Paradox

Betty Edwards writes in From Drawing on the Artist Within:
"...drawing and creativity are both replete with paradox...One always feels that the next drawing will reveal what one searches for, and the next, and the next. Another paradox is that by looking outward and seeing the world around you in the artist's mode of seeing, you gain insight into yourself. Conversely, by looking inward to find the artist within, you gain insight into the world outside yourself."

My dictionary defines the word paradox as "A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true". It strikes me that a drawing or painting is a natural paradox.

From my notes written two years ago while reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: "The left brain side denies God and sees the contradictions that have no resolution. The right brain side desires God, and sees him as the only possibility acceptable and ignores the contradictions, or even accepts them as necessary!
When we stare at something for a long time, like a sign with the word STOP or some other word, eventually the word becomes strange. We see the letters and their shapes, and the word loses its meaning, and becomes a thing, no longer a sign pointing to something else. That strange phenomenom I can now explain as the R-mode taking over from the L-mode."

Whether the R-mode and L-mode exist or not doesn't matter so much, as being able to accept life with contradictions. Being an artist means living with and creating paradox.