“Endeavoring to open eyes, [Josef] Albers created narratives, metaphors, and myths to help his students see what was before them, and that pointed the way to a reality far beyond the facts. Fact: Lines, shapes, and colors are set down on paper. Myth: The lines breath, the shapes dance, the colors sing together. ‘The aim of life,’ Albers wrote, ‘is living creatures. The aim of art is living creations.’ That creations were not creatures made them no less real. The concern of the artist and the poet was not objective reality, but the experience of the reality. To transform fact into myth is to get at how things are experienced. By restoring the miraculous to the real, Albers sought to work magic on his students as well, to refine them — an alchemist turning lead into gold.”
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