It has been quite the month since school started and I went almost but not quite under the waves. I am doing the best I can with something quite different for me, and things that I would never have imagined being a part of the program keep tripping me up.
The one that has me sitting sand bagged is the actual art class, the one where for the first time in my life I am getting instruction on how to put pencil/charcoal or whatever to the page.
What is really really cool is that if I follow the instructions I get what I think of as pretty good drawings.
The reason I sit rather sand bagged is something I never knew about and could not have predicted.
It is the blank spot. I sit to do as the instructor asks, I work very hard at seeing what I am looking at and drawing what I see. It can be very meditative and methodical.
First the blank spot showed up as a funny wonky change in the lines of the drawings. The teacher suggested that I pay careful attention to keeping my viewpoint exactly the same. I want to do this as well as possible, so I did that. What emerged was a place where not only do I not see, but I do not register that there is something in there to be seen. Whatever is in the blank spot does not exist. I ignore it entirely and draw around it.
I think it is the thing that I was told by an Optometrist." People with head injuries don't process with their central vision. They use their peripheral vision exclusively. That is why they have problems with going down the aisles in grocery stores and driving in heavy traffic."
I can tell you that people with head injuries don't sort out sounds well and can't figure out what to listen to when there are several sound sources at the same time too.
With the last drawing I worked on I have chosen to leave the blank parts blank and see if I can map this very disturbing thing in the middle of my sight that I can't under normal circumstances even recognize is there. If I am not seeing, I want to be able to understand what and where it lives.
What comes up for me is the emotion. Words can not express just how hurt, angry and lost I feel seeing this empty spot in the middle of my vision.
Monday, February 23, 2015
Sunday, February 1, 2015
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