Strange Creature
Day #5 of Doodle Experiments in White on Black
The Via Negativa
It’s the absence that gives the presence its form, the silence that gives music its distinctive sound, it’s the nothing from which something comes.
Coherence
Today, I started with my eyes closed and let my non-dominant hand make the opening moves. The day I knew what I wanted to try but today, I had nothing. The design on a lampshade in front of me — I didn’t want to sketch. I didn’t know what to do, so I let my left hand lead and my right hand comment, extend, embellish. Sometimes something gels, something feels right, something become a something that feels whole, right, of itself, even if I don’t quite know what it is. There’s a coherence I recognize.
Negative Coherence
Today nothing felt like it came together. All the things I tried proved to be not that interesting. I tried one thing and the other, and ended up with a strange, misshapen creature.
Machines learn as much form negative feedback as they do from positive. Whether it’s a 1 or a 0, both are equally valuable in understanding what it is.
The hidden agenda
Why do I only feel I am getting somewhere when I feel coherence? What if incoherence or experiments that didn’t come to the fruition , attempts that felt like I wanted to stop, or start again, or considered not counting this — doing it over and showing something I personally approved of. Not something that embarrassed me, not because it was weird — I have owned that — but because it was a version of weird that was too weird for me. Meaning, I didn’t understand it, a part of me wanted to reject it, disregard, erase, ignore, throw it away.
Why, in this experiment, it seems I came face to face with my shadow. And it brought forth, summoned the part of me that is childlike and desperately wants approval. “See what I made?”Look. Look at me.” I wonder if as children we ever get enough witnesses to feel like we can believe in ourselves, in our talents and abilities and the goodness of all of our attempts, however they turn out. The joy is indeed the doing, and how frequently I forget that because I am concerned about the eyes of the outsider who will judge this. What will they find? What will they see? Will they like it?
Who is leading this dance?
So the other part of what felt hard today, was having those eyes become more and more present, as each thing I tried, didn’t improve the drawing or bring it to a place I liked. I let my opinions, and my imaginings of other people’s opinions become too present — I let them look over my shoulder and they were quick to point out what was not working and how the whole felt not graceful but a collection, a mishmash of parts that were not better for being together.
I guess today, if I were to take the via negativa and ask myself what did I learn today from Strange Creatures. I’d say, the determined strangeness of this creature taught me not about art but about the places it takes you, and the way it can be a powerful mirror, showing you what things you hide from yourself. Shadows define and give the light their luminosity.
Perhaps I could thank that strange creature for showing me what coherence feels and looks like and why trusting my hand to lead is much better than relying on my opinion and understanding. The problem with letting your mind. or. my mind anyway, is that is is so susceptible to wanting someone else to understand, wanting to be something lovable. This desire overshadows an open embrace of what is.
