I love finding books in thrift stores. I found a treasure orginally published in 1974 (2nd printing 1990), Leonardo da Vinci’s Advice to Artists, edited and annotated by Emery Kelen.
Da Vinci’s advice to artists : Nature
Leonardo writes:
“Consult Nature in everything and write it all down. Whoever thinks he can remember the infinite teachings of Nature flatters himself. Memory is not that huge.”
I love that. It reminds me of the zen saying “ichigo ichie” meaning every (each) time is the first time. Someone who thinks seeing a sunset or a rose means they’ve seen them all isn’t paying attention. Each sunset, each rose, each moment is unique. That’s what nature teaches me. A lesson I often forget when I hurry through my day but often remember only when I take my camera out. Even in Second Life, when I stop to take a photo, I notice all kinds of things I didn’t notice before. It’s the act of “looking”, of “paying attention” because suddenly I want to isolate what I want to focus on and frame to remember.
Today’s Haiku
I’m using Da Vinci’s word to create my haiku today . Can haiku be a mnemonic device? One can hope.
Consulting Nature
mind its infinite teachings
memory forgets
Artbreeder Haiku
And once again because I’ve been having fun with Artbreeder.com, I am putting the haiku and no image into the collage section’s AI box to see what I get. I had to reroll a few times until I got something I liked.
