I appear to be colorblind.

I appear to be colorblind.

Have you ever experienced a moment of realization where your ideas about reality collided with reality itself, and revealed themselves as being blatantly false? Regardless of how important or unimportant, how significant or insignificant, how painful or otherwise the realization might be, It always comes with a sense of startlement, a bit like what a dog must feel when it’s suddenly slapped on the nose.
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Have you ever experienced a moment of realization where your ideas about reality collided with reality itself, and revealed themselves as being blatantly false?

Regardless of how important or unimportant, how significant or insignificant, how painful or otherwise the realization might be, It always comes with a sense of startlement, a bit like what a dog must feel when it’s suddenly slapped on the nose.

I just got slapped on the nose by my own art. Not only did I just, literally just now as I was getting ready to write this very post, get slapped on the nose, but I got slapped on the nose for the second time this week! By my own creations!

Which raises some serious questions about my level of presence, self-awareness, as well as the quality of my eyesight.

Here is what just happened:

I intended to write a blog post about my relationship with color. My story about myself was that I have had hardly any relationship with color at all; that I’ve spent years working exclusively in black ink on white paper, eventually moving to black pencils. I did not use color, I was not much interested in working with color - though I flirted with it on occasion - trying to find my way around it sufficiently to use it for a little extra … well … color to spice up my drawings a bit. But I really did not understand it, not one bit, not particularly wanted to.

All of this, according to my story, shifted only recently when I conceived of a project that really truly called for being colorful: that of MU, the Mindless Rabbit. From the very moment of conception the Rabbit was all colorful, and I had little choice but to try and depict it as such.

I have since embarked on a journey of trying to figure out the color situation, which I spoke about in May’s newsletter, but the point here is that I really believed what I just stated was true, only true and nothing but true.

And then I looked through may archives looking for images to illustrate this story of mine, and what did I see?

COLOR

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I saw color everywhere. I saw color all over the place. I saw color splashed all over drawings I’ve been doing years ago. I saw color smeared all over my portraits. I saw color painted all over my pen and ink, and I even saw an attempt at spilling some color over a graphite drawing (don’t try that, really doesn’t work).

I looked, I saw, and I realized what the evidence of my own eyes pointed to: I’ve always worked with color. The black and white drawings I’ve done are by far the minority.

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This, in and off itself, isn’t a particularly Earth-shattering revelation. What is really truly shocking is that somehow I did not realize this. Somehow I have managed to paint colors all over the place for years without once having realized that I was, actually, doing it.

I can’t even.

The other blank spot I’ve discovered earlier this week actually pales in comparison with this remarkable bit of obliviousness.

Here is what happened:

I’ve been mulling over buying a page in an art magazine’s artist directory. The magazine is called Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, it is relatively well-renowned, with some standing. The price is good, what they offer is beneficial, it seems like a good deal all around, but I was not sure abut advertising at this point because I didn’t feel I was ready for drawing attention to my work as yet. Specifically my latest drawings featuring MU, the Mindless Rabbit. I felt that those are not fleshed out well enough yet, that the concept is not yet sufficiently developed, that it’s not yet ready to be seen. And then I looked at the drawing page of MY OWN WEBSITE and as I looked at it I saw what was right there, in front of my eyes: yeah, the concept is developed. It is plenty developed, and it is plenty ready to be seen.

And here I was fancying myself all sorts of self-aware.

There is, no doubt, a lot to unpack in this situation, all sorts of mechanisms and meanings, and I am not at all sure what to think about all this. Yet what is rising to the surface of my befuddled mind as I’m writing right now is this: apparently a good way to learn about oneself is to take a good look at one’s own creations.

The reality of one’s creations has a way of verifying stories.

Follow Pausha down the rabbit hole!

A compilation of ancient fables illustrated with pieces from my “A Bird in the Hand” drawing collection is now available for your perusal and, hopefully, enjoyment.

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