Seeing and Feeling

Seeing and Feeling

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"Seeing and Feeling" - oil on copper panel, 12 x 12 x .25. This item is unframed.  (click on the image to purchase)

One eye sees, the other feels.
― Paul Klee

I think perhaps the life of a human is much about learning both how to see and how to feel.  

For sure, the creative life is about seeing - colors, shapes, texture, line, composition, shadow, value, hue.  Seeing what others see in your work, in your words, in your vulnerabilities or your barriers.

And we learn to see what other artists see (or saw) in the world and how they portrayed it.  Seeing is half of painting.  Half of writing.  Half of creating.

But feeling...well, we boldly go where others may not be willing to, when we create from the depths of our wells.  The muse sends me often to illuminate those places where I might prefer to pass on by.  But there is light in those dark depths, and so I go there and (luckily for me) many of you roll along with me (or run ahead with flashlights - thank you!) and thus we are not alone in the dark.

The best bits are often when we see what we're feeling, and feel what we're seeing.  Epiphany, illumination and understanding ensue. 

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About the art:  copper panel makes exploration deeply satisfying, and this piece was no exception.  Beginning with a rough sketch with an acrylic paint pen directly on the copper, and slowly adding thinned layers of oil paint.  Working from that single eye outward and keeping the color palette very limited, I followed the paint as it moved.  With my perfectionist's hand tied behind my back, I pursued scratchy, rough emotion with chopsticks, rubber wedge, fingers and dripping brush.  Keeping the paint wet allows the copper to be easily exposed by dripping paint and by scratching/carving techniques.  This one moves me.  

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