Alan has been thinking a lot about
negative space. It started when he got a phone call from Bill Donius, the
former Bank CEO who wrote a book called Thought Revolution:Unlock
your Inner Genius. Bill was talking to him about the right brain/left
brain thing. The two met on a flight back from Cleveland quite by chance. Alan
was in Cleveland on a media tour and Bill was in meeting with Changing Lives
Press (which happens to be located at 50 Public Square).
That led Alan to his checking
out Drawing on the Right Hand Side of the Brain (writtern by Betty
Edwards) from the HQ branch of the West County library. He was struck by
her discussion of negative space using the cartoon image of Bugs Bunny
speeding along and running through a door. What you’ll see in the cartoon, she
says, is a door with a bunny shaped hole in it. Negative space, is the space
around the object, in this case Bugs Bunny.
Negative space is a
compositional tool used by artists. It is the space where other things are not
present. Leonardo's The Last Supper for example.
The negative space between Jesus (in the middle of the painting) and
the person immediately to his right is causing a V-shaped negative space. (Some
speculate that space is hiding secrets.) M.C. Escher, Bridget Riley, Victor
Vasserely and Op artists often use negative space in intriguing ways in which
we are left wondering what, exactly, is negative and what is positive.
Incidentally, negative space is no "negative" connotation. It's
actually a wonderful, if often neglected, design element. Properly used, as
with Henry Moore's sculptures, or Zen brush paintings, or even your basic
Rorschach test ink blots, it is just as important as what is there.
Aha! Thinks Alan. An aha moment.
This negative space concept is a good thing. A failure orientation, is
similarly, about focusing on those things outside of your own control. Donius
wants me to buy into the inner genius idea but I need people to see their
negative space as the opportunity. Once you understand what surrounds you, you
begin to understand what must change. In some ways this is a more painful
process since it focuses outwardly instead of so much focus on trying to change
oneself. You can’t give 110%. What you can do is change things in your
environment. You can get the right people on the bus and make sure they
are sitting in the right friggin’ seats if you are working your
negative space. That is it! Aha!
Alan Edgewater is feverishly writing
notes about the negative space thing on a yellow legal pad. (Even as he wonders
for just a moment why lawyers need 14” as he’s never seen a lawyer write
anything the full length of such a sheet. That includes his pal Caster.)
Negative space. Get an artist to
demonstrate this with sculpture from clay or block of ice or painting. Get
examples of good use of negative space. Op artists, M.C. Escher, Victor
Vasserely, Zen, Rorschach, Japanese Gardens, Matisse cut outs…
Alan goes on to fill several pages
of stream of consciousness thinking. It’s late and he puts the pad aside with a
plan to review it in the morning. He feels good about the direction, even
wondering if his next book could be Negative Space.
Would a book about negative space be nontraditional in its design? Ask Bluestone what he thinks. Would the cover be one of those images that tricks your eye into seeing a vase at first glance and facial profiles at another look? Does such a book read left to right? Front to back? Die cuts? Orgami. Cut Paper? Is there anything in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers that help illustrate this negative space?
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