Selina Trieff

Angelique, thanks so much for the link. Now I like Thieff even more. I hadn't seen the animals before (only two sheep) and think they are beautiful designs. All the faces of her characters look alike, but that seems to be part of her message, somehow. The gold leaf is the only time I've have ever appreciated this "device." Her TASTE is exquisite (so far that is my bottom line regarding this painter). I do not see (and this may reflect my limitations) much depth in her "message." But I could swim in the sensuality of her forms, shapes, compositions (design in general) for hours. But I do see the points made by Osso and Florence. It's just that they do not detract from my aesthetic appreciation of Thieff, even if they should.
I took a design class with a designer (of furniture primarily), William Moore, at Chouinard's in the fifties, and I can see in Thieff's work how much that class influenced my taste, even though my painting fails to reflect it so far..

Vive la difference! (or however you spell that...)

Your very welcome. Here are a couple more links.

http://www.artnet.com/artist/16803/selina-trieff.html

http://www.vineyardvideo.org/livesinart.shtml



Enjoy

Yes, that was the one I was talking about liking a lot right away, and then not so much later after I'd seen more of the faces.

I find it best (don't ask me why yet) to look for what is good in the work of others than their failings. Not to be too Polyannish, faults will do their negative work for me; my task, as a creative observer of art is to, at the very least, "salvage" that which is of value in it. And I do this for my enjoyment, not out of some spirit of generosity. The biggest negative response I can have to the art of another is indifference, a lack of aesthetic excitement. Put another way--and I don't want to overstate this principle because I do not always live by it--"faults" are nothing compared to the lack of virtues.

Sorry, folks. I did not mean to sound so self-righteous. I realize that your criticisms of Trieff's works are advanced as technical offerings, which I appreciate and from which I learn.

JL, knowing your long intimate attention to art I doubt any of us are more advanced than you are.

Maybe some of us are crabbier people, I say, waving my hand. I like to figure why I like something and also why I don't. Perhaps some of that comes from my time in the land design world and land arch schooling, where you had better learn to talk about all the pros and cons as it is part of classroom discussion early and you sink or swim. and part of presentation to clients and city design review meetings, which can get quite hair raising for the presenter. (Well, that brings up other issues, such as the need to please codes, give solutions, and please clients, and your own mind.)

I don't like to impose my view on others, try to listen to their criteria, and if they are paying me for it, definitely try to express my own because they may not have considered this and that, and then follows a back and forth. If we end up entirely back at the client's first thought, I work that out for them.
But... I always try to figure out my own views, first reaction and later ones, it's almost a cycle or a spiral, that happens when I walk through spaces. Or maybe I am just not too swift, but for me it is a process.

Sooo, that being the case, I don't stop the process for a thread about a painter.

In art, I am not schooled other than studio classes, and my comments are all on a continuum of talking to myself over time about what I see, or talking to myself about what I might have read. Highly suspect even to me.

I see I express antipathy or at least discomfort more readily, but I'll take it back fast if somehow I snap to.

I am concerned lest someone be hurt, but that is part of the thing of putting yourself and your work out there, the push pull. And, as we all know, popularity is not a quality control.

Osso, I share your attitude, at least essentially. To me the process of criticism is mysterious. A professional must make decisisons, it seems, that are technically "objective" or at least convincing for others. I must try to be honest in the face of my fear of offending others. And sometimes I do not really know why I like something; it just has to do with my personal aesthetic drives, and who knows where they they come from? Most of my justifications are little more than "rationalizations." I just hope that they have some public value, beyond my scale of private values.

I'm listening to your appreciations, they are making me question my own 'dumps'. All to the good.

My husband of yore used to change his work on the basis of others' comments and my urging him to appreciate his own work didn't balance the weight of someone criticizing. He was and is very good, and each time he rewrote some life left the work - not the second write, sometimes that was even better, but the third and fourth tweak and then yet another rewrite.
I'm not backstabbing - he is a good writer today, if not known - but let's say I've seen the destructiveness of a simple comment. And let's face it, people presented with something to comment on have a tendency to figure out something to say, and often a need to be in a superior position.

tis all tricky.

Also, against myself I'll note that when I criticize it tends to be about facility, easiness. Why that is a burr for me, I don't know. But people who work up an oevre of sorts, which is how you tend to get shown... can by exploring the subset of interest, be found facile, when they are putting figuration in space at x number of places.

And the heart of it may be that I am not facile since I am not particularly ept. I can pay attention and letter near perfectly but my natural handwriting is abominable. I do lineweighted drafting well measured, even at times creative, but ploddingly arrived at, in contrast to an old boss whose hand eye coordination was from the gods. He always drew to exact scale, it just flew from his hands.*

Nori Hashibe, a mentor, the fellow who taught me elements of design, prefers, or said he prefers, the less facile, in that with the stumbling people find aspects of real. (Or something like that). There are always the people in class that render well right away. Not the key to anything and everything. (We've done student reviews together, twenty years after he was my first design teacher).

*That particular facile drafter was also good at design. But - it doesn't always follow, hand eye coordination and thoughtfulness.

This post has been about landscape design but there is a fair relation between that and painting and other arts.

I like very much, perhaps because I find comfort in, the assertion by the GREAT painter, Diebenkorn, that he preferred that his paintings emerge with difficulty. In art classes my initial efforts are almost always unsatisfactory. But they eventually, after much difficulty (and months after the art course has ended) turn out to be more or less satisfactory.

You're right, Osso. Criticism of the work others "tis tricky.".

Well, you and I agree wholeheartedly on Diebenkorn.

Part of the thing where I did my landarch classes was that, once past the intro class, and, let me not quote because that day may be past, the first baby design class, because they need students re money but also how can you tell then, so soon. Fairly soon into it, at least when I was there, it got tough. People limped away with D's in the first few exercises, no niceyness. And not just a few people. [although now, from here, I know it isn't all on aesthetics at all; it is, can you follow simple directions]. Shape up or ship out, seemingly. I had one of those d's once. Sent me out of my tree. Had more of the only person with A pieces. Was that a value of my own creativity? I don't think so... it might have been that I zoned in fast on how to please a teacher, a matter that kept changing. But in that, I learned to open up more of my own whatthehell creativity.

I see I am going on and on here, would be interested to hear from those with recent studio classes in various situations.

Ah, heck. I wish Florence would come here and blow me away with a simple sentence or two. She is so smart... I miss her.

Osso, we agree again. She's tough but generous, sensitive and honest--not to mention knowledgeable and talented. But at present she is disagreeing with me passionately. That heralds a new stage in our relationship.

Tell her to get herself over here, we need her and miss her.

True, some don't know her yet, but she's a bundle of hotwire and lovely too.

Selina TRieff and finding my way back
After two days of trying, I finally klutzed my way back into acceptance on Able2Know...thanking JLNobody for the nudge.
To introduce myself....I am Florence Walton, Pensaforte, and now Goodstein-Shapiro, which is the name under which I paint.
So, hi JLNobody, ossobucco, she paints, miklos, vivien,and that guy with the nationalistic walleye fish museum in Wisconsin (I have some appreciation for that image, residing in neighboring Minnesota, and knowing that only Walleye and screw the infidels are the only items in the nationalistic vocabulary that can possibly compete with God and Country).
It DOES force a chuckle from the throat, however...and there isn't that much architecture around so effective in doing that.
To the main subject....Selina Trieff...ouch....her main quality, she covers the 2 dimensional surface with brush, paint, images, and may be thus defined as a painter.
But, woefully...her stuff is very flat, and in flat painting, a 20th century
phenomenon given top billing by young Stella, there is no room for "life" or "soul", which means even in the freezer her stuff becomes quite stale.
JL Nobody mentioned Klimt to me with regard to where she may fall. Well, she certainly does fall (Klimt along with her).
I also found fault with the structure of her figures. It is not because they are not more abstract...but puffed sleeve shoulders and elbows do not make me think that these linear forms will stand for long.
And as Klimt (and Duccio, too - contrast with Giotto) would use gold
to almost completely negate his brilliance of color, So Trieff uses black to take the light out of some lovely hues in her work.
My summation of her work is "mannerist". She postures, but doesn't
struggle to evolve her forms or statements.
ON a positive note: Her charcoal chicken is a treasure; her sheep heads
more interesting.
I do agree with occobucco with much of what she said; she is too kind to be as harsh as I am here.

Well, pensaforte! I forgot that name...

We have missed you, 'tis a complete delight to see you here, especially in this instance of agreement, but also for future times when we might not.

Mannerist, I see that...

Oh, and the chicken, I did like the chicken, forgot about that.

I also thought of mannerism, mainly with respect to Trieff's self-replication. Nevertheless, the flatness of her work, brings to mind a principle of Clement Greenberg, e.g., if a canvas is two-dimensional, why not have the "integrity" to let one's work appear two-dimensional? And I am very fond of the judicious use of black. I've seen it used effectively in Matisse and even once in a Hoffman. I try not to use pure black out of the tube, because of its lack of reflected light. It tends to look dead/dull. But a mixed black can be lively and work beautifully to emphasize positive shapes and colors. I think that is what Trieff does.
And what a delightful surprise to have you come upon us, Florence--like an apparition.
Now we'll benefit from your insight, experience and its forthright expression. I'm so glad that we have finally come to an honest disagreement. I was beginning to think after all these years that I was your shadow.