Blog: Capturing Movement

“I saw the rainbows in my studio and I danced with them.”

Christine Alfery

When I paint I do not try to reconcile the conflict between chaos and order. I don’t seek to soften the hard edges of disorder and find a harmonious center. I don’t try to make things whole or monochromatic. Life is not that way - we become disillusioned when we try to make it something other than what it really is. Life is a bumpy, playful, and a marvelous ride if we don’t try to make it something it is not. 

When I look outside and see the wind blowing the tops of trees I ask myself - how in the world could I capture that movement, that dance, without destroying its beauty? When I see rainbows shining on the walls of my studio I ask myself - how in the world can I capture that movement, that dance? When I see dragonflies spreading their wings and filling my backyard with delight I ask myself - how in the world can I capture that movement, that dance?

When I create my aim is to honor this movement – the wind, the rainbows, the dragonfly wings - and the differences they bring. Otherness is what makes us all unique. Our unique-ness makes the whole – not a whole where all things fit together like a jig saw puzzle, rather a whole where everything fits because uniqueness and individuality are respected and honored. This whole is the otherness and difference that exists in chaos.

I seek and deeply respect this uniqueness, this individuality. It is the root of independence where freedom exists. Freedom should be unfamiliar and abstracted - like the wind, like the rainbows in my studio, like the wings of a dragonfly. 

This unfamiliarity, this abstraction, connects and expands as I begin a painting. I am extremely comfortable with it - how it moves and struggles and plays during the whole process of creating. I don’t try and catch it, rather like the trees I try to dance with it, move with it. The unfamiliar-ness allows me to explore, it allows me my own struggle. Here my struggle is genuine and what is created here is authentic. I find sheer pleasure and erotic ecstasy in creating when I dance with the wind.

See the cards you have been dealt – play them or fold them when you can’t. Dance, dance with the rainbows and the wind – spread your wings and fly.

“I saw the rainbows in my studio and I danced with them.”

Christine Alfery