WHAT MAKES PEOPLE MAD

There is one thing about Transparent Drawing that irritates people the most, and it is my use of the phrase, “smear around opaque blobs of paint.” 

As I make clear in the book, I’m not the first to decry the fallacy of Representational Spacetime.  In fact, in the book, I let others, from Plato on, make just this argument, in their own words.  The side panels of nearly each page contain the quotes of famous intellectuals.  The Meta column to the right, which changes constantly, also does this.

What continues to amaze me is how long we in the West have been complaining about how ridiculous it is to apply paint to a canvas because that is how we see, or it is the ideal of how we should see, or this is what I see, but it is not how you see, or if I paint this way, then that will shape how you see, which will then shape how you apply your opaque blobs of paint…the walls of our museums are full of exactly this.

I admit that my phrase, “smear around opaque blobs of paint” is rather, shall we say, insulting.  Yet it is the truth.  And what is offered in the book and in these pages is a way to move this forward, as a cultural component.  Smearing around opaque blobs of paint is limiting.  And that is because the act is outside of time:  there is no time in the conceptioning.  Drawing transparently is one way out of this.  

So don’t get mad a me for saying any of this.  

I’m just offering a way forward.  Instead of writing yet another river of words complaining about it, I offer something that you can use to get out of this circular argument.  Instead of writing yet another historical account, I offer a way to become engaged.  Start making marks on your paper with an open bandwidth mindset.  Draw holistic forms! And if you’ve got anything better, let me know.