For an artist, vision is essential. In my younger years, I took my vision for granted. Now in my 70’s, I can no longer count on my eyes to provide the vision I want.
Over my life I have had difficulties with my eyesight.
Nearsightedness (Myopia)
My first encounter with eye failure was at school in grade 2 . I was unaware that I was very near-sighted. The world was a fog beyond 10 feet. When I got my first pair of glasses, I was so surprised that I could actually see the words in the blackboard that were previously just blurry shapes. Over the years my daily life depended on my glasses. I relied on them for sports, reading, driving, traveling, and became part of my identity.
The nearsightedness was occasionally useful as an artist. In a complex visual scene like a forest or city, the complexity simplified to a blur of blended colours without my glasses.
The scene on the left is an actual scene, and the right image is what I would see without glasses. Sometimes I did paint without glasses. This created a new problem- being able to see my canvas, paints and brush with enough clarity to paint. In retrospect it may have been better to paint without actually seeing where the brush marks were placed such that the painting could be more loose and spontaneous.
I have heard theories that the French Impressionists painted the way they did because they suffered from poor eyesight, and they painted what they saw. I doubt if that were true, but I can understand that imperfect vision may offer unexpected benefits or opportunities.
Later in life I developed cataracts which literally clouds one’s vision. I feel fortunate to live at a time when modern surgery makes lens implants an easy and affordable removal of cataracts. A wonderful side benefit of cataract surgery is that my vision had been corrected back to 20/20. I have found not needing glasses or contact lens to see well outdoors to be amazing and life changing.
Blind Spots (Glaucoma)
I discovered in my forties that the so called ‘blind spot’ in my eyes was abnormal. Indeed the usually small blind spot in both eyes (where the optic nerve attaches to the eye) were much much bigger than they should be. I suffer from glaucoma, whereby damage to the optic nerve creates blindspots in the retina that cannot be recovered once they are lost. As a consequence I have lost vision in the peripheral regions of my eye. These blind areas differ for each eye. The brain does a magnificent job to assemble a complete picture of the scene based on what the eyes provide.
Unfortunately it cannot provide information to the scene where nothing is available. This is particularly noticeable when the brain is providing a 3 dimensional display of the scene before my eyes. There are both blind spots where the blank areas of each eye overlap, and missing 3 dimensionality in areas where only one eye sees. When an object is moving across my field of view it can disappear for a moment and its location in space can be lost.
The greatest frustation is playing sports like badminton or pickleball where I have to track the bird or ball. Inevitably the ball disappears into a blind spot or its position becomes confusing and my racquet swishes by in the wrong place. Difficulty seeing small objects with my peripheral vision requires doing more scanning back and forth with my eyes to compensate. My eyes tire quickly when I encounter a visually stimulationg situation.
So far I have not found a benefit from glaucoma. Knowing I have glaucoma makes me appreciate the vision I have rather than regret the vision I am missing. I also appreciate the value of peripheral vision in the act of seeing, and consequently have created paintings that emphasize the value of seeing scenes on our periphery. I am also more appreciative of calmer visual scenes.
