Monday, October 6, 2008

"Color in Context"
6:25am

Lecture twenty of the "Great Courses" _Philosophy of Mind_ begins, "Is color an objective feature of the world or something that exists only in subjective experience?"

Roughly, the conclusion is that experience of color is in the mind, but there are objective things in the world that bring about that experience.

"Two central facts show that color perception is more than wavelengths.
1. Color constancy is the fact that colors are perceived to be the same despite changes in wavelength.
2. Color contrast is the fact that colors depend on contrast in context...."

Almost everything of our color experience is 'in context'. Part of it is wavelengths. Things reflect the colors of things around them. Nothing demonstrates this so well as these two photos I took at the Brooklyn Museum:


Old Kingdom Gneiss Statue, Fertility Figurine

Compare my photos to those taken by the museum people:

The objects look different in their photos because they have chosen a neutral background that would not add its color by reflection. I tried to tone down the reflective color in mine, in the gneiss statue, by desaturating it a bit, and in the fertility figurine, by adjusting the color balance towards the cyan and blue to cancel out some of the orange:
Color Balance
Color Levels: -10, 0, +10
Cyan     ----------||-------------- Red
Magenta ------------||------------ Green
Yellow   --------------||---------- Blue
(Unable to take a screen capture of the control, I've tried to relate its workings thusly)

As you can see, my adjustments make it 'truer' to the native coloring:

Photo at far right is raw from the camera, without editing.


Photo at far right is raw from the camera, without editing.

Yet I am not trying to get rid of all of the reflected color. I want to convey my experience of these items, as they were in that environment. The neutral background photos may be more 'scientifically' correct, yet my photos look more poetically correct. Curators and museum installation people need to be aware of this effect, in order to enhance our experience.

That is normal 'context based' color experience, for everything around us is absorbing reflective color from nearby objects. For instance, you've heard of the eyes that look blue or green, depending on what the person is wearing. But the context can go beyond the normal, to become strange and illusionary. I learned from the _Philosophy of Mind_ course of an intriguing website featuring all sorts of illusions. The following illusion had me boggled. I did not believe the color of the axis point link was the same, nor the angles all ninety degrees:


This is from a screen capture... (Actually, a screen capture of a screen capture)
...as is this 'mask revealed'.

I didn't believe them. Those two center links couldn't be the same color. So with that screen capture sitting in Photoshop, I took the color dipper and tapped each of them. The device to the right shows the Photoshop tool, with the dipped results.... THE SAME!

Even though I 'know' they're both gray, one still looks blue and one still looks yellow.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

"Portrait of Worried Man"
6:34am

I was at work, reading of Bernini's amazingly emotional and life embued portraiture in stone, and I knew it wouldn't be long before I'd be seeking out interesing faces to draw. I readily found one, in Kirill Bashkirov's capture of Nikolai Demidenko:

Thursday, October 9, 2008

"This Happy Dwelling"
5:55am

What radiant dress
with which I am clothed!
The beggar-man cannot know,
the rich wonder where to buy it,
but its price is not with money.

I have gained it, have earned it
through application of time,
spirit-coin in a process of becoming.

Treasures surround me,
but the eyes which see them
are the greatest treasure.

I value my fine shiny statuary,
my high piles of books,
the many music discs.
Much sadness were I to lose them!

But a scratch line drawing can beautify,
and knowledge remembered is best possessed,
and songs emerge from the heart first.

Say a sweater for the coldness,
and shade for the heat,
the head that rests best has clean conscience for a pillow.

Cool, clear water,
what better drink?
And simple bread can sustain.

Time can be a burden if fears are great.
but time is light if you are not trying to carry
the past and the future.

What cannot be known, don't try to lift it.
What cannot be changed, leave it be!

The radiant changeling can be you,
your thoughts,
and your loves.

Love your thoughts,
and your mind is a paradise.
This happy dwelling, we are home anywhere.

Home anywhere,
comfort won with pride,
the best victory, inside!

JAL, 10-9-08

(Printable version available)

Sunday, October 12, 2008

"A Satisfying Weekend"
6:49pm

All weekend, I have been hard at work on the Brooklyn Museum gallery. I did not check my usual web-stops, I just worked on the gallery. We did take time out to see _The Duchess_ (very good!), eat at _Chretins_, (chili rellenos and flan), and today we took a long walk. I didn't think the West Wetlands park would be so good for a walk, but it had been a while since we'd been there. Quite a few changes have happened in our absence. They've increased the walking paths greatly. We walked from 12th Avenue and Water street to 22nd Avenue and Water street! The air was cool, the breeze a perfect lightness. On the path we passed a huge tall statue of a man with a gun. It is a memorial to a long trek some Mormans made. I think the sculptor is a descendent of one of the trekkers.

Memory of the statues info plaques rather weak, I did a little research which reveals the statue honors the West Mormon Battalion that traveled through Yuma 160 years ago. Six hundred of them made a grueling march from Council Bluffs, Iowa to San Diego, California. The statue of Philemon Merrill was done by R.C. Merrill, who "said Philemon Merrill is his great-great-grand uncle".

It's a fine statue, full of vitality, and his shirt has nice draping, as fabric would naturally hang.

I didn't take a camera, so I have no photo. But maybe that's why a roadrunner bird approached very near to us. He was so cute with his tail that bobbed up and down and his head, with its spiky 'hair' also bobbed up and down.

Julia was so right to encourage the walk. We both felt refreshed and energized. I was so energized, I got back into that gallery work. I can happily report, IT IS DONE!. I'm very pleased with it, this treasure to revisit the museum, and for others as well, to see it through my eyes.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008 A

"A Quick Drawing"
6:34am

This is a quick drawing I did last Friday, but did not take time to scan:

When I get a couple of projects done, I will return to drawing with a vengence!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008 B

"A Few Small Synchronicities and a Border Test"
7:47pm

I was reading about synchronicity just before I left for work, so I was in a frame of mind to note them. They're rather small, but they still amuse me.

1. As I checked old journal entries to pick up the Halloween deco, I scanned past an entry nearly a year ago speaking of the 'bird lady' at the Brooklyn Museum. Did I suspect then I'd be seeing her in person? I left a 'note from the future' there.
2. As I put my lunch in the refrigerator at work, I noted the orange carrots matched the orange of my blouse.
3. The 'How can I breathe with no air?' song came on just as I noted, 'whew, it's getting warm, time to turn on the ceiling fans.'
4. The radio DJ announced "Today is national chocolate covered..." just as ("Ooh, I'm chewing on a chocolate covered...") "...INSECT day!" ((I'm so glad THAT wasn't entirely synchronous, for I was chewing on a chocolate covered almond!)

And now for my border test. While looking for an illo with Anubis bending over a mummy, I got distracted by other items in the Dover Egyptian clip art CD. I found one interesting item and tweaked it a bit. Not sure where I'll use it yet, though.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

"Water Bearer"
10:12pm


(To illustrate
Parable of the Pots)

Thursday, October 16, 2008

"Thoughts on this Day of Setian Festival"
5:27am

On this the day of the Setian festival 'Slaying of Osirus', conversely known as 'Planting of Seed ("Babeh/Phaophi")', and now discovered as Khebes-Ta, 'Hacking up of the Earth,' (via Webb, Gadalla and Assmann), I wake early with thoughts.

How synchronous that 'Hacking up of the Earth', as giant earth hackers were tearing up the ground nearby at work yesterday. How their work shook even the walls of the building! Of course, their efforts were not for agricultural reasons, but to remake the asphalt in the parking lot. Still, a synchroncity is a synchronicity. Not only that, when I left for work this morning the ripe smell of non petrol based fertilizer greeted my nose. The apartment groundsmen are planting the seed of future grass!

Yes, everything comes together! Osiris dies that he might be reborn. It's a nice mythology for end-of-life hopes. But there are other applications. The Setian understands that it is the release of stasis in one's life. Old habits which do not serve us are 'buried' that we might be transformed as better, stronger people. Can it be the Christian concept of being 'born again' derives ultimately from the Osirian drama? Anything that comes to an end in our lives, especially if it was something that was enjoyed, there's a sense of mourning its loss.

If we do not deal well with change, it's hard to come to terms with it. Yet these are the necessary cycles of life. Neheh is an unending futurity of cyclical time. Those of us who seek Xeper, to spiral forwards into increasingly refined versions of ourselves know change is necessary. But change is not easy. Those that seek the path of forgetfulness, to numb themselves to their regrets do not understand the transformative capacities. But they are not the awakened. They do not understand that consciousness is all, or they would not be so apt to dull it.

The awakened, however, embrace loss and regret, knowing this embrace is the only way to overcome the difficulties. Those people who I have lost, who have died, I release them to Neheh, to the future. A part of them remains with me in my memories, and thus they still live that way. I release my regrets. I cannot change the past, and what I did then. However today is mine, I choose my actions today. I release those habits whose effects cause regret.

I will spiral forward, I am not a 'finished being', of "immutable permanence". Herein is every hope.

(Note from October 19, 2008)

Four days later, those planted seeds are sprouting!

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