CREATIVE EXERCISE II:
(cont. from Exercise I, Blog Sept. 5/Our Daily Bread)
Go outside again and observe a street scene. Pick out another couple (same-sex if you wish). This time note all the things that happen between them that you find interesting, that please you aesthetically or emotionally. I guarantee that it will take you a lot longer to compile a list of twenty items this way than with the previous couple in Exercise I. That's what happens when you apply judgment to your powers of observation. You become selective. You edit. You filter the world through your particular prism or lens.
Now study this and your previous list. What appealed to you in the second, more selective list? Was it the moments of friction between the couple or the moments of tenderness? Was it the physical gestures or their gazes away from each other? The varying distance between them? The way they shifted their feet, or leaned up against a wall, or took off their glasses, or scratched their chins?
What caught your fancy is not important as the difference between the two lists. What you included and what you left out speaks volumes about how you see the world. If you do this exercise enough times, patterns will emerge. The world will not be revealed to you. You will be revealed.
Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit
"Dance Of Love"
(acrylic paint)
I love seeing couples expressing openly their affection for one another, including in public as long it is tasteful. My curiosity is also wakened when I watch lovers show subtle signs of tension. I then wonder what goes on 'behind the scenes' and how they deal with their differences?
First, I wanted to call the painting above "Rainbow Lovers", because of how diverse we all are, but relationships really are a dance....through which we can find out so much about ourselves.
Much love,
Susanne
at artaccess.ca
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