Art As Experience

Anchors Aweigh, Oil Painting by Melody Phaneuf, Private Collection
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Josef Albers said that Art is not an object but an experience. It can be both, in the same way that a theatre production might be life altering to some, but to others it’s pleasant entertainment.

My own path from appreciation for the decorative to the realm of aesthetic experience began while viewing murals from Pompeii. Bob Hunter took our group of Vesper George Art School students to see the excavated walls installed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

I recall that the scale of the room was such that the figures on the walls were life size. The subject of the murals depicted the cult of Dionysus. As I walked around the room I was conscious that the scenes seemed to blend into one another seamlessly but it wasn’t until the finale, where the emissary of Dionysus strikes the initiate that I was stunned with awe. It was only then that I understood what being “moved” by a work of art meant. My body swooned under the crack of the switch.

Determination to understand the secret of my experience drew me into many years of studying abstract relationships of imagery. Ultimately, I surmised the cause of my astonishment to be a combination of a building rhythm of arcs coupled with identification to life size figures. The effect was like a tom-tom, which culminated with a final sweeping arc of the lash in the last scene.

It is more than fair to say that the murals of Pompeii transformed my life. Until then I had seen
making art as something enjoyable, but the idea of evoking emotion, of arranging the cause of aesthetic experience became my life’s journey.

Art should at the very least, I think, ameliorate its surroundings. But the greatest art should transport us beyond ordinary experience.

Above, murals from
The Villa of Mysteries, Pompeii

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Boston Artist, Melody Phaneuf is well known for her evocative still life, landscape, and portrait paintings. Her paintings are regularly on view at The Guild of Boston Artists, 162 Newbury Street; at Fenway Studios, Boston by appointment; and North Shore Art in Gloucester from May through October. Phaneuf ‘s paintings have been exhibited at The National Arts Club in New York City, Galerie Herouet in Paris, and with Art du Monde, in Japan.

Melody The Artist Home, founded with photographer and color specialist, Martha DiMeo, features Phaneuf’s original oil paintings on tumbled marble tile murals and beverage coasters, fine art prints, and handmade note cards.

Make Your Life a Work of Art~
Online shopping at MelodyTheArtist.com/shop

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Everything Matters

Young artists often ask me questions about their artwork that are prefaced with “does it matter if…” My first response is “everything matters.” But that is the abbreviated version.

I ascribe to an idea very like the “Broken Windows Theory,” discussed by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point. An epidemic theory of crime, Broken Windows suggests that the impulse to engage in certain behavior initiates in the environment rather than the person and that the festering epidemic can be reversed by tweaking environmental cues.

The link between environment and culture makes perfect sense when you think about the Greece of Plato and Aristotle, the significance of beauty, and the accomplishments of Greek culture. Beauty was the ideal that was studied and applied in every aspect of life. Each proportion was measured. It all mattered. Then ponder the great scientific advances of the Italian Renaissance, born in surroundings of the Medici aesthetic. Beauty mattered.

Our Boston building, Fenway Studios, hosts an annual Open Studios event. Visitors come to see Art and the artists who create it. I love to chat with people who are interested in what we do. One sentiment that was consistently expressed by many who loved the paintings was the wish that they could afford to buy. I thought about the reality of this—that often, living with art is limited to a certain income level, but shouldn’t be.

Believing that everyone deserves to live with beauty, I partnered with color reproduction expert, Martha DiMeo, to begin producing a small line of affordable prints and note cards. Seven years later, we have launched an online store, expanded the number of images available for prints, cards, and bookmarks, and have created a line of botticino marble tile murals and coaster gift sets.

Living surrounded with aesthetic pleasure may seem like a little thing that doesn’t matter. I would argue that it makes your personal world a better, kinder place and you contribute the same to the whole. That matters. We are doing our part to make beauty a component of everyone’s life. Everyone deserves a pleasing environment.

Shown above: Sunflowers of Dordogne Fine Art Coasters
Melody The Artist Home offerings at http://melodytheartist.com/shop

The Bridge, Connection to Paradise

Nowhere else can we find the delight that beauty brings. A life bereft of aesthetic pleasure is unmerciful and dulls the senses. Often surprising and elusive, an encounter with beauty elevates and inspires a gracious attitude.

Imagine my joy when, during a customary walk at Gloucester's Good Harbor Beach, dreamy light revealed such beauty of pattern. The radiant effect of blue sky delicately woven with lemon sun mirrored from the water suggested a timeless threshold. I was struck by the eternal quality of the light, the metaphor of moving water as life’s passage, and the bridge as connection to a paradisiacal world. This epiphany was inspiration for painting The Bridge, Good Harbor.

A lovely tribute to the iconic quality of the image is its popularity. Tile coasters, open edition prints, and cards are sold in Cape Ann gift stores and the Gloucester Museum, as well as our online store. It is a great pleasure to share my experience of beauty with others.

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Artist Melody Phaneuf lives and paints in Gloucester, MA and at Fenway Studios, Boston. Phaneuf is well known for her evocative landscape and still life paintings and has achieved significant acclaim for portraiture. She has exhibited at Galerie Herouet in Paris, The National Arts Club in New York City, and with Art du Monde, a traveling exposition in Japan. Phaneuf’s paintings are regularly displayed at Northshore Arts in Gloucester and The Guild of Boston Artists, Boston, MA.

Melody The Artist Home, founded with photographer and color specialist, Martha DiMeo showcases the artist’s original paintings on tumbled marble tile murals and coasters, fine art prints, and handmade note cards. Online ordering at MelodyTheArtist.com/shop

The Bridge, Good Harbor, 28 x 20 oil painting by Melody Phaneuf is available in fine art prints and tile coasters.

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