For the most part, I paint blind. I do not look at the paper until I am done. My eyes are trained on the model, following the particular nuances of their particular form as I distill into abstraction the chosen pose.
Born with double vision, my brain chose to accommodate me by alternating eyes. So I look with one eye at a time. One effect of this is that I do not have 3-D vision. It may go some distance toward explaining, on the physical level at least, why I have little interest in the Western fascination with creating devices to show the illusion of depth in order to represent three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional plane.
YOU ARE NOT YOUR EYES
Those who have reached their arms
into emptiness are no longer concerned
with lies and truth, with mind and soul,
or which side of the bed they rose from.
If you are still struggling to understand,
you are not there. Offer your soul
to one who says, "Take it to the other
side." You're on neither side, yet
those who love you see you on one side
or the other. You say ILLA, "only God,"
then your hungry eyes see you're in
"nothing," LA. You're an artist
who paints both with existence and non.
Shams could help you see who you are,
but remember, YOU ARE NOT YOUR EYES. -Rumi (translated by Coleman
Barks)