Art, Movies, Nature

To See: The Art of Noticing

68 Comments

To see takes time…
—Georgia O’Keefe

Seeing is one of my obsessions. Not in the strict sense—although I place a high value on my vision—but rather in a more intuitive, artistic sense, to notice and to explore what is not always apparent.

All around my yard, there are creatures living their own lives, trying to get by in a world both hostile and abundant. Often they remain hidden, but sometimes I catch glimpses of them.

This little toad at the edge of my patio,

a grasshopper on what looks like a ripple of water but is really the top of our outside table,

and a tiny moth (I think) resting on a sage leaf.

Then there is this mouse, one of many who thinks inside is better than outside. Can’t say I blame the little rodents, but my thinking is opposite. Over the years we have trapped hundreds of mice, releasing them in a field far from here and with no homes in sight.

 

Even in a place that doesn’t seem to support nature, these birds make their home near this parking lot.

Nature—in other words, life—is all around us, if we take the time to notice. And to borrow from the writer Verlyn Klinkenborg, in the pattern of noticing lies the art.

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Watching: Movies
Museum Hours (2012)
Directed by Jem Cohen

Museum Hours seems to run tangent to what I just wrote about noticing the world around us. Much of the film takes place in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, where a museum guard, Johann (Bobby Sommer), befriends a woman named Anne (Mary Margaret O’Hara) who has come to Vienna to be with an ailing relative. Through their love of art, Johann and Anne form a bond (platonic), and they explore their past and present using various paintings as a springboard.

In Museum Hours, art is not a series of static pieces unrelated to life. Instead, art is about life, where the artist looked and noticed and captured something essential.  Museum Hours is one of the most illuminating movies about art that I have ever seen, and its ending moved me to tears: Art is around you in everyday life. All you have to do is look.

However, this is a movie that requires patience and attention. Museum Hours is so leisurely that even some of my indie-film-viewing friends found it, ahem, a little slow.

However, for those whose have the patience, Museum Hours is such a rewarding movie.

 

68 thoughts on “To See: The Art of Noticing”

  1. I am touched, and impressed, that you live-trap and release field mice. I have heard of people live-trapping other critters, but not mice. Nice.

      1. That. That’s what I appreciate. We have tried one version of live traps, but it hasn’t worked. I may look for other types of live traps. When we have a need. It isn’t too often. We have had a cat for 18 months. We discovered he just watched the mouse. Perhaps his presence is deterring them? One could hope.

  6. I didn’t learn to look until very late in life. I listened a lot because I like words, but I was in too much of a hurry to look. Getting a camera slowed me down and let me look around.

    1. Looking and noticing came late to me, too. Like you, I am drawn to words. And, yes, a camera, even my simple one, really helped. Also going to museums and looking at art. Noticing, it seems, can be developed.

  8. Nature does indeed abound exuberantly with life. I’ve also been seeing wee toads around the woods and gardens, so tiny that I worry for them!

  10. I have a five-item rule when I walk the dog in the morning: find five beautiful things, whether birdsong, a cloud, ripples on water or sunlight on grass. Usually, after I find five, I keep finding more as I become atuned to noticing. Another good book: The Art of Noticing, by Rob Walker. Sort of a how-to handbook.

    1. Wonderful practice to find five beautiful things on your morning walk. I have added The Art of Noticing to my TBR list. Sounds like it’s right up my alley.

    1. Thanks, Mary. I use my phone, but it’s a new one, and the camera has 50 megapixels. This means I can crop the photos quite close, and they are still crisp. I use a very simple program for minimal editing, primarily cropping and adding contrast. Mostly I want the pictures to look like what they really are. Amazing what phones can do now, isn’t it?

  14. Yes, Laurie I agree, I like looking at the small things, and I think gardening and blogging has helped me to pay attention to my surroundings.

    Museum Hours seems like a very good movie.

  15. One of the reasons I enjoy walking places rather than taking the car is that I see what I am passing. The other day I was syphonin water from a rain but into the pond in the greenhouse and a toad leaped from the edge into the water – I hardly ever se them but i know they are there and doing their bit to control the slugs.

  17. I’m not at all good with rodents. I really wish they didn’t give me the heebyjeebies but they do so I tend to move around the barns and feed sheds very noisily. I’m happy that they’re living alongside me, I just don’t want to see them.

    1. Many of us get the heebyjeebies from certain animals. With me it’s snakes. Fortunately, in Maine they are shy creatures, and I don’t see them very often. Suits me just fine. Must be hard on a farm not to run across rodents on a regular basis.

    1. There surely is! And most, if not all, of my blogging friends have the eyes and the patience to notice. Reading their blogs, including yours, is such a pleasure.

      Little toads are so cute.

    1. Shadows are very beautiful especially when they are moving. I have never read Sweet Bean Paste but it is now on my TBR list. Thanks for mentioning it.

  21. What a wonderful practice to incorporate in your daily life, Laurie: the art of noticing things. Indeed, strange and wonderful nature is all around us! The mice I can do without, however, ha!

  22. Absolutely wonderful from that first beautiful photo to the wonderful Georgie O’Keeffe quote and then the lovely photos and thoughts on the art of noticing!! Loved your review and have already rented the movie, looks like it’s going to be a triple feature movie weekend!🙂

    1. Many, many thanks! I will be interested in hearing what you think of Museum Hours and its very leisurely pace. Despite the slow pacing, I found the film very moving.

  23. A few years ago I was lucky enough to visit a Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas. I’m not much of a refrigerator magnet person, but I brought home three with O’Keeffe quotations on them. One says, “Take Time to Look,” while the other says, “I still like the way I see things best.” I see them every day, and try to take their lessons to heart.

  26. Well said.

    I think I’m observant, and I love Nature. Yet I find having wee ones (grandchildren, not the fairies) around makes me see things I would miss otherwise. They are closer to the ground, so they see what I don’t. It’s an eye-opener.

  27. Finding the time to do nothing is a difficult skill, but worthwhile, as your pictures show. Is that a Mint Moth? We have them in UK too. We used to get a lot on oregano at the farm and one rosemary at home. I see yours is on sage. Julia gets them on mint in the MENCAP garden. despite the name they just seem to like strong smelling herbs.

    1. What good eyes you have! Yes, that looks like a mint moth. I didn’t know what kind of moth it was, but when I googled mint moth on the Internet, the picture confirmed it. And, yes, it was on a sage leaf in my garden. I guess if mint moths likes mint, it stands to reason that they would like sage. Or something like that.

  29. I’ve never had a catch and release with a mouse, but I’ve never trapped them either. I occasionally will get a mouse in my greenhouse and let it call it home. However, now that I have a cat (Sandefur) occupying the space in the winter I haven’t noticed any rodent residents.

    Thanks for the movie recommendation. I love to find movies about art or artists, as you would expect.

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