by Marty Coleman | Sep 23, 2015 | It's BEYOND Imagination!, Paul Gauguin |
Open Eyes
There is a funny thing that happens on Periscope, the live video broadcast app I used daily (@thenapkindad). It’s international and because of that men from all over the world, especially from Turkey and the Middle East, will come on the broadcasts of women and say ‘Open Bobs’. What they actually mean is ‘open boobs’ or ‘show me your boobs’. This usually results in the woman broadcasting and many of her viewers blocking the man. It never results in the woman showing her boobs. Periscope is actually really pretty good about not allowing nudity and sexually explicit broadcasts to stay on.
Open Eyes
When I am watching broadcasts I don’t say ‘open boobs’. It’s not that I would mind seeing boobs, some of my best friends on Periscope have very nice ones I am sure, but I am not there to see them. But sometimes when I watch scopes I do want to say ‘Open Eyes’. This most often happens when I am randomly browsing scopes. I will come across someone who is bored and has nothing to say. They expect those watching their broadcast to entertain them instead of the other way around. They tell you they don’t know what to scope about but will still be scoping, and usually boring their audience into oblivion while doing so. Then there is the type who basks in their horrible situation. They seem to brag about their dysfunction, making it into popular entertainment instead of fixing it.
Shut Eyes
What I sometimes feel these people need is to open their eyes. But how are they going to do that? I think for them to open their eyes they need to shut them. What they all seem to lack is creativity. The bored ones aren’t seeing a creative direction for their attention. The dysfunctional ones aren’t seeing a creative solution to their dysfunction. Their eyes have been open the entire time and it obviously hasn’t led to them finding solutions. So I say they need to Shut their eyes and imagine.
Uniform
What will shutting their eyes do? Hopefully they can strip off the constraints of ‘standard’ and ‘tradition’ and ‘expectations’ and allow creative and imaginative ideas and solutions to come up from their subconscious.
Making connections between disparate and incongruous things is at the heart of creativity and that usually can’t happen if there is a lot of ‘NO’ going on in one’s head. You would think that having your eyes open would allow you to see creative connections but often we see what has been designed by others who are looking for standardization and uniformity, not individual uniqueness. A quick look at the main commercial centers in the US will tell you that – big box franchise after big box franchise looking like you are in Anywhere, USA.
Unique
But shutting your eyes? Shutting your eyes allows you to dream. You can see the connections between things that don’t seem to belong together. You can allow your own unique mind to take precedence over the corporate mind that wants you to fit in to their box.
In order to imagine “I shut my eyes in order to see.”
Drawing and Commentary © Marty Coleman | Napkindad.com
Quote by Paul Gauguin, 1848-1903, French artist
I bought this painting by Gauguin on a postcard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City when I was a young teenager. I had it up on my wall wherever I lived or in my studio for close to 30 years. I probably still have it tucked away in a drawer or portfolio somewhere. I always loved the golden color of the main figure and the perfect tilt of the head of the woman at the side. The genius of Gauguin in having the women both look off in the way the do led me to wonder often what it was they were thinking about and looking at.
Paul Gauguin, Les Seins aux Fleurs Rouges, 1899, oil on canvas
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Sep 20, 2015 | Henry David Thoreau, It's BEYOND Imagination! |
What I looked At
My piano was an old upright that had been in Kathy’s (my first wife) family for generations. She had left it with me after we divorced and she moved to California. Chelsea used it for years afterward at my house but when she moved into her first small apartment she got a smaller piano that would fit.
When Linda and I combined households upon our marriage a few years later, we doubled up on pianos. I contacted Kathy to see if she or anyone on her side of the family wanted it and I contacted Chelsea to see if she wanted it. No one wanted it.
Chelsea at the Piano
I researched what it would go for on the open market. Turns out it was very similar to many others trying to be sold and would be unlikely to get me much money.
Ready to be transformed
What I Saw
What I looked at was an old, unwanted piano. But what I saw was more than a piano. What I saw was a bookcase.
Starting the teardown
Take away the bulk of metal and strings and what was left was amazing wood.
Piano in Pieces
So I tore it apart, taking every single piece of wood and ditching the guts.
Almost finished – Just some sanding, staining and varnishing still to go.
I then made a bookshelf with the wood and gave it to Chelsea for her birthday.
What do you see when you look?
Drawing, writing, photos and bookshelf by Marty Coleman
Quote by Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862, American author (among other things)
Periscope
You can see the drawing being created during a live video on Periscope.
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Sep 15, 2015 | It's BEYOND Imagination! |
The Future
Without imagination it’s very hard to see into the future since it is undefined and can’t, for the most part, be defined by facts. One needs to imagine what is to come.
The Past
Without imagination it’s very hard to see into the past since it is defined only in story and memory. Without a story the past can’t be told and a story is never without imagination.
The Present
Without imagination it’s very hard to see into the present since it is only partially seen. To be able to see what is happening right now but is not present in front of us we need imagination.
Telescope
Your imagination is the soul’s telescope. It allows you to see into the past, the future and the present with more clarity, more detail and more curiosity than you possibly could without one. Don’t leave home (or stay home) without it!
Drawing and commentary © 2015 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Quote by Henry Ward Beecher, 1813-1887, American preacher and abolitionist, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe
You can watch a replay of the creation of this drawing here on Periscope. You can follow me @thenapkindad.
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Sep 11, 2015 | It's BEYOND Imagination!, Pablo Picasso |
I am starting a new series called ‘BEYOND Imagination’. My wife and I always crack up when we hear that phrase because obviously if someone is telling us a story it had to be imagined, thus NOTHING can be beyond it.
When Imagination Becomes Bad
When kids are young, in elementary school, they are allowed to let their imaginations soar. If they want to draw a unicorn, nobody is going to stop them. If they want to make a robot that also poops cookies, that’s a cute and funny thing. But when they get to adolescence they are directed by schools, parents, the world, and themselves to make things real. The suddenly want to make that drawing of a car look JUST like a car. If they don’t they get ridiculed by their peers and perhaps others as ‘drawing like a child’. Nothing is more humiliating than that for a teenager trying to be grown up. So they try really hard to copy reality.
And of course most of them fail. They fail because their desire in themselves and the pressure from others is not matched with training on how to draw realistically. Many then get frustrated, feel like a failure and quit.
When Imagination Becomes Good
Those who don’t quit in frustration will eventually learn techniques and methods and get so they can draw accurately. But then what? Many of the best artists then realize that accuracy isn’t enough. So what if it looks like a photograph? It may woo a crowd but it doesn’t really express much about themselves as artists or fulfill their desire to communicate.
Thinking, Feeling, Seeing
Then they start to get back to their child-like imagination. Then they start to create art based on the quote above. Or maybe it’s not about what they think but instead it’s about what they feel. Either way, they become free from the tyranny of realistic accuracy and move towards using color, form, shape, texture, line, etc. (the formal elements of art) to express what is inside them. And we get to see inside them, not just outside. That to me is a fulfilling starting point for great art.
Drawing and commentary © 2015 Marty Coleman | Napkindad.com
Quote by Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, 1881-1973, Spanish Artist
Periscope
You can watch the Periscope video of the creation of this drawing and the guessing of the quote here.
If you are on Periscope you can find me @thenapkindad
Like this:
Like Loading...
