Redtree Times

A Matter of Perspective— Coming to Kada Gallery November 4

Thus, the task is, not so much to see what no one has seen yet; but to think what nobody has thought yet, about what everybody sees.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

–Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paralipomena, 1851

This new piece that is headed to Kada Gallery for my November Places of Peace show is one of those thinking pieces. Everything about it sets my mind to work.

My primary observations are that we live so often within the limits of our own field of vision. By that I mean that we often only see what serves us, that which we expect to see. As a result, we fail to see all that surrounds us.

This cause us to lose a sense of perspective of both our smallness and largeness in this world which makes us live in the realm of one or the other of the two.

And we need to live with both our smallness and largeness.

I’m reading this and it sounds kind of crazy but hear me out.

In short, I am saying that we need to know both our insignificance as well as the importance of our singularity.

In the grand scheme of things, from the longer view we are but a speck, mere clods of mud and blood and bone.

Ah, but look closer and see what magnificent clods we are!

It’s a matter of perspective, right?

Here’s a song from the Beatles whose first line jumped to my mind as I wrote this. This is We Can Work It Out. Oh, and the title of the 12″ by 36″ painting at the top is, of course, A Matter of Perspective.