Fight or Flight As I mentioned yesterday, one of my ideas for my contradictory abstraction is that they are all part of the fight or flight response. The fight or flight response is an automatic physiological reaction to an event that is perceived as stressful or frightening. The perception of threat activates the sympathetic nervousContinue reading “Poetry Month Challenges Day 2: A Surreal B-Movie”
Category Archives: abstractions
Poetry Month Challenges Day 1: Aggression and Apathy
Welcome to the first day of National Poetry Month! April is a busy month here at Experience Writing. There’s a lot to experience: the cherry plum trees are covered in their happy pink and white blossoms; daffodils bow their frilly heads in the flowerbeds; and I enjoy combining the daily writing challenges of blogging AContinue reading “Poetry Month Challenges Day 1: Aggression and Apathy”
Point, Line, and a Code of Emotion
This week I finished reading Point and Line to Plane by Wassily Kandinsky. Though it’s a confusing read at times, he has many interesting ideas about how the elements of abstract art interact with the world to express and create emotion. Last week I gave his great example of the point as silence. Moving theContinue reading “Point, Line, and a Code of Emotion”
Kandinsky and the Inner Tensions of the Point
I’ve reached an interesting and complicated point in my study. I want to create images that express contradictory abstract nouns and evoke emotion. But how will I photograph those images if everyone has different definitions for abstract nouns and everyone perceives images differently? How do points, lines, and colors on a two-dimensional surface evoke emotionContinue reading “Kandinsky and the Inner Tensions of the Point”
RNLN Attempt 8: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Overview: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf is an intimate look at a philosopher’s wife, her husband, and eight children and their guests at a summer house. The young son wants to take the boat trip to the Lighthouse but the weather is not cooperating and he is very disappointed. The novel is told inContinue reading “RNLN Attempt 8: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf”
Abstraction, Expression, and Sonification
I looked at expression as an abstract noun back at the beginning of my study in April of 2022, and created a facial expression out of wire for my images. But today, I’m exploring “a manifestation of an emotion, feeling, etc., without words” and communication of emotion through art. In Photography and the Art ofContinue reading “Abstraction, Expression, and Sonification”
Reading Novels Like a Novelist Attempt 7: A Widow For One Year by John Irving
Procedural Tips I did it! I finally read A Widow for One Year by John Irving. I finally understand the title that’s been sitting on my shelf for what seems like forever. It took a half a day longer than I thought it would, and it felt like I had run a 10K when IContinue reading “Reading Novels Like a Novelist Attempt 7: A Widow For One Year by John Irving”
Abstract as a Verb
This last week my images were inspired by some things I read in Photography and the Art of Seeing by Freeman Patterson. He says, “The expressive quality of a photograph depends on the photographer’s ability to abstract, that is, to separate the parts from the whole. Abstracting is recognizing both the basic from of somethingContinue reading “Abstract as a Verb”
Reading Novels Like a Novelist Attempt 6: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Now that I’ve explored my process of Reading Novels Like a Novelist (RNLN) for a while, I thought I would combine my RNLN focus post with my Contradictory Abstractions post on Tuesday, but then we had surprise snow and the sun came out, so I took a snow day. Then yesterday was the Heron TreeContinue reading “Reading Novels Like a Novelist Attempt 6: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng”
Contradictory Abstractions: The Dynamic of Action / Reaction
This morning I read, in Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for the Page, Stage, and Screen by Robert McKee, “Every consequential moment in life pivots around a dynamic of action/reaction. In the physical realm, reactions are equal, opposite, and predictable in obedience to Newton’s third law of motion; in the human sphere, the unforeseenContinue reading “Contradictory Abstractions: The Dynamic of Action / Reaction”
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