Tim Lefens Lecture

 

             http://www.artrealization.org/index.html

Last night I was able to attend the Tim Lefens lecture.  I was a little skeptical at first, but I ended up really enjoying what Lefens had to say.  He is the creator of A.R.T. which stands for Artistic Realization Technologies,  wrote the book “Flying Colors” and created the two very valuable techniques used all over the country for special needs people; the laser technique and the point system technique.  During his lecture he spoke about his feelings about art and how people look at art and how they judge it.  Also he spoke about these three theories he had; the death bed theory, the truncated pyramid theory, and the two plateau theory.

 This first theory consisted of if you were locked in a plain, white walled room and only had four hours to live and you knew you were going to die and at the foot of the bed was a big blank wall what would you want to paint there? What would be the last thing you would ever want to see? This really got me thinking about my own personal life and what my family and I have been going through for the past couple of days and reality of death and dying and got me thinking, what would be the last thing I would want to ever see.  When I was fifteen I almost went blind, and being an art lover I was devastated that I was never going to be able to see or make art again.  Thankfully I recovered but it is still in the back of my mind quite often.  His second theory, the truncated pyramid theory, is about how only so many people can be on top of this competitive pyramid and how Andy Warhol tried to bring down the level of art and sliced off the top end of the pyramid and now everyone is equal and on the same playing level.  He also mentioned that Warhol and Duchamp aren’t “good” artists and that their artwork isn’t high art and I kind of agree with this, even though I am a HUGE Warhol fan, sometimes I look at art in a museum and wonder, why is this here? Why is this considered good or exquisite?  The third theory is about having two plateaus with an endless gap in between.  And being an artist you had to jump the gap and try and reach the higher up plateau.  What if you didn’t make it? At least you tried.  Lefens says, “It takes courage to let go and make the leap to the higher plateau.”  This theory means that you have to take chances in your art.  To not always play it safe and to take risks and go beyond what you normally create.  This theory definitely applies to me in my painting classes here at New Paltz.  I have always painted on the ‘safe’ side and never really applied any wild colors to my paintings and being here, I have learned to paint outside of my comfort zone and be more experimental n my color choices and enjoy painting in this new way. 

I also liked what he had to say with being yourself when your painting and not to let anyone judge you.  Also, this letting go of reality and falling into another place and experiencing art with new eyes.  And his secret to finding real art is in this process of letting go and losing yourself and you have to trick yourself to not be in the literal world anymore.  Overall, I really enjoyed myself at this lecture.  It was very interesting to hear his opinions about art making and everything else he had to say.  And I really loved that his message was to be yourself in your art and don’t let anyone else bring you down and if you’re passionate about it then the product will be good.