Title: Quantum Entoptic Myodesopsia --[Muscae volitantes]
I'm not sure what to say about this one other than the fact that it took on many different iterations, and my favorite projects tend to be those that would have many different realities folded under all the paint.
I started out wanting to paint a forest in black and white that I saw in a dream in order to practice light and value (which was likely inspired by my new commute through STL on my way to UP from my home in Oly), but quickly found that after growing bored with the repetitive nature of it and trying to add figures to the forest, there was a constant state of dissonance that wasn't working for me. (At one point, the plan was to populate the woods with Black Metal musicians and hang it in my bathroom to make my friends laugh and shake their heads at me.) As such, it sat on the easel for a month or so, only getting a frustrated swipe or two of moonlight or stars when its presence drove me to distraction and annoyance with my own lack of progress on it. Needless to say, we weren't on speaking terms for awhile.
Finally, one night, I had a dream about moving shapes. Just...big shapes, floating around in front of my eyes. Most who know me know I have trouble sleeping and that the sleep I usually get is punctuated by really vivid, memorable, and bizarre dreams that I spend days thinking about. In this case, the shapes that moved and shimmered did so in a way that immediately had me thinking of them in a sci-fi, otherworldly context. I've always had inclinations and curiosity about the subjects that cruise around the 000s of nonfiction that followed me into adult life, so I often find myself wondering what scientific basis these strange things we experience have, and how we have an inclination to either cling to a factual understanding of what something "means" to us, or pursue the fanciful side of what we can't explain in hopes of something bigger than us and that desire to be part of the mysterious. (As a young patron, I checked out the X-Files Book of the Unexplained a whopping 38 times from the library in my hometown to the extent that in my first library interview, the director actually remembered my face based on the unusual number of times she found me looking at this book!) I woke up with the strong urge to read the book again and the conviction to call my mother that week.
My mother is an optician of some 30 years of experience in the field. When asked about seeing these and mentioning "eye floaters" in the sunlight and and my childhood tendency to be still and just chase them around my field of vision, she named them as myodesopsia, remarking that the shadows are always present on our retinas, but that our mind tunes them out as "irrelevant infomation" on an evolutionary level. This gave some perspective to work from and thoughts to kick around before returning those things to my painting and applying them there.
I was hoping to juxtapose my feelings of obstruction in making the painting with what was a natural obstruction of the eye that comes about just by living in the world and being a part of nature, an unavoidable event that is as natural as it is necessary to seeing past what is blocking you and beyond into the things around you that are serene and familiar without letting the floating veil take you too far from where you are as a person. At the same time, it is perfectly natural to want to look closer at these things and examine the reality of their intrusion to help you remember how many things there are that you don't see happening around you, but nonetheless, are just as real and present regardless of your sight.
blakekathryn
kaledo-art
annaxmalina
dededos