Through the window drifts the gurgling sound of a fast flowing river, the air is full of the tart taste of fresh oil paint, and as the sound of distant seagulls echo across the valley, the young child asks his question. “What are you doing Mr Chapman?”
The old gentleman looks over, through the swirling dust-motes in the late summer sunshine, and squints at the little boy as if only just aware of him. “Well my lad. What is a stroke of paint?” The question was long ago, and the lad was me.
The answer forms a quote at the start the book: The Poetry of Liquid Sunshine.
“What is a stroke of paint. It is many things. Different to each one who looks at it.“
George Chapman, Private Conversation. 1976.
“ When someone speaks of ‘interpretation,’ the most likely association is with artistic or literary works. The musician, the literary critic, and the ordinary reader of a poem or novel are all in some immediate sense ‘interpreting’ a collection of marks on a page. One of the fundamental insights of phenomenology is that the activity of interpretation is not limited to such situations, but pervades our everyday life. In coming to an understanding of what it means to think, understand, and act, we need to recognise the role of interpretation. “
Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores. Understanding Computers and Cognition – A New Foundation for Design. 1986..