OPTIMUM POSITION/ Part 399 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

If you stand too close to a painting, you see only the broad brush strokes of colour.

If you stand too far back you are unable to see the details.

But at that optimum position you can see enough detail that the composition evokes a Wow!

'Mary's Eyes' closeup

The Director and his team all the way to the social workers who are in regular contact with Paul and Zabeth Bayne are too close to the painting of the Bayne family ordeal and they see only the heavy impaso of the Baynes refusal to acknowledge responsibility for their youngest child's injuries three years ago. They see only the thick application of public exposure. They see their own Ministry overtures as fair and generous and considerate and they view the Baynes as uncooperative. They are so close that they cannot see the nuances of the changing brush strokes over the past three years. They see the Baynes determination, and unwillingness to acquiesce to Ministry pressures.

Mary Polak, Leslie du Toit and all of the associates in Victoria are standing too far away to see the details. They cannot see that the portrait is really not one canvas but a diptych, two canvasses side by side, one showing the distress of a family separated and the other showing the joy at being together. The Victoria viewers have no appreciation for the pathos and expression of this family portrait. They cannot see the pain on the faces or the tears on the cheeks. Nor can they see pleasure on the faces of parents holding their children and happiness on the countenances of the children as they play with one another among the familiar items of home. Nor does Victoria care. And the crew in Victoria stand too far away to see the mistakes that have been making in creating the A side of the diptych while preventing the B side from being realized.

'Mary's Eyes' by Ron Unruh 2010

The premise for the creation of the position of Representative of Children and Youth was that an official should be charged with responsibility to stand at the optimum position in order to view family portraits like that of the Baynes. While the Bayne portrait may not be a classic it nonetheless grabs a viewers attention from across the room and with each step closer it delivers and holds the viewer's attention. We were hoping that the Representative's Office would stand at the optimum position and notice that Side A was not completed and would then conclude that Side A should never have been begun. But that is not the Representative's mandate. We were hoping that the Representative would engage with the idyllic Side B composition and offer an opinion but that is apparently not mandated either. As much as I hate to admit this, this leaves only us, the discerning public to stand at the optimum place to see both the entire composition as well as the strokes that have achieved these results. If we feel strongly about this portrait we will have to invite countless other people to examine it as well, critics, journalists, news networks, politicians, legislators.

I-Phone Brushes Application

I did not hear about this innovation until Robert Genn apprised me in one of his biweekly e-notes.
Genn learned that the recent cover of the New Yorker bore an image that was produced with an iPhone. No it wasn’t a photograph, strictly speaking. It was a photo conversion using a remarkable creation. Jorge Colombo's cover for the June 1, 2009 issue of The New Yorker was composed entirely in the Brushes iPhone app. It’s called New York City-scapes.

Artists like myself may be initially chagrined that anyone can now produce a piece of art on a handheld device without opening a tube, handling a brush or getting dirty. Of course, people have been doing art on Photoshop and comparable programs for some years and the debate has raged as to whether it is to be considered legitimate art.

Here’s the deal with ‘Brushes.’ You can begin working from a blank canvas or an existing photograph. The application features several different brush-stroke sizes (from slim and fine to rough and wide), high-powered zoom capabilities, and a plethora of color and saturation options to produce works of art that are then immediately available as downloads to any location in the world. People are actually buying the art.

Should traditional artists of pastel, graphite, acrylic, oil and watercolour be concerned that their own work will be devalued? That’s my immediate instinctive response. Yet more objective reflection makes me think that our original art will survive as collectors’ preference.

GPS Application

Beyond that conclusion I am struck by the reality that there are far more important aspects of life with which to be occupied. 1 John 3:17-18 - "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."