Seeing Abstract Art for the First Time

I was in France to teach a workshop and to subsequently enjoy two weeks as artist-in-residence at La Napoule Art Foundation in the Côte d'Azur.  I was giving a talk to a group who were at the foundation to study landscape architecture. The group came to my studio to see a new body of work I had just finished. I expected that after being introduced everyone would take a quick look at the work, ask a question or two, and then leave. What happened instead was that I ended up speaking for an hour and a half about the work I had made, and how I made it. They asked excellent questions and allowed me to speak in depth about my process. 

I enjoyed the experience and was grateful for the opportunity to organize and articulate my own thinking. But the greatest surprise came later when a man from the group came up to me to say thank you and that he had arrived at my studio to take a quick look and then leave. The said that the work I had done was collage and he hadn’t ever thought of collage as art. But as he listened to my description of the work he was able to see a way of looking at abstract art, and it was a revelation to him. He of course didn’t know anything about my project and I was elated as he described his experience to me; that of really seeing abstract art for the first time in his life at age 65.