As a sort of related (in my mind at least) aside… when I was at the Ontario College of Art and Design, the colour theory course I took was taught by Sheila. Sheila, at the end of the very first class of the year, sort of “off the cuff” and “by the way”, asked as us to go out that evening and quickly sketch a window. We were to bring this sketch back for the next class. That was it. There were no more instructions, there was no more context given than that. And/so… we all — each of us — went out and sketched a window and brought the sketch with us to our next class.

In “this” next class, we discovered that the sketch we had so quickly done — in whatever medium we had used, on whichever support we had chosen, in whatever size we had sketched it, with whatever detail we had recorded — was to be the source material for the rest of the course. The course lasted 8 months. And Sheila was true to her word. All of our projects and works, excepting one, were based somehow on our own sketch of our own chosen window.

Okay then.

An example of a project that I can still viscerally feel myself struggling over was taking a 1-inch square piece of the sketch and turning this into a large, 3-dimensional relief. And, Sheila in her own integrity of approach, specified that we were to use opposing colours in a 1-inch section of the resulting work.

In a 1-inch square of our original sketch, the minimalist sketchers amongst us had to search to find material in their own strokes. They did though. And, on the opposite side of the same scale, the more detailed of my fellow students, struggled to carry along all of these. And/but, regardless of who/how we were, the end results were particularly striking and awesome, in all cases. And, although not one of my favourite projects to do (for a first time), this one certainly gave my favourite results.

Eight months being a very long time (when you’re 23 at least), this class, Sheila’s method, Sheila’s clarity of point and Sheila for that matter have been completely anchored into my being. I learned that one of the most important things we can bring to “our” own creativity (or at the very least what I can bring to mine) is what we, as individuals, “do with”. Of course the “what” matters but…

To be completely (at least “more” :o) fair I will confess a predisposition to this way of being “anyway”. I remain sort of convinced that the reason I was accepted into this school in the first place was less my portfolio and more my answers in the interviews. I still think my answer to “What is creativity?” (“Looking at the same thing as everyone else but seeing something different.”) was the clincher. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

So I have written all of this given my own obvious preoccupation with these lilac buds. And now you know that you have Sheila to partially blame or thank for this. I think she was the one who finally gave me the permission to continue to be a variation on my own theme and who certainly confirmed that looking and seeing are not the same thing, even through the very same or unexercised eyes.