Fractured Visions

Earlier this week I temporarily lost my eye site. Specifically, I lost site in the upper, inner portion of my left eye. To imagine this, hold your left hand in front of your left eye just in front of your nose and look straight ahead. You can see perfectly well on your right side, but only have partial view from your left. There's a big black line most of the way down the center of your field of view.

I went to work like this and discovered several things. First, you can't see where you're going. You walk into things that you never noticed were there. I also found myself trying to look around the blind spot, as if it were an obstructing post. Of course that was impossible, but I did find myself repetitively moving my head to the side or straining my eyes to get a view around the obstacle . Most interesting however, was when I came to terms that this was not going away and I'd have to leave work to head to the opthomologist. I sat down to call the doctor, giving me an opportunity to truly look around at my surroundings. I became fascinated with the way that the things I see every day looked so different from my fractured perspective. How one half of a solid item could look slightly off kilter from the other half. How much smaller it could look. How it could appear to be to be moving, undulating, waving. It was interesting to see objects as individual details rather than as a whole item. I saw the texture and the shapes and the lines and the colours as individual components. I saw the textured white ripples on the deep freezer. I saw the angles at which the counters and shelves projected from the walls. I saw the way light reflected off the stainless steel refrigerators.

Texture, shape line and colour are of course all things I pay special attention to when sitting down to work on a piece of art, but I can't say I often pay close attention to them in my boring every day life, when going about my day at work. I'm not saying you should live a day in your life with your hand in front of your face. I'm suggesting that you take the time to look at your common daily surroundings with a bit more attention that you would normally allot them. Look at just small portions of larger objects. Consider what would happen if you cut out small pieces of the larger picture. Look at things like you haven't before. Who knows what that might inspire!

Thankfully my vision has returned to normal now and I can see the world much like everyone else. I can however appreciate my 2 days of fractured vision and the opportunity to grow artistically.