A Daybreak Stroll in Dithyrambia

From time to time I will search the webs for anything dithyrambunctious or more properly dithyrambic in style or spirit. One item of dithyrambic curiosity is a screen print of mixed media called, Dithyrambic Aspirations by Bret Pfeifer. This work is housed on the Office of Urban Air conditioning. There are on-going essays by Aaron Jones about what defines success, terra impenetrabilis or surfaces of our paved planet, our relationship with fossils and their fuels, urbanity's siren sell to affluent suburbanites, and predatory neglect in the inner city. His art echoes the themes of his essays although my favorite of his work is "Berber Woman." Speaking of Berber... I just bought a used copy of The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber: Weimar Berlin's Priestess of Depravity (Paperback).

My first question to Bret Pfeifer was about his use of Dithyrambic for the title, and how he defines dithyrambic.

The title 'Dithyrambic Aspirations' comes directly from my own creative process. I seem to have a never ending flow of creative aspirations that remain stagnant due to new more exciting thoughts, ideas, projects. It is as if the creativity feeds on itself in a cyclical process never producing any real product. Once I understood this I began to revel in the process of creativity rather than the final product.

Life is dithyrambic, it is a continuos flow of the unexpected, never ceasing. In this case creativity is dithyrambic, flowing without regard for anything else but the creative process.

When my eyes sank into the piece, Dithyrambic Aspirations, my first impressions that it works visually and feels like a comment about business or urbanity with what looks like high-rises, date stamps of 2008, and what could chemical reactions. I wondered what Bret was trying to accomplish with this piece.

"I am an architect by trade so the building-like forms refer to my 'creative profession'. Architecture is seemingly very creative....but to me, it is one of the creative endeavors that holds back the development of one of my ideas, thoughts or projects. Architecture is one of the only creative processes in which a real tangible product is delivered, although, throughout the 'process' of architecture the original idea is so tainted by the real-world constraints that the creative process removed.

The date stamp refers to the idea actually setting a date and developing one of these ideas into its mature potential. This of course diminishes the importance of the 'process' and places that importance on the product, which kills the creativity.

This piece is partly me as an artist making piece with the fact that creativity and commerce are directly in conflict, to pursue one depreciates the other. I would much rather retain the creative process.

I would like to thank Bret for graciously answering my questions. We will be sure to let you know when his website goes up. I wish him well.