You should never ask a child what he or she is making. They know. Instead, ask them to tell you about the squiggly line, or the orange color in the center. And by all means, notice it is surrounded by purple.
Childhood is the best place for creative, abstract art, and critical thinking.*
So at what point do our images need to be something? Of course, we often strive for clarity and definition in our photos for good reason. We want our onlookers to identify a snake or the rainbow, like in the drawing above.
But can’t we back it up a bit to embrace the impact or bask in impressions?
This week, Ritva challenges us with, Abstract. With her inspiration here, she has us lean in to the potential of turning an ordinary subject into a masterpiece of colors, shapes, patterns, and textures. Explore – Start with finding a new vantage point and look for interesting shapes and lines in your surroundings.
I was doing laundry when I first got wind of the challenge, and just like that I discovered strange, mysterious beauty in the detail of dryer lint.
I have come to the conclusion that dryer lint is the cremated remains of all my missing socks.
There is truth in finding abstract images anywhere, and while it might feel uncomfortable to mess up photos on purpose, it can be liberating. How else will you find artsy surprises in a ceiling aboard a cruise ship, or fascination in the skeletal remains of prickly pear cacti?
It is not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.
Get close enough to a subject, and the tiniest details come to light. The yearning to run our hands across texture is real, and it is our senses that tap into impressions. From the lens, we notice cracked dirt, patterns in the water-dropped sandstone, colors from lichen and minerals, and curved lines from a canna lily leaf. They might look like abstract nothingness, but to me they become conversation pieces of wall-art in my home.
The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and ironically the more real – Lucian Freud
Color is, for me, the purest form of expression, the purest abstract reality. Jim Hodges .
Finally, it is possible to come across abstract images by mistake. The photo below was one of those that came to life as more of an aha moment. It is the blurred background of another subject. Initially cropped out, this section generated a life of its own. Dreamy? Meditative? Silly? You decide. That’s what abstract art is all about, isn’t it?
Like a good poem, a good abstraction attacks your feelings before your understanding. – Robert Genn
I hope I succeeded.
Wind Kisses, Donna
*A happy earth snake who is camouflaged and going around the earth with the warm sun in the middle and the purple sky on the edge -LJ age 5
Wind Kisses 