STEPPING OUTSIDE OUR CULTURE

Philip Glass’ book, Words Without Music, is an inspirational and humble look into the mind of a famous creator. When I read books like this, I like to keep an eye on some of the concepts that we are tracking here at Transparent Drawing.

On page 196, he writes,

“In a clear way, we are bound to our culture. We understand the world because of the way we were taught to see.” “We see that world because that’s what was installed, almost banged, into our heads when we were very, very young. But it’s also possible to step out of that world.”

We have touched on the concept of drawing and culture numerous times. One of these posts can be found here.

What I find the most resonant in Mr. Glass’ passage is the image of stepping out of our cultural world. Love it or hate it, Glass’ music certainly did step outside of our cultural tradition. As he tells it, his signature compositional sound was derived from Indian ragas, Charlie Parker, etc.

I would like to think that we all want to step outside of our culture, at least to see how that might feel. It may very well be that Transparent Drawing is nothing more than my personal attempt to get outside of that which has been banged into our heads. Nobody teaches you how to take this step. If you ask me, practically 100% of our education is geared so as to reinforce our cultural mindset. So when you finally get to the point where you have the opportunity to take this step, we are clueless on how to proceed or how to go about it.

Can we actually say that when we are drawing, we are doing so outside our culture? Do we even know enough to know when we are doing so?

I would like to think that Transparent Drawing will mesh with other thought systems which help us in our cultural step taking. Our predisposition to stepping outside of our culture is to a large degree innate. Yet I believe that if we are offered the method, a method, any method, there is a greater chance for the shift that we all seek.