My crazy Polish Argentinian art and life mentor Julio, whose house had two headed brooms on the wall and a tree growing up right through the middle.
We used to go sit outside in this little labyrinth he had built, and considering how to see art in everything around us.
He would teach it by putting little glass blocks he’d made into regular woodpiles-so you had to look close to find the anomaly. We could talk for hours about how many things we could see in a wooden tabletop. But his best “method” was just to hold up a square frame!
Do you see the elephant, do you see the dragon, to you see the old man. But when he asked that last one, I was always looking at him while he was looking at the table.
The other thing, he would always do, is carry around a frame. I carried “funny glasses” in case I wanted to bless someone, or make them laugh. But he carried a frame around, to help people see. He was a healer of the artistically blind.
He would just place the frame on anything, and ask—“What interest you, about this composition?” Which, firstly, made you aware that any instant is a potential composition, and then, to sharpen your eye to find what interest you about it! Great teacher, my mentor and friend was, and I’m sure still is!
It’s a practice i still do. Just hold up a frame to anything, and try to see the composition and what interest you about it. Try it. It helps in life.
From the spiritual exercises for artist dummies series! I dare you to try it. You’ll start seeing stuff, you hadn’t seen before!
I might end up calling this series, “art therapy for dummies like me”! He taught me to see with just a simple cardboard frame. It cost nothing, and opens worlds! Thankful for those who helped me learn to see what’s around me!
We used to go sit outside in this little labyrinth he had built, and considering how to see art in everything around us.
He would teach it by putting little glass blocks he’d made into regular woodpiles-so you had to look close to find the anomaly. We could talk for hours about how many things we could see in a wooden tabletop. But his best “method” was just to hold up a square frame!
Do you see the elephant, do you see the dragon, to you see the old man. But when he asked that last one, I was always looking at him while he was looking at the table.
The other thing, he would always do, is carry around a frame. I carried “funny glasses” in case I wanted to bless someone, or make them laugh. But he carried a frame around, to help people see. He was a healer of the artistically blind.
He would just place the frame on anything, and ask—“What interest you, about this composition?” Which, firstly, made you aware that any instant is a potential composition, and then, to sharpen your eye to find what interest you about it! Great teacher, my mentor and friend was, and I’m sure still is!
It’s a practice i still do. Just hold up a frame to anything, and try to see the composition and what interest you about it. Try it. It helps in life.
From the spiritual exercises for artist dummies series! I dare you to try it. You’ll start seeing stuff, you hadn’t seen before!
I might end up calling this series, “art therapy for dummies like me”! He taught me to see with just a simple cardboard frame. It cost nothing, and opens worlds! Thankful for those who helped me learn to see what’s around me!