Two brains are better than one

Oranges

I was asked an interesting question the other day. “When you were really sick, how did it affect your artwork? Better? Worse?” I’m sure that many artists have a deep emotional connection to their paintings during creation and that what is going on in their lives affects not only subject matter, but color choice as well. I have the blessing, or curse depending on your point of view, of being equally left and right brained. My husband told me that he had just described me to an attorney friend in the following manner, “my wife creates paintings and reads Science magazine.” When I paint, I go into ‘the zone’ so to speak. I’m not really thinking or feeling anything on a conscious level. I instinctively break down the image before me into its basic components, shape and color. I’m not really seeing the object or scene as a whole, just minute pieces. It’s kind of like looking through a microscope starting at the highest magnification, when I’m happy with the smallest details, my view widens slightly to take in a little more of the surrounding area to see how it works together. My view keeps expanding until the piece is finished. This is completely opposite of most artists I know.

 

I believe this is why I can paint so realistically. It’s objective. I’m painting what I see without preconceptions of what something is supposed to look like or what color it is supposed to be. I remember listening to NPR one day and the person being interviewed (sorry, I don’t remember who) was describing an exercise where a still life using eggs and a yellowish light was set up. Adults were asked to paint the scene. I believe non-artists. They all painted the eggs white. Eggs are white. Clearly though, the eggs in the scene were a dark beige.

I’m not completely detached from my paintings. Before the paints touches the board, I’ve given quite a bit of conscious thought to what I’m going to paint, what size the painting should be, object placement, but after that…it’s “the zone”… In the zone, I believe it’s both sides of the brain working in unison. I experienced the same thing when I played fast-pitch softball. I pitched. I was extremely accurate. I couldn’t tell you how or why. I just was and when I pitched, all external stimuli faded away. I was calm and I performed well. My arm knew exactly where to stop and release the ball. How hard to throw it.

To some extent, I believe this dichotomy in myself is what kept me sane while I searched for an answer to my illness. The left brain was able to remain rational throughout the ordeal and navigate a way out of the maze even when it seemed there was no progress being made and no exit. There were days when I tried to be depressed. I was just so tired of searching that I wanted to wallow in self-pity, but that damn left brain wouldn’t let it last for more than a day. That damn left brain kept me going. “There are people a lot worse off than you,” it said.

My art. In terms of technical ability, you can’t tell which paintings were created before the illness got so bad, during the bad time or during recovery. I’ve touched before on a need to paint florals and landscapes, pretty, happy things, in the during and after, in that way, my illness did affect my art, but I think I’ve begun to move past that emotional barrier. The desire to paint something of more substance is returning. Both sides of my brain agree, I’m feeling better than I’ve felt in a long long time.

Note: I suddenly remembered one softball game where I hit my thigh during a pitch. The ball came out of my hand and smacked the ground about 2 feet in front of me. My team, their team and all the spectators watched as this ball rolled along the ground and directly over the middle of home plate. It was a perfect pitch, if it had been 18 inches higher.

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