November 18, 2022 Weekly Musings

Christine Alfery

Posted on November 18 2022

November 18, 2022 Weekly Musings

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Signed Artist Proofs

What is an Artist Proof Print? 

An artist proof print has a connection to limited edition prints. It is commonly known as a copy of the photograph and is not a part of the numbered edition. These prints are used as a test print by the artist and kept for their personal collection. 

Why Buy an artist proof?
Artist proofs tend to be lower cost than originals or giclee prints. However, they are often sought after for their uniqueness. Because they tell the story of an artwork's journey, they are often more meaningful to the artist and those who collect their work. Collectors often feel a closer connection to the artist and their process through proofs, and they are also seen as more valuable due to their scarcity.

An artist's proof is numbered as follows:

 

Click HERE to view selection.

 

Musings:

Process vs Product

Featured image: Poppies and Roses

In your art, are you process or product oriented?  How you answer that question makes a big big difference in what you create.
Process involves you and who you are.
Product involves what others think you are and your need to have them think positively about you.
Process changes, evolves and grows.
Product changes with popularity.
Process involves independence.
Product does not.

Personal Visions

Featured image: Visions Are Like Maps

Visions  personal 
and intimate. 
Visions often can 
be linked to what we sense 
and feel. A vision 
happens before reason jumps 
in and changes where 
vision can play.  Visions can 
give you a personal 
sense of how the world should work

Blow'n With The Wind

Featured image: As The Wind Blows

I think of the Bob Dylan song when I think of creating yourself as a work of art – “The Answer My Friend is Blow’n In The Wind.” In order to be a work of art …. In order to create “you” you need to blow with the wind.

How many years will it be , how many years will it be before you can be yourself – and blow with the wind.

Narrow Path


There can be no new
Growth if we do not remain
Open and vulnerable 
To what is new
Different, fresh, beginning,
Stepping into the
Unknown
Like a flower in a
garden

Transcendent

Featured image: Patchwork Landscape


Transcendent – Beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience.  Existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe.

Is a soul or spirit transcendent? If so, how can it be imagined?  For me the soul, the spirit is something that is a loosely woven tapestry made of fabric, a weaving that has a lot  of gaps. A weaving of the transcendent is not stable. It is unstructured.  I imagine a weaving of clouds moving with the changing wind- not stable, sometimes transparent and sometimes opaque. So yes, I believe the soul or spirit is transcendent.  

Is this kind of transcendent divine like many famous philosophies claim,such as  Kant, Plato and writers like Emerson and Thoreau?  I don’t see it that way. I don’t know why, because their transcendence is based on the idea that romanticism is better than rationalism.  I do like their idea of transcendent being grounded in nature –  but this nature needs to be divine.

How do I imagine the transcendent?   Imagine a haze surrounding yourself, something like a sun dog surrounds the sun  because that implies a glow – a light. I like that imaginary and the weaving of the sun dog with the clouds.  Great tapestry – the soul and spirit of the transcendent – honestly – it is the imagined.

New Works:

 

Poetry, Haikus, Limericks and Musings

Raccoon

Featured image: Raccoon

I enjoy my night critters as much as I enjoy the birds in the morning. I have a trail cam pointed at my ground feeders and the raccoons are just a hoot to watch. Such rascals! I just had to paint one. I might try another. I’m really trying to lighten up my paint on the paper. The body of the raccoon turned out great but I struggled with the face and the paint got thicker there. I guess it might have something to do with my painting freehand.

 

It Is Not Art

Featured image: Peacock

Abstraction : the quality of dealing with ideas rather than events. Freedom from representational qualities in art.

Abstraction, transcends, labels and forms. Abstraction begins naked. It is undressed.  When we can touch the naked work, the blank paper, the white canvas, then we become part of it and it is no longer naked. We, unfortunately, find a need to dress the blank page or canvas,. We label it and it is no longer abstraction, it becomes representational.  The beauty in abstraction is that it allows us to create a unique one-of-a-kind work that can be itself.
My art is that way, when I step away from the work it needs to speak for itself.  That is hard for me with most of my work, because I seem to always want to speak for it because I am so much a part of it. But, if it cannot speak for itself – then I believe it is not art. 

 

Spirit's Power

Featured image: Spirit of the Land
Spirits power and mystery
alone is free if you lovingly
allow it. Transcend dualisms anger
Your light emerges anchored
like sunlight after a rain surrounding you.

 

Outside and Inside

Featured images: Journey of the Blackbird, November Chickadee, Blue Jay II, Dove, Ms Pileated, Chickadee V

There is nothing, nothing, to give unity or continuity to the outside of us.  Outside, you are many things, mother, father, daughter, son, teacher, scientist.  All of us are conditioned and influenced by things from the outside. Genuine action, authentic action is never determined from the outside. Rather,  genuine action rises spontaneously and freely within.  Art allows one to react from within, it is creating.

 

Chickadees for Thanksgiving

Featured image: November Chickadee

Chickadees, bluejays,
doves, blackbirds,
nuthatches,
downy woodpeckers,
pileated
woodpeckers,
rose breasted
woodpeckers,
and flickers
come to the feeders
in the morning. The squirrels
foxes  are there too -
Today, Thanksgiving Day
they all
come home to for
Thanksgiving.
The table
is filled with
berries, fruits, nuts, seeds,
and corn.
All things natural.
all things beautiful
all things yes.

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