Taking In vs. Looking Out

"Villars"
8 x 12, oil on linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2013

Last week I watched a lecture given by the talented painter Connie Hayes. Like many painters whose work I admire, Connie is a perceptual painter. I was floored by the simple and powerful way she summed up the entire approach to perceptual painting. She remembered hearing these words from her mentor, and having the gestalt experience of the putting them to practice the first time:

The key is to receive the sensation of what you are seeing--not to paint what you are looking at. SEEING is receiving. LOOKING is outward.

Hearing this distinction was an "Ah-ha" moment for me. I have long been told, and tried to implement the practice, that you should "paint what you see, not what you know is there". I've also been told to avoid being too "object oriented". But this inward/outward formulation expressed by Connie Hayes somehow made it all come together. She elaborated by saying that "You look AT something when you name it. But you RECEIVE sensations when you SEE it." Yes, Yes!

"Tulip #32"
12 x 12
(c) Connie Hayes

I have been taught by Maggie Siner to use my peripheral vision as an aid to seeing. It helps keep me from naming the objects I am painting. Instead, it moves me closer to receiving the sensations of what I am seeing. The top painting is one that I have kept for myself, because it was a moment in which I felt that I was truly seeing, and receiving the sensation of what I was seeing. It was not a mountain in the distance, but a beautiful, subtle-colored shape. It was not a vineyard in the foreground, but a bright green angular shape. It was not a hilltop village in the middle distance, but a cluster of colored shapes. I use this painting to help me remember how to see and to receive those sensations.

"Summer Blue"
12 x 12, oil on canvas
(c) Connie Hayes

I am including some paintings by Connie Hayes, so you can see her beautiful work. I should have included the last Connie Hayes painting (below) in my post "Painting by Lamplight". It's a wonderful painting that succeeds marvelously with two different light sources. By the way, Connie, too, says that she saves her "breakthrough" paintings to continue to learn from them. No matter what a painter's level of accomplishment may be, there is always an urge to learn more!

"Inner and Outer Glow"
(c) Connie Hayes