Aesthetic Realism Consultants Travel, Travel, & Home again!

It's been a whirlwind six months, and grand! First my husband, Aesthetic Realism Consultant Robert Murphy and I went with the award winning film maker and Aesthetic Realism Consultant Ken Kimmelman and his wife, artist, art critic, and Aesthetic Realism Consultant Marcia Rackow (close friends and like ourselves, teachers of Aesthetic Realism) to the Cannes Film Festival, then to Paris, then to Boise, Idaho, and then to Montana. Paris is indeed beautiful!--And so were Cannes and our own so spaceous West.

Ken's new film, "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana," the Nation Prize winning poem by Eli Siegel, the founder of the education Aesthetic Realism, given "stunning" [Howard Zinn 's word] visual form. In festivals--too many to name here--from France to the American West, everyone is praising the poem and the film. We have 6 more festivals in the next month, and "Hot Afternoons" is getting awards at 4 of them.

The way Native Americans are seen by Eli Siegel in the poem and depicted in the film is loved by the Native Americans who've been seeing it. It has that justice to people Aesthetic Realism always has. You can see what I mean in relation of the people of New Guinea at Aesthetic Realism Consultant Dr. Arnold Perey's website. He also writes importantly on Aesthetic Realism and Eli Siegel at www.counteringthelies.com . Robert and I have essays there too.

Other sites I recommend are news articles on many subjects; and essays and articles about education; and one about expression which explains why people can stutter and the fight in everyone really between wanting to say something and not wanting to.

Went last night to a terrific seminar at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation on "Our Own Good Opinion--How Can We Have It?" For years people have been told, "Love yourself; tell yourself you're wonderful, beautiful, special!" But clearly there's a lot of pain because giving ourselves orders about this doesn't work. In the seminar, Carrie Wilson, Karen Van Outryve, and Nancy Huntting (links below) spoke about women now and three women from other centuries so movingly.

The first source quotes showed how women have tried to like themselves, accept themselves, but have not had any clear basis; and even with achievements, can feel awful with another part of themselves. They described their own Aesthetic Realism education and the critical questions they heard from Aesthetic Realism and from Eli Siegel and Ellen Reiss that enabled them to understand 1. what had stopped them from having the self-esteem they so wanted and, 2. how they could get it--through respecting people and things more. The logic really was thrilling in its clarity. The audience was rivited and also parts of the papers were very funny. A good time had by all.

After the seminar, Robert and I went to the Ohio Theatre to see "Innocent" a play based on Edith Wharton's book The House of Mirth (which I wrote about for a seminar in January at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation). It was also moving and the acting of the cast was quite deep. We were in the front row, very close to the stage. The dramatization integrated movement and choreography with the text of EW really beautifully. To see it after this seminar was something because Lily (the heroine) has so many conquests that make her "hateful" to herself. And the thing she most needs, and in an important scene asks for, is criticism, not praise.

As something of a Wharton scholar myself, there were a couple of scenes which I think should have been paced more meditatively, as when Lily says, "What a miserable future you foresee for me" and Selden says, "Well, have you never foreseen it for yourself?" And she replies, "Often and often. But it looks so much worse when you show it to me." Still, the fact Selden has her be truer to herself and how big her gratitude to him is for this was presented really well.

My paper about The House of Mirth is at http://Wharton-aesthetic.blogspot.com


And here are links to two of these Aesthetic Realism consultants websites:

http://www.nancyhuntting.net
http://cwilson.tblog.com

In my profession as an Aesthetic Realism Consultant I’ve had the opportunity to speak to women of all backgrounds and ages. This is my blog, and I look forward to adding to it steadily and telling some of what I’ve seen and experienced teaching the philosophy of Aesthetic Realism to women.

My own study of Aesthetic Realism began with Eli Siegel, its founder. And I'm studying now in classes taught by Ellen Reiss. She's the Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realsim, who Mr. Siegel appointed in 1978. This has centrally included the study of world poetry—an art I’ve loved all my life. And it was in classes with Mr. Siegel that I learned what poetry is, learned to see things, myself, other people, in a way which made it possible for me to write true poetry myself. Here’s my first poem—

Mascara Is So

She brushes black mascara
On her soft lashes,
Framing her eyes.

These eyes, once brittly closing out,
Now welcome more the world.
These eyes, once wetting her cheeks
With hot and salty water,
Now are clearer.

She puts the mascara down,
The framing completed.
These eyes deserve to be framed.
These eyes deserve to be.

My favorite poets are Percy Bysshe Shelley [ www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/ ] , Alexander Pope, Eli Siegel, Edna St.Vincent Millay [ http://www.bartleby.com/people/Millay-E.html ] , and of course there are many more who I’ll write about and link to in the near future.

I also have studied the visual arts, and love to read good criticism of art works and to understand why a work moves me and other people so much. Some I care for and writing about them can be found at links below.

Many of the persons I've taught Aesthetic Realism to have become super successful teachers. See my education link. With all the distress across the country about education, their work is something parents and school districts should know.

Another link below is to the new book, GWE. In a converstation last night with my brother and sister, my brother, who's reading it now, spoke very movingly about the way this novel describes people. He said, "It makes so clear how easy it is for us not to see other people, not to see where they're like us and we're like them." He was really into the characters.

I was looking last night at another new book, this one just published by Orange Angle Press, Aesthetic Realism and the Answer to Racism. It contains articles published all across the country, brought together here under one cover, about the cause of prejudice in people. As a Southerner, it really hits the nail on the head. With racism still exerting it's power and so many people--children--hardly having a chance to be educated and live decently, what's in this book is an emergency.

Other sources

Alice Bernstein, Aesthetic Realism Associate

Donita Ellison, Art Educator and Aesthetic Realism Associate
Lynette Abel, writing on art, economics, love
The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method
A New Perspective for Anthropology: The Aesthetic Realism method
Aesthetic Realism vs. Racism
Aesthetic Realism and Anthropology: Gwe: Young Man of New Guinea
Photography Education: the Aesthetic Realism Viewpoint
Self-Expression and What Interferes: an Aesthetic Realism Discussion
"Is a Person an Aesthetic Situation?" by Eli Siegel, Founder of Aesthetic Realism
Aesthetic Realism Resources
The Terrain Gallery / Aesthetic Realism Foundation
The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known (TRO)