The more you know the more you see

Jerry Orter
May 2015

He dreamed of
an open window.
A vagina, said
his psychiatrist.
Your divorce, said
his mistress.
Suicide, said
an ominous voice within him.
It means you should close the window
or you’ll catch cold, said
his mother.
His wife said
nothing.
He dared not tell her
such a
dangerous dream.

The Dream by Felix Pollak

Morning Coffee

It was one of our usual intense morning coffee conversations about art. We began with the premise that an artist’s work is not always understood but if enough qualities were present the piece would have recognizable merit. We then talked about the inner structure of paintings and how it isn’t always perceived. An educated or experienced viewer would have a good chance of understanding what was going on in a work. Christine concluded that the more you know, the more you see. I added that the opposite is also true. If you don’t know anything you don’t see anything. A new born knows nothing. All of objective reality, the body and everything else is completely undefined and everything is totally undifferentiated. What is experienced either stimulates and rouses discomfort or the experience is the elimination of the stimulation and causes calm.

The Persistence of memory

Close your eyes.
Turn to some other direction.
Any direction.
Open and close your eyes in a blink.
Hold the image.
It disappears.

imagination

noun i-mag’i-na’tion

an act or process of forming a conscious idea or mental image of something never before wholly perceived in reality by the one forming the images (as through a synthesis of remembered elements of previous sensory experiences or ideas as modified by the unconscious); also : the ability or gift of forming such conscious ideas or mental images especially for the purposes of artistic or intellectual creation.

Austin Kleon, “Kick” Tea Bag Drawing

“Do not despise my opinion, when I remind you that it should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or the ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud, or like things, in which, if you consider them well, you will find really marvelous ideas. The mind of the painter is stimulated to new discoveries, the composition of battles of animals and men, various compositions of landscapes and mon- strous things, such as devils and similar creations, which may bring you honour, because the mind is stimulated to new inventions by obscure things.”

– translation by A. Philip McMahon from Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting, Codex Urbinas Latinus (1270)

Memory and imagination have been shown to be affected by one another. M.R.I.’s show that remembering and imagining sends blood to identical parts of the brain.

The moon follows us when we walk at night.

The neocortex and thalamus are responsible for controlling the brain’s imagination, along with many of the brain’s other functions such as consciousness and abstract thought. Since imagination involves many different brain functions, such as emotions, memory, thoughts, etc., portions of the brain where multiple functions occur, such as the thalamus and neocortex, are the main regions where imaginative processing has been documented.

It has been posited that our perceptions depend on our world view. The world view is the result of arranging perceptions into existing imagery; imagination. Perceptions are integrated into the world view to make sense. Imagination is needed to make sense of perceptions.

Pareidolia

I have very fond childhood memories of lying on the grass and gazing at the clouds lumbering across the summer sky. An array of faces, bodies, animals and objects revealing themselves only to dissolve into other forms. These bright images unquestionably existed and were real.

Looking back on that childhood activity I understand that the images I conjured were from memories. Without the consciousness of any entity I would not be able to identify it in a real encounter, nor would I be able to conjure it while gazing at the clouds.

The Vagina Diary

This unfamiliar dark descending opening in the earth, it is frightening and it is comforting. It has power. The mysterious entry into the underworld, illuminated only by small portable flames, revealing only a dim view of the long hollow passage through the underworld. The physical features are unquestionably a vagina. We have entered the womb.

The Bride Stripped Bare…

Almost A Bride

Brenda Goodman

9 stages of development of the Brenda Goodman painting, “Almost A Bride” (2015) oil on wood 80” x 72” from beginning to completion,