Limitations

“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” ~ Orson Welles

Forced to retreat

I have had an eye infection for the last few weeks that has been healing quite slowly, sometimes seeming stubborn and sullen and uncooperative.  O, the lessons I am learning…

Do you know how important eyesight is to a visual artist?  How it is their bread and butter as well as dessert?  And do you know how at 62 years old, I am kicking and pouting and being a poor example of adulthood to myself and the kids I teach on Sundays? 

Yet the restriction of using my eyes has opened new doors.  I have been thinking about limits and boundaries, about how artists are continually restrained by media, talent, or culture.  About how artists live in a physical body that limits what we can do, how we can express ourselves, how we can create.  About the boundaries of physical reality for all life.

I tell my drawing students that limitations are good for artists because they force us to be creative, to be excellent problem-solvers.  We discover things we may never have tried if left to trundle along in our comfortable wheel-ruts.  We reach a little higher and dig a little deeper, think sideways instead of left-brain linear.  We grow and we evolve, the honorable goal of all living things.  Limitations are vital to growth; the contradiction is that they assist in our unlimited-ness.

 

Fluffing and freezing - "I am big and invisible."

Meanwhile…

Because of my forced inaction, I have been tuned to the life-and-death dramas around me in the immediate natural world, dramas I normally miss because I am busy, busy, doing human things in a human world.  Yesterday as I rested my eyes, I heard a change in the drama soundtrack: birdsong had erupted into screeching warfare.  The source turned out to be a blue jay fledgling under the car, guarded by a housecat.  Tiny bird rescued and cat banished.  What to do? 

Ah, Google.

If bird appears unhurt (yes), has some feathers (yes), hop and flap their little-almost-wings (yes), then we are to leave it alone and let mother bird continue to feed and watch over their little one.  It is okay to move the bird to safety (I did).  It is a myth that parents will abandon their young if handled, and yes, mother bird did come back and feed her baby bird.  She also dive-bombed me several times during the move to safety, grabbing my scalp and hair with sharp little claws. 

The drama continues to unfold.  This tiny puff of blue jay fluff and pin feathers has become a kind of pivot point in my life.  Mom stays around and protects and feeds.  Baby hops about half-heartedly, waits for more feathers, and opens wide.  One night was tough, it rained and I worried.  I pace and urge them both to get on with it so I can relax and know that all is well.  I feel constrained by common sense and desire to help.  More limitations.  But then I remember the maxim of doctors, first do no harm.  As hard as it is, I leave things alone to unfold as they will.

Learning lessons

Patience, patience, awareness, and connections deepened are lessons I am learning.  I am attached to a tiny bit of God-life in a bird-body.  I am learning that it’s okay to age and to have the physical parts break down a bit here and there.  It is what it is.  It’s okay that first we live and then we die. To suffer loss.  It is what it is.  Limitations lead to freedom eventually.  Freedom leads to letting go…

Click on image to view larger

Watercolor sketch from photo
Daniel Smith watercolors
Arches cold-press 140 lb. wc paper
Pencil

Ferns along the boardwalk

Only spread a fern-frond over a man's head

and worldly cares are cast out,

and freedom and beauty and peace come in.

~ John Muir

Patterns in nature have always intrigued me. I focus my camera on a rock or tree bark while others are taking photos of landscapes! While walking on the boardwalk at Freedom Park the other day I was captivated by the fronds of swamp ferns and the patterns the shapes and shadows made. The ferns were lush and a gorgeous shade of green in the late afternoon sun. A sense of wonder and peace fell over me as I mused on its beauty. The quote above by John Muir (the founder of the Sierra Club) captures those feelings in a few succinct words.

I tried to capture the scene in watercolor, but I’m not sure any painting could illustrate the moment. I had to stop my painting to go to work, and when I came back to it, I decided that I liked the unfinished look of it. Somehow I felt that the light area at the bottom reflected a sense of the luminous radiance of light on leaf. Last week I participated as a visiting artist for a local summer camp, and while looking through my sketchbook, one of the children asked if I was going to finish my cormorant pencil sketch. I explained that I had decided that it WAS finished, and that it was okay to leave things a bit wanting.

That interaction started me thinking about the artist’s role as an editor. Sometimes I am so wrapped up in the details (you know me!), that I forget to let the viewer participate. I like the idea of inviting someone into a drawing or painting and letting him (or her) finish the story, so to speak. Having the outside world intrude and limit my painting made me think of other limitations as well. Limitations from the inside (as we edit the things in our drawings), as well as limitations from the outside (not having time or the right paint or color or paper) pushes us into the realm of creative problem solving.

Limitations can be our opportunity. When money and time for art are scarce, we learn to use the materials at hand or invent new ways to create. We learn that a quick drawing from the car can be as rewarding as a hour at the drawing table. Sometimes the limits come from my own expectations – when I’m disappointed in how a sketch turns out or I’ve overlooked a glaring error in perspective.

I’ve found that once I’ve reached that point, a shift in my thinking takes place. Since the art is not what I visualized and therefore “wrong”, I feel much freer to experiment since I can’t possibly make it worse! I open up creatively; the limitations have vanished. And another shift happens...many times (not always!) my willingness to experiment results in a piece that works and has more meaning.

Do you have experiences like this? How do you problem solve in life or as an artist?