‘Oh look a rabbit jumping over a fence wearing a top hat’…’where? I see a cumulus cloud, which is likely to turn into a cumulonimbus and soak me on the way home’…’oh’

Seeing the world

Project Paint Plane was about sharing my vision and experiences of the world. It’s about exploring how ‘vistas’ & places interact with our emotions, how the brain turns light into colour & sound into a sense of size, and how together they create a memory. It’s this memory that is the inspiration behind my work.

I remember in images. My memory doesn't seem to work well in any other way. I struggle to remember names, even if you tell me them 10 times over; not the name of an author I love or a song that inspires me will make its way into my head. But I can recall every detail of an image, the light, the shadows and it's overall 'mood'. This is great for art, but not so good in day to day life, and can be frustrating when I want to share something 'amazing' I can't remember the name off (and I don’t always have time to sneak a look at google).
Anyway I’m a bit of a physcology & sociology nut (if you haven’t guessed) and it confuses me that I might see something differently from the next person. It’s the ‘why’ behind this that keeps me fascinated; all the cultural and social differences, all your relationships, experiences and feelings that make you experience differently and have differing responses and feelings. Maybe one day when I'm rich and famous I can afford to take some friends (taking bookings now) around the world and ask them to draw how they see the world and compare – I’ll put that down in my little Book of Ideas, or 'Book of Procrastination' as I now like to think of it. Ultimately Paint Plane is just about exploring the world outside my flat.

Though this got me thinking about all the times Mike (who is a scientist with the logical brain I sometimes envy) would show me something, most likely some scientific image, and my initial response would be ‘oh look, it looks like a cat, a horse, a little guy eating a cake’, etc. Not sure it would go down too well when I compared his important mineral specimen to a cute little kitten but it would intrigue us how we saw it so differently. What is it that makes me see images in things? And what makes Mike unable to initially see these things, that is until I spend about 10 minutes talking him through the details of the obvious mouse’s eyes, nose and tail. Only then, through squinted eyes and his head at a right angle, a mouse might appear. The funny thing is that I could never see those Magic Eye 3D pictures as a kid and Mike could always see them. Brains??

Is that a chicken on the wall? I don't remember seeing chickens! well that's no chicken it's Mike jumping over the wall. Cool!

I'm no scientist so I could not begin to go into a scientific debate about it (as much as I'm now using all my will power to not open Google and procrastinate). I'm not sure this question can be answered as it is wrapped up in the person, in their brain, in their feelings and emotional responses. And to be honest would this not take away the magic of an experience, the magic of just feeling, breathing and enjoying the view.

People can take what they want from a place. I have this knack of personify everything, I give landscapes moods, or a rock a face to make it seem like 'something' I can relate too. The best example of this is seeing images in clouds. Everyone must see differently as imagination is endless and can create images of dogs for one person, and trees or lollipops for the next. But fundamentally they are just clouds, evaporated water – perfect randomness created by nature.

So I can't afford to take you all around the world...

...for my little experiment to see how different people view the world but maybe we can do something else. I know at the moment my blog probably gets 5 hits (and I reckon I can name you LOL), but maybe in a few years someone might come across this post and more people will want to join in.

So if anyone fancies helping me I was thinking of suggesting a location and then for you to go their (or look on google maps) and interpret the view – be it a painting, photography, video, poem, collage or even interpretative dance...whatever you like. Not sure what to call this -mm 'Orien'art'eering'. I did say I'm bad with words. So as I use Longitude and Latitude coordinates to name my art lets use these as the location. Rules – well apart from the fact it has to be from those coordinates there are no rules; abstract or realistic, a feeling or moment...anything, oh and lets say you can look in any direction from this point. I'll do this too and as I live in London lets start somewhere easy and iconic.

51.504388,-0.118772 (copy and paste this into google maps UK). 

If anything it might be a nice way to re-look at London. Once done post below or on twitter @paintplane #Orienarteering or email them to me: flythe@paintplane.co.uk

Failing this you could just wait until I'm rich and join me on my tour around the world...though you might be waiting for a while.