Seeing Differently: Alyson Shotz and linn meyers

The Phillips Collection engages with local voices by asking community members to write labels in response to works in the collection. Read some here on the blog and also in the galleries of Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century. How do these perspectives help you see differently? What would you write about these artworks? 

Alyson Shotz, Allusion of Gravity, 2005 We have neglected the gift of comprehending things through our senses.—Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception This is an open invitation to experience art and connect with my own experience of seeing and feeling. I let myself go and get lost in this space—in the space that is defined by the piece and the space outside of it. Space defines and shapes everything we do. This sculpture makes me think about how we sense space. I perceive this piece as being very architectural—a form in expansion that defies gravity. I want to live with this form, and I want to live in this form. I want to be able to experience this organic, weightless, and transparent shape every day. I want to rediscover and re-experience what I am feeling now while I sense this form every day. —Vittorio Gallo, PhD, Chief Research Officer of Children’s National Hospital Research and Centennial Community Advisory Group Member   

linn meyers, Untitled, 2014 All Roads Lead to the Source Stand in this drawing’s presence and gaze at this flowy drawing. What does it invoke for you? I can feel the wind shaped by luscious locks of hair; the wind streaming like a diaphanous veil as I stroll through one of DC’s parks. Did you notice that ethereal circle, floating yet anchoring this veil? Did the artist draw each line from this circle to periphery or the other way? Try tracing a single line from the periphery to this circle. If you get lost, take a deep breath and start again from the periphery. Let this be a journey to the source, one breath at a time. —Dr. Aparna Sadananda, Yoga and Meditation Instructor