HAPTIC CURIOSITY

We manipulate forms with our hands automatically, without thinking about it.  A large amount of this haptic manipulation, as well as our bodily locomotion, takes place so that the hidden may be revealed. We are naturally curious.  This typically involves:
-opening
-uncovering
-taking apart
-turning over
-removing one form that is in front of another form
-rotation
-etc.  

This is of course basic to our being.  Children, with innocent and unalloyed curiosity, are continually opening cupboards, taking off lids, and will take things apart.  Stories abound of the precociously curious child who takes apart the grandfather clock.  This is all a compulsion to see around, to see what is hidden, etc.  And typically, these acts of revealing, these acts of revelation, are the result of the manipulation of the hands.  The use of our hands are acts of perception. 

“The point to remember is that the visual control of the hands is inseparably connected with the visual perception of objects.”  Gibson.  P224. 

When we manipulate, we introduce time into the phenomenon of perception.  With the haptic, we afford ourselves the advantage of the perception of elements of a form that were previously hidden.  Once the hidden has been revealed, time becomes a component of perception.

Likewise, our drawings are an extension of our natural curiosity to knowledge and to understand holistic form. The tools that we manipulate, which in our case are our pencils, brushes, sandpaper, etc., are, at least metaphorically, extensions of our hands.

So haptic curiosity, and the transparent drawings that we produce, are part of the same basic human drives.  As a species, the more that we know about what we can’t see, the greater our contentment and well being.