Max Coffey (MaxKafe)

Max is an explorer, polymath, philosopher, craftsman, artist and teacher.

Growing up on a family farm, Max was a maker, fixer and problem solver. His first college art course was in 1953. The first influences, that he remembers, were artists from the Bauhaus school, and Picasso. As a graduate student, in the 1960s, he explored abstract expressionism, surrealism, minimalism and pop art. Integrity, simplicity, line and space are the things that seem, to him, to be most important. He sees paintings as interesting precious objects that hang on the wall.

A Philosophy of Art

Max’s definition of art is: human expression, with an actor, a medium and a percipient. Initially, the actor is the sole percipient, in a creative feedback loop. The actor begins with an idea, gathers and interacts. The process generates more ideas, gathering and interacting. When the actor exhausts the potentials they perceive, the process ends. The actor may or may not be aware of the many contexts that effect the process. Most art will not have a percipient other than the actor. This does not diminish its value.

Art is not description nor representation of something. The concept of art representing something else, lost its meaning as media technologies evolved. After art is conceptualized and created, it is what it is. It will endure or it will fade away.

Efficiency, or simplicity, is a foundational principle in all the arts.

Art requires conceptual integrity and craftsmanship.

Art succeeds when it has its own intrinsic value.

Art is a synthesis of physical and metaphysical.

Art is a combining of concrete and abstract.

Art is not exclusive. Every person creates.

Linearism

Uncomfortable with, the linear ideologies and systems of western cultures, Max developed the concept of linearism. Linearism is an ideology that holds the primacy of linearity, sacrosanct. He realized that, to evolve in harmony and prosperity, linear concepts and constructs must be embedded in, and constrained by, holistic macro concepts and constructs.

Personal Information

MaxKafe is a pseudonym used by Max Coffey.

  • Max Laverne Coffey

  • Birth date: 24-11-1935

  • Birth place: Family farm, Edgar County, Illinois USA

  • East Donica Rural Elementary School, Coles County, Illinois 1941-1948

  • Kansas Illinois Elementary School 1948-1949

  • Kansas Illinois High School 1949-1953

  • Eastern Illinois University, Charleston Illinois 1953-1954

  • US Air Force, Enlisted Instructor, Aircraft Instrument Repair 1954-1958

  • Eastern Illinois University, Charleston Illinois 1958-1961 Graduated BS Education, Majors: Industrial Arts and Art

  • US Air Force, 1961-1967, Officer, Navigator

  • Eastern Illinois University, Charleston Illinois, 1967-1968, Graduated, MS Education, Major: Art

  • Mesa Arizona Junior High School, Art teacher, 1968-1970

  • Arizona Air National Guard, Officer, Navigator, 1969-1979

  • Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, 1968-1984

  • Mesa Arizona, Westwood High School, Art Teacher 1970-1971

  • USAF Air Command and Staff College, 1973-1974

  • Mohave Community College, Art Teacher, 1974-1978

  • Scottdale High School, Industrial Arts Teacher, 1986-1987

  • Family relocated from Arizona to Oregon, Summer 1987

  • Retired, USAFR, Major, 1995

  • Relocated to Kaiserslautern Germany, 2005


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