I have been thinking a great deal about something deceptively simple:
What does it actually mean to see, to read, to listen, to know?
That thinking became Episode 121 of Brushstrokes of Being.
I begin with books.
Not simply the information they contain, but the books themselves: paper, typography, binding, annotations, evidence of use. A book is a human artefact, carrying more than the words printed inside it.
From there, I move into neuroscience and literary reading, and the remarkable way the brain transforms symbols into imagined worlds.
Reading is a form of seeing without looking.
Then music enters the conversation.
Music can make us experience things that arenât physically present.
And painting can make us see what cannot necessarily be photographed.
I think about Dr Jason Arday and his descriptions of observing human interaction before language became available to him. I think about my own experience as an artist and musician, where perception often comes before explanation.
And eventually I arrive at something that has been central to my teaching for years:
Recognition is not observation.
We recognise something, name it, place it into a category, and often stop looking.
But genuine observation asks us to remain present.
To notice relationships.
Posture.
Gesture.
Light.
Movement.
Space.
Difference.
The things we donât yet have words for.
That is why today is also the launch of the first two courses in my Foundational Series:
Learn to See Like an Artist
This is not a drawing course.
It is an investigation into observation: learning to suspend recognition long enough to actually see.https://onlineartseducation.co.uk/course/learn-to-see-like-an-artist-the-discipline-of-seeing-observation-as-an-artistic-practice/
Seeing With Your Ears
A deeper exploration of perception and attention, beginning with music and extending to how we construct meaning through what we hear, see, and experience.
These courses are the beginning of the Observational Art Academy â an approach to art education built on something I consider fundamental:
Before expression comes perception.
You cannot meaningfully transform what you have never truly learned to perceive.https://onlineartseducation.co.uk/course/seeing-with-your-ears/
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