andreweverett360 Art, Book Review

The Zen of Seeing


The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation
by Frederick Franck (1909-2006)

In our time of overstimulation and shrinking attention span, Franck’s message is even more relevant now than when the book was published in 1973: “We do a lot of looking: we look through lenses, telescopes, television tubes… Our looking is perfected every day—but we see less and less. Never has it been more urgent to speak of SEEING.”

“Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly rediscover the world. I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle: the branching of a tree, the structure of a dandelion’s seed puff.”

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andreweverett360 Art, Book Review

Drawing Is Thinking

drawing-is-thinking-milton-glaser


Drawing Is Thinking
by Milton Glaser

This book starts out with a 13-page interview with Milton Glaser by Peter Mayer followed by 188 pages of Glaser’s art.

A recurring theme in the short text is ambiguity. “I have always been aware of the need to provoke the mind when communicating ideas because that is the only way that you prod someone into understanding anything. That is why ambiguity is such a useful tool… Why are we unmoved by many of the skills of academic painting? Because their information is complete and unambiguous, so you have nothing to add. The philosophy of modernism suggests that the viewer completes the work.”

drawing-is-thinking-seated-woman
Seated Woman, 2000, Collage
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andreweverett360 Book Review, Psychology & Neuroscience

Taking the Leap

taking-the-leap-pema-chodron


Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears
by Pema Chӧdrӧn

Pema Chӧdrӧn is a Buddhist nun. She writes about “unhooking” ourselves from negative thoughts and emotions.

She tells a story about a Native American grandfather who explains to his grandson the catalyst for violence and cruelty in the world. “He said it was as if two wolves were fighting in his heart. One wolf was vengeful and angry, and the other wolf was understanding and kind. The young man asked his grandfather which wolf would win the fight in his heart. And the grandfather answered, ‘The one that wins will be the one I choose to feed.’” The author explains that emotions have very short natural lifespan, but we extend that “by feeding it with an internal conversation about how another person is the source of our discomfort… This is a very ancient habit.”

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