Creatively Thinking

"The Story"  (Also known as "Trip To The Beach")  Artist Christine Alfery Art and Aesthetics One of the definitions of aesthetics distributed on a video by the J. Paul Getty Museum was the “ah ha” moment.  In the video, there was a classroom instructor who had distributed his teaching materials for the day, which included a glass of water and a small amount of color.  The students were instructed to drop the color in the water and not to speak.  The camera zoomed around to the faces of the students as the color hit the water, the aww was visible on their faces, the fascination held their interest for a long time.  After a couple of minutes, the instructor stated that moment was the aesthetic moment in the arts.  The aesthetic moment is about immediate pleasure and stimulation with the focus being on personal satisfaction, it is a focus on the self.   It is fleeting and not permanent. The aesthetic moment can never r...

"Tightrope"  Artist Christine Alfery Artists stylize reality.  Artists take the metaphysical, something that can never be anything other than  what it is, water is water, flowing water in a creek, trees, trees moving in the wind, sun rising, sun setting are all examples of the metaphysical.  Artists isolate what is important to them and they stress that importance in their work.  Their work is hand-made, their work if it is authentic, stresses the truths, the values the artist hold.  Art can be judged by the authenticity of the artist, the viewer recognizes this authenticity in the work and relates to it in one way or another, positively or negatively. Artists who create work from a subjective state such as I feel, I wish, I believe, these mystical beliefs have nothing for their work to be judged on.  It is impossible, because it is an I feel state and is subjective Should art be judged?  There is really no escape from makin...

"Release Me"  Artist Christine Alfery Acrylic on Canvas - 58x60 Art is a Sense Of Life. Art and aesthetic must be guided by more than emotions and feeling.  Art must be guided by more than, it makes me happy, it makes me feel good.  I say this because if art is just subjective then it has no identity because it can be anything and everything.  For me when I am creating, the goals I attempt to achieve, and they don’t always happen, are to have my work have speak to, relate to my sense of life. Some of the unique, marks I create, that relate to my sense of life and my life experience include, bridges, ropes, ladders, wheels, flying critters, wings and hills as well as smooth and chaotic lines, monochromatic colors, and bold colors. When I step back and look at a finished work I always ask myself, is this work a thing in itself, it is not the same as anything else. Is it unique because I created it, and it is my unique, original style and marks tha...

"All That Jazz"  Artist Christine Alfery                 Is reality nothing more than a narrative? A visual and or linguistic construction that can be controlled and that controls what we say and how we think?  I reality nothing more than words and images?  If reality is nothing more than a visual or linguistic construction than reality is a figment of what we imagine, what we create and what we produce. Reality is then governed, controlled, by and through words and images and how we think, how we know and how we live would then be governed by words and images.                  If this is indeed the case, then those who create and produce are the ones who govern. And the question is no longer what is real but how is what we imagine to be real governed, how are we governed? Historians seem to agree that we are in the process of a change in how th...

"Sunflower"  Artist Christine Alfery A couple of weeks ago I stated that I was again thinking about "what is art?" Tough question and Hedy Mainmann reponded that art is like life. I ask is art really like life? She isn't the only person who has made that statement. It is a simple statement but the complexity of thought behind it has been discussed for many years. If art is life does it imitate life? Just the word imitate causes a problem for me. Without going into huge detail I will just say no imitation - if it is art it is a thing in itself.  Several years ago I wrote a paper on Michel Foucaults statement "Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life." I agree our life can be an art object as Foucault suggests here - but I disagree than just any lamp, or house can be an art object - not just anything can be "art." Many things can imitate art but not many things can be "art." 

"Figuring It Out"  Artist Christine Alfery Watercolor and Acrylic on Paper. Wassily Kandinsky continued. How to Be an Artist, According to Wassily Kandinsky For the past three posts I have been making comments on an ARTSY EDITORIAL BY RACHEL LEBOWITZ JUN 12TH, 2017 7:07 PM. This is post 4 on "How to Be an Artist, According to Wassily Kandinsky." Lesson #4 Inject rhythm into your painting, like a musical score. It makes sense that Kandinsky would link rhythm to his work. His lines and mark making are very gestural. And it makes sense that Kandinsky would say as he did in #1 that art expresses the inner world of the artist, and not artistic trends, and in #2 where he states that an artist should not paint things, but paint in abstract form. Kandinsky was an abstract expressionist.  Again though I return to the concept of the abstraction. A materialist would conclude that the concept of the abstraction or abstract art is a frill, an indulgen...

How to Be an Artist, According to Wassily Kandinsky ARTSY EDITORIAL BY RACHEL LEBOWITZ JUN 12TH, 2017 7:07 PM   Lesson #2. Don’t paint things. Paint in abstract form.                 Don’t paint things, but rather paint in abstract form, the editorial by Rachel Lebonwitz went on to say, “Monet’s now -iconic haystacks were an early influence on Kandinsky, who was struck by his own inability to identify the real world objects that the forms referenced. At first taken aback by this disconnect,” which I must admit I too have been taken aback, “Kandinsky soon embraced its possibilities, eventually insisting upon art that was not only abstracted but entirely non-representational.” And again Rachel Lebonwitz refers to the artists interior world, as if that world was an abstract form, that perhaps is “simplier” or different than the real world. Perhaps more imaginary and "non-repres...