149 - The Emotional Eye - Part 2

Image credit: Margaret Keane 1962

It's that pause after you tell your scintillating story and you fill the silence of a blank response with the words 'I guess you had to be there'.

You were there and your mind recorded all the excitement, all the responses to the stimulation of your five senses . Looking at your grey photo tickles all those memory cells so that you find it engaging and interesting. It's just that no-one else can smell it, hear it or feel it. They are unmoved.

The same happens to me when I get immersed in making something. The sheer involvement can make me feel so interested and engaged in the produced artwork. But it doesn't necessarily translate to anyone else's language.

I'm talking here about emotive work. I don't this applies to conceptual work.

If you can detach yourself from the memory of the moment when you made the thing, or from the memory of actually making it, you can focus on what might elicit emotion in someone else.

You can work on creating something resonant like the sound of a tuning fork. A vibration or a wave syncs with those from another person and they feel a connection with the work and they are moved by it.