I’VE BEEN THINKING

I have just completed a short writing course in creative non-fiction, offered through the President’s College at the University of Hartford. It was a wonderful experience, although it reminded me of how much I will never have time to know. The readings were stimulating, and so different from anything I have read before. They stirred up the ole gray matter … or if you prefer … grey matter. Whatever … it was a real kick in the pants. 

The course might have been about writing, but nevertheless resulted in a real jolt to my right brain … or is it the left? I can never remember because of the directional dyslexia thing … but you know what I mean. Of course, the fact that spring appears to have arrived in March this year might have contributed to the whole uptick in the flow creative juices. However,  the result has been a much more solid understanding of how I approach the creative process. I was reminded of quote that I had put aside for further thought, and now seems apropos: 

“… These illustrated letters and other related works in watercolor on notepaper are significant demonstrations of Manet’s intelligence as a painter … they operate as abbreviated statements of principle, as follows: the visual register shares space with the verbal, the pictorial with the linguistic; the means of visual illusion are coterminous with the manual devices of writing, dependent on the flat surface of the paper support, and the magic of marks that make something out of nothing in the eye and mind of the reader and the viewer the image operates in a realm of dialogue and exchange between a sender and a receiver…”

from: Manet and Modern Beauty\ Edited by Scott Allan, Emily A. Beeny, and Gloria Groom\Publisher: Getty Publications \2019 J. Paul Getty Trust \Pages: 113-114

What a stimulating undertaking … to make something out of nothing in the eye and the mind. And how wonderful to recognize the co-habitation of writing and drawing in the creative brain. I am happy to find myself wrapped up in the process of making magic out of nothing.