A question I received when I shared one of my paintings on Instagram earlier this week stuck with me. I posted a picture of a cat painting as an example when someone asked if I only paint dogs. It was this painting…
Here was her question…
Two of the questions are about method and technique, which I won’t go into in this post. But the second question is the one that hung with me. “Do you actually SEE them that way?”
My first thought was, of course, I see them that way. I wouldn’t paint them that way if I didn’t see them that way. But I realized the answer is deeper and more nuanced than that. Yes, I do see them that way, but I have learned to see them that way. I have practiced to see them that way. I have tested, tried, studied, agonized, and spent many hours over many years just staring at a picture, a painting, at how light falls, or at color comparisons to see them that way. While I’ve been intentionally developing my creative and artistic eye over several years, I have been inadvertently developing that same eye – what I see and how I interpret it as a human – from the day I was born.
And you have been doing that as well. The way you see the world is your creative superpower.
The way Van Gogh saw the world in stripes and swirls of color was his superpower. Jane Austen’s keen observations of behavior, society, culture, and the human heart were her superpower. The way Dorothea Lange saw moving beauty in the suffering and devastation of the Dust Bowl through her camera lens was her superpower.
The way you decorate, dress, bake, cook, draw, paint, plant, prune, arrange, write, scribble, solve problems, knit, shop, teach your kids, play your instrument, play games, learn a language, read, listen, talk, tell jokes, make friends, travel, engage online, all of it, both informs how you see the world and is an outward manifestation of how you see the world.
If you feel like the way you see the world is pretty boring and could never be considered a superpower, here are two encouraging truths for you.
Number one: The way you see the world is 100% unique to you. There is a line in the film The Incredibles that declares, “When everyone is super, no one is.” The villain says it, by the way. While I understand the only-one-person-can-win-first-place mentality underpinning that line, it’s not true when it comes to your creative superpower. The way I see and interpret the world doesn’t take anything away from the way you see and interpret the world. The way Van Gogh or Jane Austen or Dorothea Lange saw the world doesn’t take anything away from me or you. The way you see the world is unavoidably unique and priceless beyond measure.
Number two: The way you see the world as your creative superpower can be developed. Not only can it be developed simply by acknowledging that it is a worthwhile part of your creativity, but it can also be improved through training your eye and studying people who see and interpret the world in a way you admire. The way you see the world is not based on natural talent. It’s dynamic, pliable, teachable, and capable of growth and maturity. It’s the reason we take classes, visit museums, go to concerts and play, read books, and the list goes on.
So, I have two questions for you…
Do you recognize that the way you see and interpret the world is your creative superpower?
How are you currently honing that ability?
13 Responses
Yes, study and practice are the cornerstones. Learning the difference between looking at something is different from “seeing”it. Yo7 see how one color looks different in light versus shadow, how hair or bark on a tree grows in different directions depending on the form underneath for instance… Learning too really “see” what’s right before you is a fun journey and will teach a person much more than how to reproduce things realistically on paper.
💜
Thank you Marian. I love both of these points! I am currently actually putting paint to paper learning watercolor, after having observed other people doing it for several years. It’s fun to see that none of that time was wasted 😁. My husband and I took a watercolor class together in Yosemite a couple of years ago. The teacher was a young man whose main job was to collect trash in the high country. He had a little bit of a hippie vibe about him when he encouraged us that a lot of our ability to paint was just purely due to practice, something I’ve heard you say too. In his words, “Yeah, brush mileage— it’s real!” 😆.
Marian, I agree. I write a blog called Glimsen about the beauty around us in nature, the arts, and the unexpected. I’ve had many readers tell me they like the way I see things, which I take to mean both my writing and my photos. I’m much more skilled as a writer than a photographer, but I share photos of beauty that others might pass by. I am a noticer, and I think all of this adds up to my creative superpower.
Thank you for helping me name it.
LeAnne
Well said!
Amen! Thank you❤️
What a remarkable and well thought out response to the question. I had never thought of the way I see and interpret the world as superpower, but now I do now I do. I am honing by ability by studying all of the different artists whose work I admire and practicing the techniques they use/used and then finding my way of making the techniques my own.
Thank you for putting into words what I’ve been discovering over the last few years! I’ve loved creating gardens my whole life, I’ve been a quilter for over 40 years but didn’t start playing with photography until I retired 13 years ago. Photography opened my eyes! I see things so different now. We live in a beautiful world! Full of amazing things!
Thank you for articulating this immensely important life lesson so clearly. I would think that for many of us, caught up in the daily responsibilities of home and family, career, outside commitments, it is hard to take the time to really see, study, focus, enjoy. About 12 years ago, I started reading home decorating blogs, and yours was one of my first. I have always admired your rooms. I read, look at photos, think through approaches at other blogs as well. I have photos of my early living rooms during holidays and the everyday. And over 12 years, I have sewn, thrifted, collected, discarded, arranged, re-arrnaged, read some more, and refined my approach. All of this to say that I have created a living room that feels like I arrived. It feels like THIS is who I am and what I want to say. This is the first time I have felt this way.
Brilliant, this is so helpful! Thank you for your thoughtful response to that question!
I loved this post because it is so true. We each have talents the way we “see” and “do” things. We just have to get there to realize it and appreciate it. Remember artist, Laurel Burch and her very popular view on cats? Very colorful and playful and unique to her. She was a friend to my sister-in-law and a truly beautiful person. Sadly she passed away.
Never give up looking for your special talent…it is in there!
We put together a guest room by shopping the house and arranging it all in an artful way. I showed it to my bachelor elderly neighbor and my bachelor brother and both exclaimed “I LOVE this room! I would stay here any day”. That to me was a high compliment coming from 2 people I would have expected not to care- it’s just a room to sleep in after all. But their delight and enthusiasm for something that I spent some time considering and rearranging was affirming. My super power is noticing how important people’s emotional state is in a room, and I’ve been studying practicing and learning what goes into creating a space that is warm and cozy and welcoming. Their reaction to it was so satisfying. I always knew the way I wanted guests to feel but I had to learn a lot to get there. So fun!
I definitely agree. In art, we all develop our own techniques that work for each of us. That has to be learned over time. Then each of us see with different eyes. Modern art is a good example. How something or someone is depicted is left up for interpretation. That’s why we have different forms of art.