The Right Perspective makes the Impossible Possible

I love art.

Today I visited the Henry Moore Studios and Gardens with my wife and daughter and I could not recommend it more highly.

Henry Moore is best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which can be found all around the world and there are over 20 on display in these gardens. He was fascinated with the human form. In fact his private collection of art reflects his passion to learn and understand the different interpretations of the human form from different cultures from all around the world.

What amazed me were the many different ways in which his sculptures can be “seen” or “viewed.

He was very aware of the different “perspectives” his audience could have when observing his sculptures and purposefully adapted the textures, shapes, angles and size of his sculptures for these reasons.

The scale of some of his sculptures are huge and to most people would seem impossible to even contemplate let alone construct. Yet this was one of the reasons Henry Moore made his sculptures.

“The problems that arise in the manipulation of such materials, problems of mass and volume, of light in relation to form and of volume in relation to space, the problem of continually learning to grasp and understand form more completely in its full spatial reality, all these are problems that interest me as an artist and which I believe I can solve by cutting down, building up or welding together solid three-dimensional materials”. Henry Moore.

Where is this going and why is it relevant? Well Perspective is very powerful.

Perspective is the way you

(i) “see” something depending on your relative position or

(ii) “perceive” something depending your attitude towards something.

Perspective is something you can definitely learn to control and improve which can have some very positive effects on your outlook in life and how you deal with specific situations.

Many of the common thinking traps like anxiety, catastrophising, helplessness and focusing on the negatives happen in your mind because you lose perspective. You get tunnel vision and only focus on the problems.

The first step to better coping in these situations is:

- Firstly recognising when this happens to you, and

- Secondly to start practising some of the techniques which can break you free from these thinking traps, broaden your perspective and give you more confidence to not only cope, but thrive:

- Find ways to foster positive thinking by recalling positive experiences

- Use positive emotions to expand your thinking, ideas and actions

- Find things to be grateful for and express these to others

- Find a way to pause, take some deep breaths and be mindful

- Re-frame what you see and find a better way to see it

- Self-talk, Visualise or plan positive outcomes to potentially stressful situations

- Be aware of your body stance and your peripheral vision

If you want to improve your perspective and would like to better understand how you can use this in a positive way please get in touch.