The Bionic Artist

Now, joining the high-tech stuff that looks like tooth that fills up what were once gleaming pools of mercury and tin and whatnot in my molars, and the patch of nylon and Gore-tex that keeps my innards apart from my outtards (and still hurts once in awhile when I twist this way or that, or when Amalia decides that it is a good thing to jump on me knees first, grrr!), I have joined the ranks of those who use artificial contraptions to view the world with clarity.

My eyesight is really not that bad (my prescription is -0.25 in my right eye and -0.75 in the left), but reading at any distance has been difficult in the last few years. So I bit the bullet and went to the O.D., a nice fellow who explained everything clearly, yea, even as clearly as what I now see.

A friend of mine said, "oh, so now that you can see, are you going to stop that Abstract Expressionism and become a photorealist?"

Har har har. Well, not exactly, but...

I am very excited to draw the clarity that I assumed was naturally lost in distance. When I was walking back from getting my new glasses I passed Oakland's City Hall, a lavishly ornamented (and misproportioned) building. I was stunned with how much more detail I could see in the top of the building. I always could see it, but not quite as clearly. Now that parallel lines are coming back to parallel (it still is a little strange to look at my feet through the spectacles), I am ready to try drawing with the things on.

I am wondering if any of my artist readers got glasses late in life and how it changed (if it did at all) the way they draw or paint. Of course there is the classic gag of giving Monet glasses and having him immediately changing to crisp-focused painting, but I am curious how artists in real life have changed with the addition of spectacles.

Being a bit of a pessimist, my first thought was "ACK! I will never be able to paint again, what with this annoying rim of focus and the little things that hold the glasses on my nose (they look like a fly has perched there, and I must resist slapping myself), not to mention that everything is a bit odd." But now I am adjusting to that, and even find that my peripheral vision is not too horribly ruined.

I have to admit that I am tempted to do some photorealistic sort of things, just because the whole sensation of excruciatingly crisp focus is rather new (not completely new, since I had very good vision as a child - it gradually got worse in high school and college, but not so bad that I could felt compelled to do anything about it for many years) and exciting.