The all 6th grade camping trip
added a new element to my work.
At dusk on a night hike, my youngest child
9 other 6th grades and I sat down with the camp councilor and listen
as she talked us though observing our night vision. She had us observe the
slowly fading light and to listen to the sounds as these changes happened
before our eyes. As the night grew dimmer, our vision changed. What occurred
was that our eyes rods began to take over instead of the cones. The eye uses
the 3 different cones to see colors, and the one kind of rod that see shades of
grey. As the light fades color fades away and is replaced with shades of grey. Details
become shapes with a higher contrast than previously seen in the daylight, your
eye shifts to pick up on shape and your peripheral vision is heightened.
It was fascinating. The councilor had us stair at someone’s face and as we stared
at their features they began to faded into a non-descript blob of middle grey
tone. Seeing in grey tones after dusk and before pitch black is when this
occurs. This is called the Purkyně Effect, and the vision is called Scotopic
vision from Greek skotos meaning darkness and
-opia meaning a condition of sight.
Czech anatomist Jan Evangelista Purkyně, thanks man.
I really could not believe
that I am only now paying attention to this! Everything about this felt
relevant to my work. I am interested in this cloak
of grey in my work because it is both showing something that is hidden and
hiding something that is normally visible. I am adding this effect it my
paintings as a new visual element. I am
also interested in how it creates a binary between dark and light, it reduces
what is before you and heightens the periphery.
Detail work in Progress for CMA Exhibition, July 2017, note the fade to grey scale.
Thanks to a Supply Grant from Greater Columbus Arts Council some a new large work will be on display at the Columbus Museum of Art. All the work on display will be of a larger scale.
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