Episode 33: Sight and Insight - What does it really mean?

Greetings, Art Lovers, we're back!

We had hoped to be back right after the holidays but, unfortunately, a case of the sniffles kept us from getting together to record a podcast. However, everyone seems to be healthy again, so here we are to share some more thoughts with you about all things Art.

Today, our theme is Sight and Insight. It is the name of our podcast, as well as the idea behind David and Connie's workshops to help students take it to the next level.

“It is this perfect accuracy, this lack of play, of variety, that makes the machine-made article so lifeless. Wherever there is life there is variety, and the substitution of the machine-made for the hand-made article has impoverished the world to a greater extent than we are probably yet aware of. Whereas formerly, before the advent of machinery, the commonest article you could pick up had a life and warmth which gave it individual interest, now everything is turned out to such a perfection of deadness that one is driven to pick up and collect, in sheer desperation, the commonest rubbish still surviving from the earlier period.” ― Harold Speed, The Practice and Science of Drawing

So how do we, as artists, get more sight, and insight, into our work? We can study some of the great artists and teachers of bygone days.

Harold Speed, The Alcantara, Toledo, by Moonlight, 1894, Tate Britain, UK

David brings his years of experience as an artist and teacher to help with ways of 'seeing,' while our resident psychologist/artist, Connie, gives us some insight into what the word means in terms of the creative process.

Harold Speed, Old Tom, oil on canvas. 63.9 x 51 cm, Southampton City Art Gallery, UK, presented by the artist, 1930, #545

Can't get enough of us? Then look for our next episode two weeks from now. Yes, sorry about that. We know you like your weekly dose of the Sight and Insight Podcast, but various commitments in the upcoming weeks mean it is going to be hard for us to get together as often as we'd like. 

Until then, stay warm and happy painting.

Connie, David and Judy

"There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe