The Art of Seeing

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The more I started paying attention to the little things, the more I understood that these local beliefs that I was categorizing as witchcraft were actually just one piece of a much larger, richer, and more convincing worldview. I started noticing the care and concern given to analyzing each and every gift exchange. I noticed how each gift was given along with a short and carefully delivered speech about where the materials came from, who made it, who delivered it, and who cared for it along the way. I noticed how they talked about such gifts as “building a road” or “tying a string” between the two parties so that they would always remember each other. And soon, this careful attention to relationships and the gifts that bind them was helping me understand why dunking a basketball or otherwise showboating, or looking to crush your opponent, is not valued. I started noticing a great deal of concern about jealousy and other elements that could eat away at a relationship. It was during hard times like these that I turned to the most important tools in the anthropologist's toolkit: Communication, Empathy, and Thoughtfulness. We have to keep talking to people (communication), work toward understanding them in their own terms (empathy), using and revising our knowledge and models as we go (thoughtfulness). As we improve in each one of these areas, the others improve as well. Communicating helps us understand their perspective (empathy) and revise our analytical models (thoughtfulness). Ask any photographer about rules of composition and the Rule of Thirds will slip off their tongue. For some photographers it is all they will ever use.

Every time you look or scroll through your images, be your own harshest critic. I have heard photographers say they are unable to choose their best photo. If you are not able to recognize your best image, how are you going to know an excellent compositional photograph in the field? Draw with a variety of media and sources of inspiration including the world around you, the imagination and artists’ work. An exploration of drawing and mindfulness and how the two combined can support new ways of seeing and relating to drawing. In 2003, she studied at the Royal Drawing School, where she engaged in life drawing and the study of contemporary and historic artist’s drawings as part of the Drawing Year. In 2017 she engaged in post-graduate study with Bob and Roberta Smith (RA) and has exhibited solo and in a variety of group shows throughout the UK. You can see her work at www.cbarton-harvey.co.uk. Martin Gardner described The Art of Seeing as "a book destined to rank beside Bishop Berkeley’s famous treatise on the medicinal properties of ‘tar-water’." [4]The majority of the book is devoted to the specific techniques of the Bates method, all designed to bring about "relaxation". Huxley distinguishes "passive relaxation", a state of complete repose, from "dynamic relaxation", characterized as "that state of the body and mind which is associated with normal and natural functioning". My father offered to wash Kodenim as a show of his innocence. Washing is a ritual thought to "cool" the witchcraft. If my father was the witch, the soap and water would cool his witchcraft and remove it from Kodenim. You will be introduced to a small toolkit of mindfulness and drawing approaches to help you connect to the drawing process with greater ease, simplicity and clarity. If this sounds like advice that is very unlikely to cure your failing vision, I think you are right. The book was written in 1942, and my impression is that science has not come around to accept these practices as beneficial. In one brief section at the beginning of the book, Huxley describes the nature of the scientific debate as between those that believe the eye focuses using only the lenses, and others (such as Bates) that believe the muscles around the eye also squeeze the actual shape of the eye to affect vision as well. I don't know really anything about biology, but again, I think the modern understanding of how eyes work does not include Bates' idea. The art of seeing can be broken up into four parts. First, we have to see our own seeing—that is, see how we see the world, recognizing our own taken-for-granted assumptions, and be able to set them aside. Second, we have to “see big,” to see the larger cultural, social, economic, historical, and political forces that shape our everyday lives. Third, we have to “see small,” paying close attention to the smallest details and understanding their significance. And finally, we have to “see it all,” piecing all of this together to see how everything we can see interacts from a holistic point of view.

But perhaps the most important piece of the model is the double arrows, which point to the fact that culture is integrated and dynamic. Change one thing and you change them all. A shift in the environment or a new technology can have profound effects on social structure or worldview, and vice versa. So I said to myself — I’ll paint what I see — what the flower is to me but I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it — I will make even busy New-Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.When I photograph it is a balance between my mind and heart; my brain looks after the technicals while my heart looks after the emotion within the photograph. Too much of one will leave an emotionless image or a poorly executed image. To sum up, I think the words from one of my favorite songs, “Reverence” by Faithless: We not only choose what we will eat, wear, or drive. We also choose what jobs we will do, who we will marry, and where we will live (mobility). Our political system further enshrines the value of choice as we vote to choose who will represent us and make our laws. With such a strong emphasis on good relations, there is no need for formal or written laws, rules or policies. There are no lawyers, rulers, or police. All people have a natural incentive to be good and to build and maintain good relationships with others because their livelihood depends on it. Since nobody has any official power over anyone else, and there is no division of labor, it is mostly an egalitarian society, with very little difference in status and wealth.