draw it that way it will suck because it does not appear that way to our eyes. When drawing faces we really go into hyper-drive with our conceptions because we are so focused on getting information from people's faces. (We naturally suck at eye placement because it is actually in the exact middle of our faces and we all think it is about one third down from our hairline, and we all place ears too far forward on a profile as well as lopping off most of the top of people's heads in sketches. Our intuition betrays us.) So brilliant Betty had me draw from a picture that was upside down so I only saw shapes, or draw the spaces and shapes around and inside a chair instead of the thing itself, to let my perception have a chance to shift into less concept laden seeing. And the results have been a revelation. I actually drew a cool chair this way, as well as the corner of my room. (I even got the counter-intuitive perspective lines right-ish.) One of the coolest parts of the book was a quote from Van Gogh pissing and moaning about how hard it was to draw as he was teaching himself, and even some examples of what he drew when HE sucked! (Yes, Van Gogh sucked at first just like some of us do, even though he may have been able to take that ball and run with it much further than I can once he got going.) Which brings up my current perspective on art. We have been betrayed by our educational system if we can't bang out chords on guitar or piano to delight ourselves if we want to, or draw an accurate representative likeness of something we see. Those are the basics, and it is within everyone's ability to master that. What makes art become ART is what we do with that foundation. How can we use those chords to move someone's emotions, or represent not just the surface of how a person looks, but how they feel to us on a deeper level in a picture. (Think Picasso's brilliant insight drawing single eyed women because that is how their eyes fuse into one when we are leaning in for a kiss.) So now drawing through my art book lessons (I have a stack) is a part of every day, and I relish the state of non-verbal thinking that it shifts me into. It is truly a meditative, restorative state that I crave. It is different from the flow state I am in when I play music, but I can't articulate how yet. It has some similarities in the time distortion and expansion of awareness feelings, but It is definitely running different brain software. How it fits into the model of how we alter our minds through meditation is anyone's guess. So I hope Marek is lurking, but I will send him this if he isn't. I would love to hear his take on this since he is so developed both as a visual artist as well as a verbally expressive thinker. Anyone who is a visual artist or anyone who wants to share experiences about their relationship with art are most welcome. This has so many profound implications about how we approach education for me, especially concerning non-verbal intelligence,but I have bent your eyes (ears?) long enough. Thanks for being a place to send such a piece. I'll hang out for any responses.
