A Man of Many Colors - meet Bill Thierfelder

Photo by CLIFF SATRIANO, "Photo Stories, New York"

This week I continue profiling artist friends with a man whose philosophy and approach to life I admire as a fine example of a Jack of All Trades/Renaissance Man. His passion for contributing to the social good while pursuing a wide spectrum of interests sets a wonderful example for others, so I’m pleased to introduce Bill Thierfelder of Long Island, New York. This week some of Bill’s artwork will be featured at The Gallery at 40 South in Patchogue, NY - opening this Saturday, April 16. 

Bill has a long list of credits, but when I first met him I knew him more as the Professor of English at Dowling College and as a friend of a friend of a friend! Since that time I’ve discovered his many talents and gathered a respect for his philosophy and approach towards life, which finds it equally important to enjoy his artistic pursuits while giving back to the well-being of the community. He does this while maintaining a zest and curiosity for life. Over the years I’ve enjoyed gazing upon his colorful artistic pursuits, read some of his clever science fiction novels, heard him give well-researched lectures on historical figures, and cheered him on as he’s raised money and awareness for local organizations. Bill has continued to utilize his experience in new ways and continually develop himself through time, a key element for all Renaissance Men to embrace.

"Opus 5B" by Bill Thierfelder - January 2011

I put forth a few questions for Bill to answer to give a greater glimpse into this knowledgeable and well-rounded man:

1. How do you describe yourself as an artist?
Eclectic. Art, writing, and motivational speaking form the core of who I am as an artist--with occasional forays into music composition. These are the ways I “speak” to the world around me. (I also listen that way, too. Exploring art, reading, attending lectures, and listening to music all fill up the spiritual well.)

2. What are the main genres you explore as a Jack of All Trades?
Writing, Drawing, and Motivational Speaking.

3. What is your favorite medium to work and why?
In my writing, I love to experiment with narrative possibilities and multiple perspectives--viewing the same set of characters or incidents from multiple angles. Why? Because I feel connected to the idea of perceiving things in multifaceted ways. All this rooted in my study of phenomenology and existentialism. In my art, I enjoy using some of the basic “childhood” tools--crayons, markers, ink pens, and colored pencils. Art was one of my first loves and I continue to use the media I used back then.

4.  How do you organize your time to complete work? Any trade secrets to successfully being a Jack of All Trades?
I work on something when it feels right. Sometimes that’s in the morning, but most times it’s afternoons or evenings. When I create, I need to step away frequently and do other things and then come back, so I might end up working on a lecture for a library, a piece of art, and a short story all on the same day, switching off from one to the other with other things in between. So I guess you could say that I work in “sound bites” of fifteen minutes up to an hour or so before I switch off to something else. Fortunately, I switch gears easily because even though I may stop working on a drawing to head off to work on a story, the piece of art is still percolating in my head. Maybe a good comparison or metaphor might be choral singing. The complete work is really made up of sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses working together to create harmony. So art might be the sopranos, writing the altos, lecturing the tenors, and my other creative “stuff” (like cooking and gardening) the basses. I am the “complete work.” When you ask who I am, I’m those four separate voices working together to make a whole.

"Beethoven Piano Concerto 5" by Bill Thierfelder 2008

5. What and who have been major influences and inspirations for your work?
 I love William Blake who meshed his writing and his art into a unified whole. One worked with the other. My list of favorite writers is endless, depending on the mood. Toni Morrison, Walt Whitman, the English Romantic poets, Emerson, Thoreau, existential writers, and all those grand Canadian ladies: Shields, Atwood, Munro. As for art, my “temple” is the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I can wander the galleries for hours, absorbing everything I see. The American Museum of Natural History and The Metropolitan Opera have also been and remain favorite, important “watering holes.”

6. Do you have a story you would like to share about the circumstances behind any particular work?
 I think all my work--the drawings and the stories--are very much informed by my day-to-day feelings and ideas. I really don’t write or draw anything “autobiographical” in the sense that I re-tell specific incidents. But I use my feelings and ideas as a launching point. A lot of my sense of isolation over the years (some of it self-imposed for self-protection) can be found in the kinds of characters and plot lines I create. My need to organize and synthesize (which is rooted in the emotionally unstable life I endured as a child) can be found in all my art. On the surface, it’s an abstract, seemingly spontaneous and colorful explosion of vivid colors. But if you look carefully, you’ll see that each drawing is really constructed from intricate layers of geometric shapes and or repeated, intricate design “bytes.”

7. What is next for you?
 My work as an artist is getting increasing recognition--I’ve been shown in Manhattan and at two different Long Island galleries in just the first four months of this year. I hope to see that trajectory bloom. I also continue to write stories and keep submitting them; someday “the break” will come. I don’t write for myself; I want to share with others and create a conversation. And I love my motivational work shops called MAKING WINGS: LIVING DELIBERATELY--what better thing to do than to help people see that they are treasure, that they can live meaning-filled lives, and that within them are all the tools they need for spiritual, emotional, and physical contentment.


You can discover more about Bill Thierfelder on his website: http://www.makingwings.net/

And for more of the  photographer Cliff Satriano's "Photo Stories NY": http://photostoriesny.com

"Final Exam: Question Three" by Bill Thierfelder 2009

"Final Exam: Answer Three" by Bill Thierfelder 2009

JACK OF ALL TRADES, MASTER OF NONE… BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

Philippe Halsman. Jean Cocteau, “Jack-of all-trades”, 1948

This week I begin an ongoing and multi-faceted debate over the concept of a Jack of All Trades in the world of art and creativity versus a master/specialist.

First of all, I must admit I loathe that phrase, often because someone is using it to describe me. They think the use of such a platitude will inspire me to spend more time mastering one artistic form, but they’re really just annoying me because they’re missing the point: some people are meant to explore many artistic endeavors!  There’s a lot of evidence to show that being a Jack of All Trades/Renaissance Man is a genetic trait, and our brains are wired to respond to different stimuli. While there is much wisdom and truth in that phrase, because we might not be the best at any one genre, that’s not to say there aren’t wonderful benefits to being a Jack.

Jean Cocteau was an internationally acclaimed avant-garde artist of the Parisian scene probably best known nowadays for his novel "Les Enfants terribles" or his landmark black and white film "Beauty and the Beast" whose design style has been copied in many forms. In addtion to writing and filmmaking, he was also a very accomplished artist, playwright, poet, novelist, designer, and of all things a boxing manager!  A famous photograph of Jean Cocteau by Philippe Halsman even depicts him with 6 arms doing different things called "Jack-of-all-trades." You could say he was quite the Jack.

So was Leonardo da Vinci, with a long list of credits to what he spent his time doing. If he had merely stuck to being a mathematician and engineer, we would have missed out on several of the most iconic artworks of all time. However, it’s interesting to note that while he’s most known for his paintings, he actually only completed a relatively small number! He was constantly trying out new techniques that failed and was a known procrastinator! While he invented all manner of things and made some amazing discovers in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, he failed to publish any of his findings! Still, do people cry out in anger for Leonardo being a Jack? He’s known as the quintessential Renaissance Man, and perhaps that distinction makes all the difference, for he successfully integrated his many skills and disciplines into a mastery of his own that many can admire beyond his lifetime. If he didn’t explore all his various interests and experiment widely, who knows if his works would have achieved the sublime level they are known for.

Leonardo's self-portrait

Now I am by no means elevating myself to the grand level of JC or LdV, but they're indeed men I admire and look up to in my quest to explore and evolve my many interests. I used to be quite proud of my excellent multi-tasking abilities, as if I were some kind of proficient juggler. But there is a lot of evidence now that while it may seem more productive to do more than one thing at once, it actually prevents people from getting things accomplished and at a lesser degree of excellence. Indeed, it can be maddening at times to be a Jack and feel like little progress is being made because everything has been worked on a little, but nothing finished. I want to do so many different things that my goals can seem to shift from one month to the next from a over-stimulation of creative ideas, and as I move on to the next hot project I leave another one behind, incomplete. I recently read a book called “Refuse to Choose” by Barbara Sher that opened my eyes to my situation and outlined some possible strategies that people can use to help maximize their own specific traits. I’m seeing dramatic increases in getting things completed - like my weekly blog!

http://www.barbarasher.com/

One of those techniques that I find most useful, is “The School Day Model.” Remember how you learned things in school? Did you spend an entire day studying math or history? No, you spent about an hour, then the bell rang, and you went on to the next class and next subject. The same principle can apply towards your creativity. Focus intently on one subject, one genre for a period of time, then take a break and go on to another subject. I find that writing for several hours, then shifting towards making art, then business matters, etc., works quite well. Instead of multi-tasking, I focus for short bursts at a time, just as we have learned to do since we were young.

Sher outlines a new way of categorizing people who are interested in a lot of subjects as “Scanners,” or people who like to scan a wide variety of interests. She also presents the strong case that the Cold War had much to do in the demise of the traditional Renaissance Man because the U.S. had a new mission to outrun the Soviets in the Space and Arms Race, which required people becoming specialists. People who became experts in their field have lead to major advancements in science and medicine that we’ve all benefited from. However, in some ways we’ve moved forward a bit too fast in that race, too fast in the constant advance of technology over human and natural rights. Perhaps we need some time to slow down and catch up as a society – for not every advance has been a step forward in the right direction. In the race to succeed, we’ve also burnt through a vast amount of resources and the planet and it’s yet to be seen if we haven’t dug our own graves as a results.

We definitely need Masters to take us farther than we ever thought possible, but we also need the Jacks to hone their abilities and to be encouraged to bring together their various skills to come up with practical, balanced applications. Jacks could be the hybridizers of the world, the ones who bridge the past wisdoms with future advances.

In researching this weeks subject matter, I also discovered that the above phrase was incomplete. The full phrase reads as follows:

“Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one.”

Are we living under some kind of conspiracy where the abbreviation was put in place by the “masters” in order to keep the “Jacks” feeling bad about themselves? Regardless of how we got to this point, the path forward is clear. We need to both width and depth in our exploration in order to map out a clear future. We’ll discuss more of that next week…