Heartsong Studio

 

Is there a problem that is limiting you in some area of art ?  Maybe you or a friend need strong glasses to see distant things.

Or maybe you’re partly colour blind. Have you ever thought that a special gift can also have its limiting side too ?

Here’s an article that will open your eyes to the flip side of handicaps.

“Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth”

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Nearly everyone has one or another cross to bear. There are usually at least a few obvious solutions to most problems.

If your focus is on your problem, it tends to loom larger, and eventually you become a victim of your own making. But if you can get the knack of focusing on being open to possible solutions, then those possibilities will multiply.

It’s a case of seeing the gifts within your limitations. Here’s an example of someone who discovered a unique skill in his handicap.

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Monty Roberts is a man whose pain and limitations still echo in his mission to leave this world a better place for horses. He was raised by a violently cruel father, who was also a foremost breaker of wild horses.

When Monty was a young boy, he spent long periods scouting out good mustangs — wild horses — to drive back for his father to break, and sell.

He hated the cruelty of this work. He was also born almost totally colour blind. Colour blind people have a few visual abilities which “normally” sighted people lack. They can see detail at vast distances. And they can perceive movement too because the colour isn’t a distracting factor from the value (dark and light).

So he observed herds of wild mustangs from 2 to 3 miles off, without disturbing them. This way he was able to observe firsthand their body language. Then he experimented using the same “language”.

Eventually he was able to “gentle” a mustang within about 7 minutes, without cruelty, or breaking. It took his father several days to break a horse the traditional way.

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I know two colour blind artists. They have both worked with animals, as it happens. One works in graphite and charcoal, introducing a little colour. The other is a metal sculptor. Both have sensitive perception of values, which far exceeds mine.

I know my acute sensitivity to colour can be a blessing but also a handicap. My sense of light and dark values are not as well developed, so depth in a painting takes special effort for me to achieve. Though I’m quite at ease feeling the different emotions of colours, getting into the very dark is rather daunting.

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It was a traditional method of painting for an artist to first paint the whole canvas in varying shades of grey - black and white. This was to set the values from the outset. Then they applied local colour in the appropriate value.

You should try it sometime. It’s quite difficult to switch back and forth, especially for someone with an acute sense of colour. But you can learn to see light and dark values with this kind of patient practice. For a partially colour blind artist, it would be easy.

During World War II, the air force were always looking for colour blind gunners. They could be flown over an area of dense growth, for instance, and clearly see the camouflage draped tanks. A normally sighted person’s eyes would be fooled by the camouflage. But not the vision of a colour blind person.

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With a little imagination, you can see how a so-called handicap could be an advantage. And a so-called special gift can have its limitation side too. It all depends on what you make of your “givens”.

How can you make fuller use and appreciation of those gifts that have been given to you ?

You might start with a closer look at what you haven’t developed very well.

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Besides handicaps and their advantages for artists, there are other types of handicaps too. Some of them are hugely affecting for the life of that person. Nonetheless, if you were born with a handicap, and received all the latest treatment available, you would still have to live with yourself as well as you could.

Persons who are blind frequently develop a keener sense of hearing and / or touch. Deaf people often develop acute visual discrimination. There are a few, rare examples of people like Helen Keller, who was both deaf and blind. But rather than holding her back, these huge handicaps urged her on into becoming an inspiration to millions.

I recommend reading “Animals in Translation”, by Temple Grandin, for an amazing story of how one woman turned her autism into rare skills which are widely sought. There is so much to learn from this person both about how animals and autistic people communicate, but also, how “normal” people perceive and communicate too.

For artists interested in visual language, it is a wealth of fascination to learn how visually- thinking animals and autistic people perceive the world.

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Don’t settle for simply surviving your handicaps and limitations, or staying blind to the flip side of your gifts.

Any real limitations can be used as a catapult to launch you on your way to thriving in an even more fulfilling life.

If you have any experience with overcoming and thriving because of a handicap, I would love to hear your story.

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If a friend sent you this article, you may not know about my free newsletter “Fresh Horses”.

When you sign up to receive Fresh Horses, you also receive the bonus of my free guidebook  “How you can draw by learning to see”. Please go to http://www.heartsongstudio.com   to see if this would be of interest to you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Do you envy a certain artist ?
Do you long for a unique style of your own, perhaps like Monet, Van Gogh, or Kandinski ? Perhaps you feel, like many beginning (and not so new) artists that your work hasn’t a distinct style.

You could try and learn the style of a master you admire. In many art schools, that is an assignment, to copy an artist’s style in order to understand his work better. However it’s only for a time, and not meant for adopting the style.

Suppose you adore the style of Georgia O’Keeffe. If you were highly motivated, and had the time you could, theoretically, go through all the stages of her life with yours. You could live in New York with someone like Stieglitz, and so on, ending up in New Mexico, until possibly, eventually, you just might be able to paint in a very similar vein to Georgia O’Keeffe.

If you succeeded, what would you have gained ? What would the world have gained ? Do we need, or even want another almost Georgia O’Keeffe ?
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What we would have lost is much more crucial, though.
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The world would have been deprived of a very unique contribution. We would never know what your style was like. You wouldn’t have had the time to let yourself develop.
If you had the power of prediction, you would also see the beauty in your own potential, and wouldn’t be envying another.

It’s common for artists to not see the uniqueness of style in their own work.
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Some may try to stick with one subject or one genre, like landscapes or abstracts, all the time, in a false sense of security, or a false sense of style.

You know the story of the ugly duckling; a duck raises all her ducklings with a strange-looking baby in the brood.  She does not know that this ugly ”duckling” will grow into a beautiful swan.

To focus on the end “product” is a hugely limiting factor. Especially when you don’t know what it will be.  But it begins and ends with your focus on yourself, and it short circuits any chance of growth.

Of course, you have to start with an idea, but by coming into a relationship with the idea or subject of your work, it turns into a partnership of you and this other thing. You wouldn’t be alone bearing all the focus. An egg can’t hatch all by itself. Like your style, it requires incubating.
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So how can you find and incubate your style ?
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You can’t hide your true style, in whatever work you do.

No matter whether you work in relation with your subjects, try to copy another’s “style”, or stay boxed in by your perceived need for security, you do have a style. In time, with practice, it will ripen and mature. Others probably can see it clearly, long before you can.

I’ve always resisted being type cast, and change my genre from time to time. But I cannot change my style. Our style develops, matures, enriches, expands over time if we help it, nurture it, accept it.

Style reflects all your life’s experiences so far. You can consciously choose or alter your genre, subject, or medium, but not your style. Just like you can’t choose your parents, nor them you.  If you’re a swan, you’re a swan.  If you’re a crow, you’re a crow.  Every sort of bird has its own unique beauty.

It used to surprise me that others could pick my work out of a group show without reading the captions. Though I could pick out theirs. I think I still hung onto a notion that I worked a certain preferred way.

Eventually it melted as I watched my style evolve and accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to be another Paul Klee, or Picasso, or Kandinsky.

Once you get the first glimpses of what characterizes your style, you can start to accept that that’s the way it is. Eventually you can revel in it.

Though your style can’t be intentionally changed, it does change, like everything. It grows through stages as it matures. It is not selfcentred, it is self-full to become sensitive to your own growth.

It is the responsible thing to do.

Like an egg that needs incubating, it hatches, then needs nurturing.

Eventually your style will learn to take flight, but only if its parent lets it go; only if its parent can take her eyes off it, while giving it the care it needs.

By trusting that it is a worthy thing, a totally unique thing will belong in the world, and be welcome here.

Eventually your style, your work, will learn to fly in flocks without colliding !

Do you really want a second hand style ? Don’t miss the swan for the seagulls.

You are as unique in your style, whatever stage of development, whatever work you do, as anyone else that ever lived. If someone else doesn’t see it, then it’s their undiscerning eye that disappoints, and not your lack of style.

I sometimes think that after recognizing it, it’s accepting our own style which is hardest to do. Friends can help you with this. There are usually others who like your work better than you do. Find them. Use them. They’ll be happy to have helped.

Learning to live into your “style” in all things, is really just about being your true self.

It’s a process of gradually letting go of everything that isn’t you. Not “to live up to” as in social climbing, just easily falling into your style, like into an easy chair, comfortable, at ease.

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Was this your style of article ? Or, did it set your beak on edge ?

Drop me a line, if that’s your style.

 

If a friend gave you this, you may not know about my free newsletter “Fresh Horses”.

To subscribe and receive the bonus of my free guide “How you can draw by learning to see,”

please go to : http:www.heartsongstudio.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

No comments

 

Do you think in pictures or words ?

When you were born, you had everything you needed to thrive already within. Even before you were born, you most likely heard sounds like music and voices. At birth, you probably came out crying, communicating. I’ve seen reports of unborn infants dreaming when asleep.

Among all your inheritance, was the capacity to learn a verbal language — speak, read, write — and also to think in words. You also inherited a potential to develop and utilize a visual language; to think in images. Both verbal and visual thinking is a birthright potential for all of us.

When you were an infant, you listened to and mouthed the sounds of speaking around you.

Eventually you learned to speak your native language well enough to communicate: to hear and speak. Though you had the capacity — there was a “frame” in your brain for speech — it didn’t come automatically without learning.

These weren’t “art” in the usual sense, but were your discoveries of what you could make: marks. Can you imagine how it might have been for the first prehistoric human to first scratch in the dust ? Suddenly he sees what HE has created. What is that mark, that thing ? Maybe he was filled with a strange new power. And he showed someone else.

When you spilled food or grasped a crayon, as a baby, you began to make marks perhaps in the same way. Could be there was a moment of magical discovery that you made something. Then someone may have asked you as a child, what it was supposed to be. Bam ! An assumption was imposed. This is suppose to “be” something, whatever that means. A limit to your new creative feeling of power.

Then, you might have made marks on a wall, or a floor. And other limits were imposed on your discoveries. Later, at school, even more judgment stopped you short, from children and teachers alike.

Between the ages of roughly 9 to11, is often called the crisis period.

It is natural for children to have a passion for realistic drawing. This coincides with the time that their brains’ left mode ( the state of conception) is dominant. The “left mode” is no good at drawing, yet they are passionately learning to see reality. Those of us who happen to find the knack of shifting between modes, continue to draw.

Prehistoric humans made drawings on cave walls.

Some are as fresh and lively as any made today, yet there was not any written word. We do not know how developed was the spoken word, but these drawings are thought to have been for various reasons: to communicate a successful hunt, to illustrate killed animals, or to serve a visionary purpose, but probably not to decorate the cave.

Some are as fresh and lively as any made today, yet there was not any written word. We do not know how developed was the spoken word, but these drawings are thought to have been for various reasons: to communicate a successful hunt, to illustrate killed animals, or to serve a visionary purpose, but probably not to decorate the cave.We have all been touched to some degree by road blocks to our visual communication.

How can you recover your lost potential, if you are among the wounded ?

You could play.

Let’s suppose you are visiting Venice, Italy. You’ve bought a phrase book and are getting around just fine in restaurants, cafes, and tours. But it’s getting pretty lonely watching couples strolling around together.

One evening, sitting in an outdoor café, you see a meltingly handsome (beautiful) man (woman) sitting at the next table. What to do without fluent Italian ? You flip through your well worn phrase book, past phrases like :”Don’t put a wet spoon in the baking powder”, but nothing is anywhere near useful.

As he (she) approaches you, your whole body seems to melt when you hear a mellow stream of Italian directed at you.

What can you do ?

I’ll bet, all things being equal, you wouldn’t forego this opportunity to make the dream friend of your life. (It’s okay, this is only an imaginary scene.) Wouldn’t you allow nature to take its course, or at least make a stab at communicating in some sort of universal language of which you have no knowledge ?

You could take this scenario to use as a “training run” right now. Find a willing partner, and be yourselves, or assume a role of your own choosing. You could be just yourself. The idea of this visual conversation, is to invent marks which don’t yet exist, to “say” whatever you feel like saying. Ready ?

Put a large sheet of paper in front of you sitting side-by-side. Have crayons or coloured chalk handy.

2. No talking. No pictures ! No stars, hearts, arrows, lightning bolts, symbols, or drawings of known objects.

3. Decide who will start any conversation. The other watches intently, patiently.

4. Make an opening remark by inventing marks, with unique symbolic meanings and composing these marks in patterns according to your own device. When you feel finished, put down your crayon.

5. Then it is your partner’s turn to respond with invented marks of her own. Continue taking turns this way for no more than 15 minutes.

The magic is you will understand what is being discussed.

After a brief time, let yourselves talk about what happened. You will probably be bursting to switch into words.

Every time you engage in this inventive play, it will be completely different. Try it often with many different people. Change roles from your usual way of being leader, blender, compromiser, to challenger, confronter, and so on.

You may discover an unknown resource you have for creative communication. (The handsome Italian might have some creative marks for you too.) All good fun, but also a very real situation where you have no pre-learned way of communicating. Necessity is the mother of invention, and a powerful motivator. There’s no way of knowing what’s up your creative sleeve, until you try it.

Hw dd u lk ths ar-tickle ? Phffft ? Or, Ooh, la-la, mama mia ! ?

If you received this from a friend, you may not know about my free newsletter - “Fresh Horses”.

To subscribe and to receive the bonus of my free guide “How you can draw by learning to see,”

please go to http:www.heartsongstudio.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you think in pictures or words ?

When you were born, you had everything you needed to thrive already within. Even before you were born, you most likely heard sounds like music and voices. At birth, you probably came out crying, communicating. I’ve seen reports of unborn infants dreaming when asleep.

Among all your inheritance, was the capacity to learn a verbal language — speak, read, write — and also to think in words. You also inherited a potential to develop and utilize a visual language; to think in images. Both verbal and visual thinking is a birthright potential for all of us.

When you were an infant, you listened to and mouthed the sounds of speaking around you.

Eventually you learned to speak your native language well enough to communicate: to hear and speak. Though you had the capacity — there was a “frame” in your brain for speech — it didn’t come automatically without learning.

These weren’t “art” in the usual sense, but were your discoveries of what you could make: marks. Can you imagine how it might have been for the first prehistoric human to first scratch in the dust ? Suddenly he sees what HE has created. What is that mark, that thing ? Maybe he was filled with a strange new power. And he showed someone else.

When you spilled food or grasped a crayon, as a baby, you began to make marks perhaps in the same way. Could be there was a moment of magical discovery that you made something. Then someone may have asked you as a child, what it was supposed to be. Bam ! An assumption was imposed. This is suppose to “be” something, whatever that means. A limit to your new creative feeling of power.

Then, you might have made marks on a wall, or a floor. And other limits were imposed on your discoveries. Later, at school, even more judgment stopped you short, from children and teachers alike.

Between the ages of roughly 9 to11, is often called the crisis period.

It is natural for children to have a passion for realistic drawing. This coincides with the time that their brains’ left mode ( the state of conception) is dominant. The “left mode” is no good at drawing, yet they are passionately learning to see reality. Those of us who happen to find the knack of shifting between modes, continue to draw.

Prehistoric humans made drawings on cave walls.

Some are as fresh and lively as any made today, yet there was not any written word. We do not know how developed was the spoken word, but these drawings are thought to have been for various reasons: to communicate a successful hunt, to illustrate killed animals, or to serve a visionary purpose, but probably not to decorate the cave.

Some are as fresh and lively as any made today, yet there was not any written word. We do not know how developed was the spoken word, but these drawings are thought to have been for various reasons: to communicate a successful hunt, to illustrate killed animals, or to serve a visionary purpose, but probably not to decorate the cave.We have all been touched to some degree by road blocks to our visual communication.

How can you recover your lost potential, if you are among the wounded ?

You could play.

Let’s suppose you are visiting Venice, Italy. You’ve bought a phrase book and are getting around just fine in restaurants, cafes, and tours. But it’s getting pretty lonely watching couples strolling around together.

One evening, sitting in an outdoor café, you see a meltingly handsome (beautiful) man (woman) sitting at the next table. What to do without fluent Italian ? You flip through your well worn phrase book, past phrases like :”Don’t put a wet spoon in the baking powder”, but nothing is anywhere near useful.

As he (she) approaches you, your whole body seems to melt when you hear a mellow stream of Italian directed at you.

What can you do ?

I’ll bet, all things being equal, you wouldn’t forego this opportunity to make the dream friend of your life. (It’s okay, this is only an imaginary scene.) Wouldn’t you allow nature to take its course, or at least make a stab at communicating in some sort of universal language of which you have no knowledge ?

You could take this scenario to use as a “training run” right now. Find a willing partner, and be yourselves, or assume a role of your own choosing. You could be just yourself. The idea of this visual conversation, is to invent marks which don’t yet exist, to “say” whatever you feel like saying. Ready ?

Put a large sheet of paper in front of you sitting side-by-side. Have crayons or coloured chalk handy.

2. No talking. No pictures ! No stars, hearts, arrows, lightning bolts, symbols, or drawings of known objects.

3. Decide who will start any conversation. The other watches intently, patiently.

4. Make an opening remark by inventing marks, with unique symbolic meanings and composing these marks in patterns according to your own device. When you feel finished, put down your crayon.

5. Then it is your partner’s turn to respond with invented marks of her own. Continue taking turns this way for no more than 15 minutes.

The magic is you will understand what is being discussed.

After a brief time, let yourselves talk about what happened. You will probably be bursting to switch into words.

Every time you engage in this inventive play, it will be completely different. Try it often with many different people. Change roles from your usual way of being leader, blender, compromiser, to challenger, confronter, and so on.

You may discover an unknown resource you have for creative communication. (The handsome Italian might have some creative marks for you too.) All good fun, but also a very real situation where you have no pre-learned way of communicating. Necessity is the mother of invention, and a powerful motivator. There’s no way of knowing what’s up your creative sleeve, until you try it.

Hw dd u lk ths ar-tickle ? Phffft ? Or, Ooh, la-la, mama mia ! ?

If you received this from a friend, you may not know about my free newsletter - “Fresh Horses”.

To subscribe and to receive the bonus of my free guide “How you can draw by learning to see,”

please go to http:www.heartsongstudio.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you think in pictures or words ?

When you were born, you had everything you needed to thrive already within. Even before you were born, you most likely heard sounds like music and voices. At birth, you probably came out crying, communicating. I’ve seen reports of unborn infants dreaming when asleep.

Among all your inheritance, was the capacity to learn a verbal language — speak, read, write — and also to think in words. You also inherited a potential to develop and utilize a visual language; to think in images. Both verbal and visual thinking is a birthright potential for all of us.

When you were an infant, you listened to and mouthed the sounds of speaking around you.

Eventually you learned to speak your native language well enough to communicate: to hear and speak. Though you had the capacity — there was a “frame” in your brain for speech — it didn’t come automatically without learning.

These weren’t “art” in the usual sense, but were your discoveries of what you could make: marks. Can you imagine how it might have been for the first prehistoric human to first scratch in the dust ? Suddenly he sees what HE has created. What is that mark, that thing ? Maybe he was filled with a strange new power. And he showed someone else.

When you spilled food or grasped a crayon, as a baby, you began to make marks perhaps in the same way. Could be there was a moment of magical discovery that you made something. Then someone may have asked you as a child, what it was supposed to be. Bam ! An assumption was imposed. This is suppose to “be” something, whatever that means. A limit to your new creative feeling of power.

Then, you might have made marks on a wall, or a floor. And other limits were imposed on your discoveries. Later, at school, even more judgment stopped you short, from children and teachers alike.

Between the ages of roughly 9 to11, is often called the crisis period.

It is natural for children to have a passion for realistic drawing. This coincides with the time that their brains’ left mode ( the state of conception) is dominant. The “left mode” is no good at drawing, yet they are passionately learning to see reality. Those of us who happen to find the knack of shifting between modes, continue to draw.

Prehistoric humans made drawings on cave walls.

Some are as fresh and lively as any made today, yet there was not any written word. We do not know how developed was the spoken word, but these drawings are thought to have been for various reasons: to communicate a successful hunt, to illustrate killed animals, or to serve a visionary purpose, but probably not to decorate the cave.

Some are as fresh and lively as any made today, yet there was not any written word. We do not know how developed was the spoken word, but these drawings are thought to have been for various reasons: to communicate a successful hunt, to illustrate killed animals, or to serve a visionary purpose, but probably not to decorate the cave.We have all been touched to some degree by road blocks to our visual communication.

How can you recover your lost potential, if you are among the wounded ?

You could play.

Let’s suppose you are visiting Venice, Italy. You’ve bought a phrase book and are getting around just fine in restaurants, cafes, and tours. But it’s getting pretty lonely watching couples strolling around together.

One evening, sitting in an outdoor café, you see a meltingly handsome (beautiful) man (woman) sitting at the next table. What to do without fluent Italian ? You flip through your well worn phrase book, past phrases like :”Don’t put a wet spoon in the baking powder”, but nothing is anywhere near useful.

As he (she) approaches you, your whole body seems to melt when you hear a mellow stream of Italian directed at you.

What can you do ?

I’ll bet, all things being equal, you wouldn’t forego this opportunity to make the dream friend of your life. (It’s okay, this is only an imaginary scene.) Wouldn’t you allow nature to take its course, or at least make a stab at communicating in some sort of universal language of which you have no knowledge ?

You could take this scenario to use as a “training run” right now. Find a willing partner, and be yourselves, or assume a role of your own choosing. You could be just yourself. The idea of this visual conversation, is to invent marks which don’t yet exist, to “say” whatever you feel like saying. Ready ?

Put a large sheet of paper in front of you sitting side-by-side. Have crayons or coloured chalk handy.

2. No talking. No pictures ! No stars, hearts, arrows, lightning bolts, symbols, or drawings of known objects.

3. Decide who will start any conversation. The other watches intently, patiently.

4. Make an opening remark by inventing marks, with unique symbolic meanings and composing these marks in patterns according to your own device. When you feel finished, put down your crayon.

5. Then it is your partner’s turn to respond with invented marks of her own. Continue taking turns this way for no more than 15 minutes.

The magic is you will understand what is being discussed.

After a brief time, let yourselves talk about what happened. You will probably be bursting to switch into words.

Every time you engage in this inventive play, it will be completely different. Try it often with many different people. Change roles from your usual way of being leader, blender, compromiser, to challenger, confronter, and so on.

You may discover an unknown resource you have for creative communication. (The handsome Italian might have some creative marks for you too.) All good fun, but also a very real situation where you have no pre-learned way of communicating. Necessity is the mother of invention, and a powerful motivator. There’s no way of knowing what’s up your creative sleeve, until you try it.

Hw dd u lk ths ar-tickle ? Phffft ? Or, Ooh, la-la, mama mia ! ?

If you received this from a friend, you may not know about my free newsletter - “Fresh Horses”.

To subscribe and to receive the bonus of my free guide “How you can draw by learning to see,”

please go to http:www.heartsongstudio.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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