Creative Spirituality
We see lots of things everyday, but can we remember everything we saw? Probably we can’t. We glance over things but may barely be able to recall. At the beginning of this article, the authors actually brought my attention to the questions that “what is the difference between merely looking at a thing and actually seeing it” (71)? I found this question is somehow interesting, because I would never think of the difference myself between looking and actually seeing. We see both the shape of a thing and its meaning to ourselves. As a human being, we usually draw conclusions based on what we actually see in our eyes. The shape of the thing and its meaning would have huge impact on us. They might enter into our eyes, our heart and mind directly when deeply seeing. When I am looking at a tree or a person that I do not know, I would not have any feelings about them. When I see a wedding or a graduation ceremony, this kind of events would influence my personal emotion. I can see many factors, such as love, friendships, families, happiness and so on.
As author has mentioned in the article, “to see deeply and to understand are different from mere looking or observation” (74). We can experience art by fully seeing through the subjects. The images will come into our visual space in our head and the mind will start processing everything in the visual space. The mind will try to understand what in the visual space by recognizing size differences and the level of perception. Then, the different emotions and thoughts will come out of our head after the mind has processed the image we have seen.
November 16th, 2013 at 11:04 AM
I agree with you that the question of “what is the difference between merely looking at a thing and actually seeing it?” is a very interesting one, and well worth asking ourselves regularly. (Grey 2001) In our day to day lives we’re constantly dealing with sensory overload, so much so that we become accustomed to filtering most things out, and thus missing most of the beauty in the things around us. A similar notion is the difference between merely hearing something and actually listening to it. Both ideas serve the same purpose however, that is to remind us that even though we live in a chaotic world, it’s also a world full of beauty and great substance and we need only slow down to observe it. Whether it’s a great artwork or a bird singing the potential to deepen our own spirituality is all around us.
Grey, A. (2001). Art as Spiritual Practice. The Mission of Art (1st ed., pp. 205-233). Boston & London: Shambhala.
November 16th, 2013 at 10:25 PM
I agree with you that we need to slow down to observe the beauty of every little substance. We are living in a century that people have to live with high information technology everyday. We are doing everything on a very quick basis. Sometimes, we seemed to catch up with time, but we miss something that is really important in our lives. We are looking at different things everyday, but do we really “see” them and then “paste” them into our mind. Like you were say that “we’re constantly dealing with sensory overload, so much so that we become accustomed to filtering most things out, and thus missing most of the beauty in the things around us”. We need to slow down our pace to observe the beauty of our lives. We need to appreciate every little subject appeared in our lives by actually seeing them.
November 17th, 2013 at 6:38 PM
There is no doubt that the Spirituality for the artists is very important in the field of art. Many artists are rely on Spirituality to give them imagination. Many people inspired to pursue their art embodies. According to author “The mysticism behind a work of art is the most interesting part.” I agree with this view, because I think that behind each piece of art that has its own story. This is also reflecting the value of this artwork, also reflects the outstanding artistic quality of being an artist.