Reflection
The next day, Achenbach held a workshop aptly titled "Painting with Lew" which I got the opportunity to attend. Creating art to live music being something he does often for a living, Achenbach shared a lot about his goals in doing so and his process when going about this. He discussed his motivations, saying that the creation of his art is his way of showing physically what the music does for him and share that feeling with others. We then got to work on our own live paintings while listening to improvised music and creative guidance from Achenbach. He explains that part of what he is doing while listening to the music is just reactionary, what he hears can almost be visual to him and that he can pretend to "see" the music in the air as shapes and lines and colors and he is merely just transferring that to the canvas. But he also described one technique he likes to use is first putting down "a layer of music" with the paint. He can then pretend that what he is creating is controlling what the musicians are doing. In a way, he feels like he can kind of sense where the music is going and so in that way he's interacting with the musicians through the art.
This is the piece I created while at this workshop:
I think it is wonderful that you were able to focus on the music intently while creating your art. To follow the rhythm of the music with your mind and using your hand to express what that rhythm feels like to you is amazing. The color in your piece suggests that the temperature of the music didd not stay the same through the experience, and that you were constantly changing color and trying new things as the session progressed. Super cool!
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