Dear Martin,
Oops - sounds like a rubber glove - pull it inside out and it will fit the
other hand.
That is, I thought I was attempting to say that Simon's account of
painting wasn't an account of the imagination as found in either painting
or design.
Yes, I have painted but my stuff these days is mostly generative - coming
from computers.
I think back to an account that Picasso gave (I don't have it to hand)
where he talked about painting for up to 24 hours until something emerged
and then re-painting for a week until he got back to that sense of the
painting emerging.
My own account of what I do is : attention - selection - election.
Reflective consciousness becomes aware of something (attention) presented
to it by pre-reflective consciousness - which reflective consciousness
then plays around with (this can go through iterative cycles - which
sounds like Simon's account) until some pattern/relationship/tension
whatever is elected from amongst the many selections (and combinations of
selections) and thence we get the imaginative outcome.
I make free-form cavandoli macramé things. I don't have a sketch to
follow. This means my working is anarchic ( a building minus an
architect). Because the decisions I make get fixed, these objects tend to
end up as samplers or multi-featured patterns. There is no overall
decision being made and so there is a high level of fragmentation. Some
painting is done this way- just as some home-building is done this way.
Which is different to the process/outcome when there is an overall
imaginative pattern/structure whatever.
My complaint with Simon was the absence of any real account of this
imaginative control (election) process.
Hope this helps
Cheers
keith
On 3/09/13 8:51 PM, "Salisbury, Martin" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>Dear Keith and Jude,
>
>Excuse me for jumping in here but my ears pricked up when painting was
>mentioned. Keith, if I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that
>these examples are appropriate to a definition of 'imagination' but not
>to a definition of 'design'?
>
>Simon's analogy certainly rings true with me as a painter and
>illustrator. One of my favourite painters, the neo-romantic, John Minton
>(albeit deeply flawed and a better illustrator than painter) described
>the process of constructing/ designing a painting as " ... a matter of
>the successful steering of accident" (in Looking at Paintings by Michael
>Rothenstein, Routledge, 1958). Of course all painters are different but
>the fact that your toddler son seems to adopt this approach, Jude, is a
>good indication of its integrity.
>
>I am also wondering whether either of you paint?
>
>Best regards
>
>Martin
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