Once we look at something and label it we are no longer seeing it. The left brain, or the “language brain” that categorizes the world around it , makes the decision about what it has determined it is seeing, if we like it or not, if it is good or bad, right or wrong, pretty or ugly , and all that business . However, if you really take the opportunity to see , and simply be at one with the your target of gaze , and don’t go anywhere with it, then the aperture of the right brain becomes open . Then the visual information coming in through our senses begins to dawn. Your non-language, right brain notices information in real time and can give visual, non-language based accuracy because of the fact that it is just processing the new information refraining from putting a language label on what it sees. Seeing from the right hemisphere of the brain may feel more awkward than what we are used to from our brains normally work}. Maybe it is not really “slower.” Possibly it may be the habit of the mind being so quick to thinking about things, instead of just being with things, that makes the experience of the right brain feels slower. The right brain is able to process information without any discussion that comes with it so it is very much quieter!
So, in a “quiet mind” with an “open focus” we can now see in a less contracted manner . We stop viewing the world in as items in isolation … an bowl, an apple, a bottle … but rather we give ourselves permission to see the apple and bowl and the bottle together. We are opening up the vision to see three things together simultaneously, as one. That is what I mean by “open focus.” This act of really seeing has great power in it. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and a piece of art is “one whole overall singular communication”… hopefully.
This article has been brought to you by the Austin artist, Elizabeth Locke and Austin Art Classes.
