Imagine harnessing the energy tourists use to snap pictures on cell phones and putting it, instead, into something more expressive and fully devoid of technology. What am I imagining? Sketching.
Sketching has long been one of the primary ways to capture experiences (right along with diaries and letters). Historically, people sketched from an early age and refined their skills over the years. We know from historical accounts that sketching was a regular part of social events, such as occasions when people gathered for picnics or to hike to a beautiful location. There, many would take out sketch books and record their impressions. They weren’t necessarily trained as artists. Instead, they were engaging in an activity that has been a normal response to adventures in life.
Today, of course, we pull out our cell phones. I’m as guilty as anyone of taking an over-abundance of photos. Where one shot would do, I take four. And unlike some of my wiser colleagues, I don’t go into the camera each night and delete unsuccessful photos. Consequently, I lug thousands of images around on my phone and laptop.
Yet, as the daughter of a photofinisher, I remember all too well when twelve black & white shots on a roll comprised what most people generally had at their disposal to capture a birthday or Christmas. Several rolls usually sufficed for a vacation, even a major one. Not surprisingly, people planned, or at least carefully assessed, each shot. Each one mattered, particularly with the costs of film and developing.
I’ve long wanted to write about working in my parents’ photo shop while growing up. The work I did (running the huge gas dryer for the prints, for example) would hardly be allowed to a twelve-year old today, but it was a great experience, and involved serious responsibility. My inattention or error could mess up multiple orders and cause hours of reprinting, resulting in delays in delivering the finished products back to the pharmacies where people dropped off their film for developing.
But I’ll save that topic for another time, because sketching is on my mind. On this very voyage, one of my co-lecturers, Professor Daniel Jay, Dean of the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University, has delighted us with both his lectures and his sketches. He is a consummate scientist, focusing on neurological discoveries in the field of cancer research. But increasingly, while continuing his career as a scientist and mentor of young researchers, he has given his heart back to an earlier love: art.
Some of his research involves mapping the brain as it absorbs art. In fact, he has constructed a kind of neurological timeline-map of how we respond to two-dimensional art, first analyzing it on our two-dimensional retinas, and then turning it back into a three-dimensional experience.
In addition, he has the heart of an artist. That means, at every possible opportunity as we sail the Rhein-Main-Danube corridor, he finds a corner and sketches. A few days ago, I wanted to alert him to a small exhibit on color and vision that I’d found tucked into one corner of the expansive Melk Abbey Gardens. But he was nowhere to be seen. Later, on the bus, he told me what I should have realized. He’d gone to the far corners of the garden to sketch the impressive outlines of the Abbey.
And so it has been: whether sketching outlines of cathedrals, medieval river-houses with their gabled roofs and half-timbered walls, or stone bridges that have spanned these rivers since the Romans, Dr. Jay is enraptured by the joyful experience of reproducing this beauty and grandeur in his sketchbook.
That is what someone who sketches does. And that is also what each of us snapping away with our cell phones is trying to do. We snap and snap, thinking that a move a few inches left or right or a shift from horizontal or vertical, will capture what beguiles us.
And while some fine photos do result, due in part to the amazing technology built into today’s cell phones and cameras, some travelers would admit that the process of taking so many photos sometimes causes us to see far less.
It’s true, isn’t it? We are too busy snapping away to stop and take things in. Recently, on a trip through the Swiss Alps, our group took the Cog Wheel Railway to the Jungfraujoch (11,371 feet). This open-air choo-choo climbs almost straight up, metal wheels latched by cogs into a cogged track. The sound it makes climbing is deafening. The engine runs off steam, so you can imagine the big plumes of steam flying across the sky as we go up, up, up.
On the way up, none of us could refrain from taking almost continuous pictures. Each turn of the bend brought a new, startling drop. Each opening valley glistened far below with another gorgeous lake. We inched closer and closer to imposing glaciers. And even that high, a certain number of trekkers were going right along with us at the side of the tracks, alpine gear in tow, and smiles on their faces. It was, without question, straight out of a movie.
Hours later, on the way down, there was a big change in our behavior. Almost none of us was taking pictures. You could argue we had “taken” them already. But the light was different, the colors were different, so that was not the reason.
What I think happened was this: we had “gotten over” the need to try to capture what we were experiencing. And, instead, we were choosing to experience it.
And that is what a sketcher does. He slows everything down, and tries to experience it through the eyes, mind, heart, and hand. I have no doubt that Dr. Jay, had he been on that trip, would have taken some photos. But he also would have found a way to sketch what he saw, whether from the dazzling heights at the top of Jungfraujoch, or half-way down in the luxuriant vale where a cafe in a rustic chalet provided us lunch.
I want to try to sketch. Dr. Jay has convinced me that virtually any of us is able to do it, as long as we make a steady, if not concerted, effort. Since I’m not sure where to start, I will take his advice, namely: “just start.” Isn’t that the key to any new venture?
My guess is some of you have trodden this path already, and perhaps will share your experiences seeing and recording your world through this new-old method. Like most time-honored traditions, it beckons us with a welcoming smile.
