Redtree Times

The Moon’s Secret Garden– Soon at the West End Gallery

“Sometimes since I’ve been in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden – in all the places.”

― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911)

This is the painting that graces the postcard for my upcoming solo show at the West End Gallery that opens next Friday, October 16. It is titled The Moon’s Secret Garden and is 30″ by 40″ on canvas. I am going to miss this piece when it leaves the studio in a couple of days.

It has a feeling of mystery– or maybe I should say mysticism or the magic that Francis Hodgson Burnett described in The Secret Garden— that both rouses my curiosity and soothes me. As though the mystery I am encountering is meant to remain unrevealed. Just simply sensing that mystery and finding a question in it is all the answer I will receive or need.

Sometimes the answer is the question.

This is a painting that I could go on and on about it, but I think I will let it stand as is. It has stories to tell that I don’t know, stories contained in the eyes and minds of others.

I will add that there was another passage from The Secret Garden that I almost chose for the opening here. It speaks of us being part of the mystery that I see in this painting. It’s a lovely description that easily complements this painting.

“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one’s heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun–which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with the millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone’s eyes.”

I know that feeling well, of looking up at the movement of the sky’s light at sunrise or watching sunlight magically shift and glisten through the trees. In those moments, I feel less connected to my physical self that has an expiration date and more in tune with whatever unknown part of me continues on past that date into eternity.

It’s a lovely moment.

Okay, here’s a song that probably has little to do with painting outside its mention of flowers. But then again, it might apply. Who knows? I just wanted to hear it this morning so here it is. This is Cross of Flowers from Jeffrey Foucault.

The Moon’s Secret Garden is part of The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that opens next Friday, October 16. There is an opening reception at the gallery on October 16 that runs from 5-7 PM. Hope you can make it to the gallery so we can chat for a few minutes.

The Natural Life— Coming to West End Gallery

Are we more vitally conscious than an Egyptian 3000 years B.C. was? Are we? Probably we are less. Our conscious range is wide, but shallow as a sheet of paper. We have no depth to our consciousness. A rising thing is a passing thing, says Buddha.

–D.H. Lawrence, Apocalypse (1931)

I wasn’t sure how to write about this new painting, The Natural Life. There are a lot of things in it, obvious strengths, that could send its meaning in a number of directions for anyone viewing it.  My own perception was that it represented the Red Tree as being not only part of the natural world; it was the natural world in itself.

I don’t know that I can fully explain what I mean by that or what I am inferring beyond it.

One analogy would be that there are musicians who play music, often at the highest skill levels. Then there are musicians who are music. Their instincts and understanding of music are part of their being, ingrained in them, so that nothing that is music is alien to them.

The music is them and they are music just as nature is the Red Tree and the Red Tree is nature.

Does that make any sense at all? It’s just after 5 AM and I am sore and tired, so it might just be a jumble of words. I did point out at the beginning that I wasn’t sure how to write about this painting. You were warned.

That thought sort of glides into the passage at the top from D.H. Lawrence’s final book, Apocalypse. The Red Tree, being nature and part of it, has a consciousness of all those things in the natural world that surround it. It deeply understands its purpose, knows how it fits and harmonizes within the natural world.

A harmony of being.

To Lawrence’s words, we were once like the Red Tree, enmeshed in and part of nature. In effect, we were nature.

But over the ages we have become less and less part of nature. Harmony has been lost. Our knowledge of the world has grown exponentially but the average person is less conscious of the natural world around them. It is knowledge without understanding.

I often think that the ancient cultures and even those farmers working small farms in the 1800’s had a greater understanding and consciousness of the surrounding natural world than we do in our time with all its advances in technology and science. Their very existence depended on this knowledge and their ability to find harmony with the land, water, and weather. We, on the other hand, give little thought to the natural world outside of how it sometimes inconveniences us with bad weather that knocks out our cable or internet connections.

This is beginning to sound like an old man rant.

It’s not, say the ranting old man as he stops shaking his fist at the sky. I am disengaged from nature as well, sitting here at 5 AM writing this in front of a glowing computer monitor, listening to streaming music. To be honest, I didn’t even look up at the night sky as I walked over here. Couldn’t tell you if it was clear and starry or cloudy. I can tell you that it was not raining and that I did hear the distant hoot of an owl far into the woods. I don’t think either of those qualifies as a consciousness of my part in the natural world.

Yet I aspire to have that consciousness. To understand my place and purpose in nature. To be nature, even in the smallest of ways, if that’s possible.

In short, it’s that aspirational aspect that this painting represents to me, even if I gave a tortured explanation in getting to this point. The elemental feel in its representation of water, land, and sky make me desirous of finding the sort of harmony I find in its lines, forms, and colors that allow me a glimpse of what once was and what might one day be again.

But then again, that’s just the opinion of the old guy out shaking his fist at the sky.

Not sure if any of this makes sense. Take it for what it’s worth. Here’s song as reward for sticking with me this long today. This is a favorite that I last played here in 2009. Guess I can play it again now without feeling that I am overdoing it. This is People Got a Lotta Nerve from Neko Case. It may or not have anything to do with this post. It’s your call.

 The Natural Life is 18″ by 24″ on canvas and is included in The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that opens Friday, October 16. There is an opening reception at the gallery on October 16 that runs from 5-7 PM. I will be there. Just look for the uncomfortable looking gray-haired guy ranting and shaking his fist.

Totality– Coming to West End Gallery

Everything matters. The Universe is approximately fifteen billion years old, and I swear that in all that time, nothing has ever happened that has not mattered, has not contributed in some way to the totality.

–Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels (1981)

I’ve been contemplating this new painting for weeks now. It raises all sorts of thoughts and questions in my mind. It felt like it has real meaning for me and maybe for others. Maybe that’s pretentious to say something like that. I don’t know. Don’t care, actually.

I had a hard time coming up with a title that expressed what I see in it. I wanted something that pointed towards the depth and richness of it without trivializing it. Maybe I should have simply called it Landscape #17 or something like that.

Nah. That’s not my style.

What I was seeing was a wholeness in it, something that made evident the old maxim from Aristotle that say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In the growth seen in the converging field rows in the foreground along with the setting sun, it has a feeling of beginning and ending.  And in the path leading up to the Red Tree there is evidence of movement and activity while in the Red Tree itself there is a sense of stillness and restful appreciation.

Each element plays its part, contributing in a small but necessary way to this sense of wholeness.

Overall, it feels complete in time and space.

A totality.

Yeah, that sounds just right. Totality. That shall be the title.

It’s one of those paintings that I would be proud to say represented my own totality.

Does it? I have no idea.

It made me wonder about the totality of any one of us and whether we can ever know exactly what that looks like. To ourselves, it most likely looks marvelous. Like me looking at this painting.

Maybe our totality has little to do with our own perception of self or ego. Maybe it comes in realizing that you are somehow part– perhaps small but necessary–of something greater than yourself?

I have no idea. I am probably not supposed to know. I am okay with that.

Maybe our experience of art is the one avenue that allows us a fleeting glimpse our own totality?

Maybe.

I tend to think so. And for me, I am grateful to sense it in this painting.

If that is totality, I am satisfied as I sit here on this Sunday morning in the dark.

Here’s this Sunday’s song. I am not sure it has much to do with today’s subject but then again, maybe it does. It does deal with the totality of one’s life– the joy and pain in our living and dying. This The Great Gig in the Sky from Pink Floyd‘s 1973 classic Dark Side of the Moon. This video is the winning entry in a competition that was held on the album’s 50th anniversary. It was created by Brazilian animator Bruno Mazzilli. I felt myself being pulled into it. Good stuff.

Now, I haven’t said this in a while, but I am tired and sore and have too much to do today to mess around.

That means, in a word, git.

Totality is included in The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that opens Friday, October 16. There is an opening reception at the gallery on October 16 that runs from 5-7 PM. Hope to see you there.

Slow River Blues– Coming to the West End Gallery

People disagreeing on all just about everything, yep
Makes you stop and all wonder why
Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street
Who just couldn’t help but cry

Oh, this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does, I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow

–Bob Dylan, Watching the River Flow (1971)

Another day.

Yep.

Another day filled with staining and sanding frames. Varnishing paintings. Doing little diddly things that seem inconsequential but are absolutely necessary. Maybe even finally putting some paintings in their frames, which means I am making real progress towards completing preparations for my upcoming solo show at the West End Gallery, which opens in a little less than two weeks.

As I described yesterday, this year’s show has been a rough go. Even when I am at the top of my health and fitness, the prep work for my shows is a physical grind. Years ago, I thought about getting some help, maybe hiring a studio assistant who could take on much of the burden of this part of the process so that I could spend more time actually painting.

But as much as I savored the idea of someone here to help me out there was one catch: They would be here.

I knew I could never have someone here in my studio with me, even someone I liked very much. I am a solo act in many ways. Though I have been the recipient of much assistance in my life– for which I am truly grateful– I consider myself fiercely independent. I figure I built about 90% of our home by myself. If a job seemed to require two people, I often figured out how to do it by myself.

After the fall from the ladder which led me to painting, I had already scheduled the septic tank company to come set the tank. I was too busted up to do anything but supervise. A friend came and did the grunt work which killed me. I wanted my hands to be on anything that went into our home.

That same desire has also applied here in the studio. It might be even stronger. I have always turned down any offers of assistance. The idea of having someone here in my studio would drive me crazy. I am even tremendously uncomfortable when people simply come into the studio, even Cheri. She only comes over here once in a great while and only for a moment or so.

As irrational as it sounds– and it does– I need my space to be mine alone. And that applies doubly to my paintings. When they leave the studio, I need to know that I have done everything possible by myself in their creation.

Does that really matter? Probably not. I don’t think anyone outside of me gives a damn and it most likely doesn’t come into play in their assessment of my work.

It’s just something I need to do. I began painting seriously when I realized it was something that could be mine alone, for better or worse.

There are not a lot of things in this world where you can make such a claim.

This doesn’t seem to have much to do with the painting at the top, does it? You might think that, but you would be wrong. I chose this smaller painting, Slow River Blues, today because it represents the ideal situation for me. It is the quiet and calmness that will come after the work for this show is done and delivered to the West End Gallery next week. A relaxing of the mind that allows me to simply sit for a moment and silently watch the river flow by.

In my head, I am already watching the slow flow of that river.

Well, I don’t have a river outside my studio windows. But I do have a pond (that I dug myself) just beyond the trees and if I stand on my tiptoes I can just see its surface.

That will suffice.

Here is a song from Dylan that speaks to this post pretty well. Plus, it has a bluesy rhythm that I hope carries me through the day. This is Watching the River Flow.

A reminder: Slow River Blues is included in The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that opens Friday, October 16. There is an opening reception at the gallery on October 16 that runs from 5-7 PM. Hope to see you there.

Dance Me to the End of Love— Coming to West End Gallery

Oh, let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

— Leonard Cohen, Dance Me to the End of Love (1984)

This week has been a rush of trying to finish up framing and other details for my new work for my upcoming solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that I will deliver at the end of next week. The show itself, The Jubilee Dance, opens the following Friday, October 16. You would probably be surprised at the amount of work that goes into getting paintings ready for a decent sized show. I’ve done 70+ solo shows over the decades, so I often don’t even realize how much actual effort it takes. I just do it.

However, the preparation for this show seems much more difficult than in past years, even in those years when I was rushing right up to the moment I had to begin loading work for delivery. The difference this year comes, of course, from some physical difficulties. I’ve talked about the fatigue from my cancer treatment here that has plagued me in recent months. That certainly has played a part in getting ready for this show.

But worse than that is pain in my ribs that sprung up in the past week. It is in the area where I received radiation. The pain and the limits imposed on my range of motion has made everything harder to accomplish, not to mention that it makes it hard to comfortably sleep for any appreciable amount of time, which only adds to the already present fatigue. Thankfully, large doses of Advil through the day help enough that I can still work at a decent pace. We think it might be a broken rib from the thinning of the bone from both radiation and the effect of my medication. Still waiting for authorization from my insurer for a PET scan.

But stuff is getting done. That’s the main thing.

This morning I got into the studio just after 4 AM and began to work on photography and titles for a few still untitled pieces for the show. One of the small but absolutely necessary details. I had just finished editing the image for the painting at the top, a 15″ by 30″ canvas that has been a favorite of mine since it was painted. It hits every mark for me with its rich color and atmosphere and how everything harmonizes. It sings for me.

I was trying to determine what to title it when a favorite Leonard Cohen song came on. The song was Dance Me to the End of Love. I knew immediately that this was the title for this painting. Maybe it’s just my tiredness, but hearing with that image in front of me made me a bit emotional. This no doubt came from a feeling I got from it while it sat untitled in the studio. It felt to me like it represented a certain dusk or ending of something. The end of the road, the end of time, the end of light or color– something in that vein.

The interesting thing is that this sense of an imminent ending was not sad at all. There is a bit of wistfulness, but the painting as a whole feels joyous to me. It is as though the day is ending, there is great contentment and gratitude for the beauty and love that has been bestowed before the darkness closes in.

The joy that comes in the dance of life.

How could I not borrow that song title for this painting?

I most likely have mentioned here in the past how I used to both title and judge my work in the earlier years. It has probably been a while so I’ll describe it again. back then, I would place the painting on my easel and walk away with my back to it. I would try to pretend that it was not my painting, that it was 50 years in the future and I was stumbling upon this painting in a junk shop or a garage sale. With this in my head, I would then turn and take it in with a quick glance. Was there something in this painting that would draw the attention and captivate this future me? Was there any quality in it that would make it seem like a found treasure to that future me? And with that quick glance, what was the first thing that jumped out at me and made an impression? What feeling did it immediately give?

It sounds dopey, I know. But you’d be surprised how effective it was. Well, I think it was effective. Maybe I am just a bit delusional on that front.

Anyway, it seemed to work.

Don’t know why but I don’t use that process anymore. There are probably a lot of reasons for that but I don’t want to get into them this morning. I have too much to do before today’s first dose of Advil wears off.

Here is Leonard Cohen and Dance Me to the End of Love.

PS- The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that opens two weeks from today, Friday, October 16. There is an opening reception at the gallery on October 16 that runs from 5-7 PM. I will be there come hell or high water, so stop in and we can spend a few minutes chatting.

Hope is the thing...- Coming to West End Gallery

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

–Emily Dickinson, Hope is the thing with feathers (1861)

I have had a proclivity for painting snowy landscape as of late. I wrote and spoke recently about the immersion of the process of painting these pieces, how it focuses my attention and distracts me from the world outside my field of vision. That might well explain why I am drawn to painting these paintings lately, but it might be more than that.

I have simply been in a wintry mood in recent weeks. I don’t know that I can describe what I mean by that. Silent and cooly distant? Pensive, maybe even a little melancholy? In survival mode, just trying to get by?

Maybe. I don’t know. It’s just a feeling for me, one of those for which words often come up short for me.

I struggled to find a title for this new painting that is part of my upcoming West End Gallery show. It’s one of the last paintings completed for the show, a small piece, only 6″ by 8″ on canvas.  it was not large in size but seemed to have much to express. Nothing I came up with for its title seemed to capture the feel that I was taking from it.

I finally got to listen to the title track from the new album from Rhiannon Giddens and knew that it was right for this piece. The song is her musical take on the Emily Dickinson poem, Hope is the thing with feathers, written in the opening months of the Civil War. The words from Dickinson and their delicate yet powerful treatment by Rhiannon hit me pretty hard. And though Dickinson’s bird was a songbird and not a crow or raven, I knew it had to be the title for this little piece.

The caw of the crow and the croak of the raven are music to my ears.

Below is a video of the song from Rhiannon Giddens showing collage artist Uzoma Samuel Anyanwu working on the large portrait of her that graces the new album. Watching his progress is fascinating.

Hope is the thing… is included in The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that opens two weeks from tomorrow, Friday, October 16. There is an opening reception at the gallery on October 16 that runs from 5-7 PM.

Hope– there’s that word again– you can make it.

Give and Take— Coming to the West End Gallery

Blessed are those who can give without remembering, and take without forgetting.

–Elizabeth Bibesco, The Fir and the Palm (1924)

Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1948) was one of those deeply interesting people in the background who populated the early 20th century. I had never heard of Elizabeth Bibesco and I believe most people would not know the name. But in the rich political and literary world of the early 20th century, she was always somehow right there in the background, a kind of Zelig-like figure who always seems to appear in old photos jus over the should of the famous person in the shot, prominent but not widely known.

She grew up living at 10 Downing Street as her father, H.H. Asquith, was the British Prime Minister from 1908 until 1916. Her wedding in 1919 to Romanian royal and diplomat Prince Antoine Bibesco was one of the social events of the year in Britain, attended by the royal family and celebs of the day such as George Bernard Shaw. She was a confidante of Marcel Proust when they were in Paris and in England, she was connected with Virginia Woolf and other members of the Bloomsbury Group. She was also well-known in Washington DC society as her husband served for a time as the Romanian ambassador to the US. She published a number of novels and books of poetry during the 20’s and 30’s. She endured World War II in Romania and died there during the final days of the war in Europe from a bout of pneumonia in 1945. She was only 48.

Like I said, one of those interesting lives, the type that burns brightly for too short a time then fades into the mists of history.

For his post, I am focusing on her aphorism at the top. It very much lines up with what I consider my own belief, that we must be generous with others without keeping score or expecting something in return and that when we do have to take, we do so with great gratitude.

The world works best when there is such a form of give and take, at least in my opinion.

The new painting at the top is titled Give and Take. The blowing tree that I sometimes employ in my work has a number of different meanings for me. Sometimes, it represents resistance and defiance. Sometimes it represents how we are affected by this world and how we attempt to contribute to it. A symbol of giving our all.

Here, I see it as symbol of the balance achieved between our gratitude for all we receive from the natural world and our willingness and need to give of ourselves to others. It’s been on my fireplace for several months now and I am always glimpsing at it and listening to what it has to say to me. It speaks loudly and clearly. I am going to miss it when it heads to the West End Gallery at the end of next week as part of my upcoming solo exhibit there which opens on October 16, two weeks from this  coming Friday.

Here’s a song that deals a different sort of give and take.  It’s deals with what happens when the balance between the necessary give and take of our society goes haywire, when there is too much taking and not enough giving. It shows up in the ever-expanding imbalance of wealth and power between the haves and the have-nots. The balance between those who attempt to hoard everything for themselves and the rest of us, many who struggle mightily just to get by in what is often referred to as the richest country in the world.

There is no shame in the shameless.

This song is from Poor Man’s Poison and is titled Give and Take.

Of course it is.

Night Falls– Coming to the West End Gallery

“That’s the place to get to—nowhere. One wants to wander away from the world’s somewheres, into our own nowhere.”

–D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love (1920)

Our own nowhere, as Lawrence put it, is the basis for much– well, almost all– of my work. Years ago, I gave my nowheres the title of Internal Landscapes. They’re not meant to represent any one place, any of the world’s somewheres.

They are where they are, existing only on their surface and in my mind and that of the viewer.

Actually, they often remind some folks of real places, not so much in the reality of those places but in the remembered feel. I have written and spoken about how many people have said that the paintings remind them of home. This always intrigues me because so many of these people are from a wide and diverse range of homelands.

I am pretty sure it is not the representation of a particular landscape or climate that brings on this feeling of home for them. I think it’s more of a level of comfort that they find in the work, something that establishes a distinct emotional connection reminiscent of their concept of home.

I don’t know why I try to explain such a thing. It’s almost always a fruitless effort.

I should just stay silent here in my nowhere, far removed from the world’s somewheres.

If the paintings want to talk, they are free to do so. That’s on them.

This painting, Night Falls, is one of those nowheres, one I am always pleased to come back to. It satisfies me on many levels which is all I can ask of any piece. It is included in The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that opens on October 16.

I am in the midst of getting everything, including this painting, prepped for the show.  I feel very good about this show and think it will look great on the walls of the West End Gallery. It’s going to be a race to the finish as I have been experiencing some physical glitches in the last couple of days that are slowing me down a bit. But, one way or another, it will get done.

For now, I am reluctantly back in the world of somewheres as I prepare my nowheres for the show.

Here’s a song whose title fits this painting very well. It’s Far From Any Road from The Handsome Family.

There’s nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.

–Carson McCullers, The Sojourner (1950)

Or an unfinished painting.

I was going through old work early this morning trying to find something for a Look Back post for the blog. I found a lot of things that had somehow evaded my attention for many years. I could have well used any of them, but it was this canvas shown above that caught my attention most. It’s not nearly so old as the pieces I would normally show in a Look Back entry but there was something about its unfinished state and the stark whiteness of the unpainted portion that intrigued me.

I don’t remember exactly when it was started. I would guess about 15 or 16 years ago. I also am not positive why my interest in it went astray, leaving it as it is. I suppose I just lost enthusiasm or felt that it was not going to go where I thought it should go.

No doubt it was from an idea of contrivance, those concepts that seem perfect in our minds but lose their spontaneity and organic feel as the painting progresses. These pieces can sometime be rescued and brought back to life.

I obviously didn’t feel like rescuing this one at the time or any other time since. Not that I didn’t think about it. It sat here in the studio, stacked with some other unfinished things on a stone wall behind where I now sit, for many years. I looked at it quite often and thought many times that I should go back into it.

But I never did. Probably never will. For reason, however I would paint the remainder now would probably stick out like a sore thumb. My painting style often changes and varies greatly and is hard for me replicate at a later date.

Another reason for not trying to finish it now is because I have come to see it as somehow complete in its unfinished state. There is a sort of abstract quality to it that I like. There is also something quite appealing to me in looking at the white textured surface in this piece without a layer of paint on it.. The way the gesso was applied at that time is like its own personal timestamp. Like my painting, the texture of the gesso often changes and there are pieces where I can approximately tell from the texture when it was painted. I put this texture as coming from around 2012 to 2015.

You have to take me at my word on that. I could, of course, be talking through my hat. Wouldn’t be the first time.

The line from Carson McCullers seemed to fit this entry pretty well. Human existence and art are inextricably intertwined, and both often reflect our improvisations and decisions to move on in different directions. This sometimes leaves things undone.

Like this painting.

And that’s okay. Maybe the ultimate purpose of this is to serve as a reminder that we are human and subject to the improvisations that life sometimes requires.

I can live with that.

Here’s a newer song from Paul McCartney off his new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane. This is Days We Left Behind.

Seems about right…

A Simple Life– At the Principle Gallery

Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die!

–Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921)

I woke up this morning way too early after a long day yesterday consisting of two long periods of time traveling the highway to and from, interrupted only by a handful of hours spent at the Principle Gallery where I gave my annual Gallery Talk. I woke with our housecat Sweet Babboo spooning up against me with her warm softness and the thoughts and feelings of yesterday in my head. Both filled me with great gratitude and all I could think was to ask myself how I came to be so lucky.

How can someone who lives such a relatively small and unassuming life deserve such warmth, from both our chubby little cat and the lovely group of folks who took time from their busy lives to spend an hour or so with me at the gallery?

I don’t know if it was simply the remainder of the dopamine/adrenaline that surged through me yesterday, but I found myself a bit teary-eyed in bed thinking how fortunate I truly was in this life.

Thinking about early this morning brought me to the lines above from Pirandello’s play. I doubted that I was born a character in anyone’s play, but I wondered if I had over the years become a character in my own life, something created in much the same way as my work. Maybe even in some way created by my own work.

I was the work and the work was me, if that makes any goddamn sense. Like I said, I under slept after a long day and may be functioning in a bit of a fog this morning.

I think what I am trying to say is that yesterday was vastly reassuring to me, that it made me aware that though I will someday die, my character in the form of my work will live on. As an artist– and a human– what more can I ask?

Like the paintings that were given away yesterday, I will have fulfilled my purpose.

This may not be completely clear, but I just want to thank each and every person who made an effort to come to the gallery yesterday, some from a great distance, for making me feel like such a lucky man. My words cannot express my depth of feeling.

And extreme gratitude and love to Michele, Taylor, Clint, Owen, and Brady at the gallery for making it all possible, again and again, with such warmth and friendship.

You made me feel like the luckiest guy in the world, kind of like Lou Gehrig. Wait, bad example. But you get the meaning, I am sure.

Here’s this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s a fitting song from 1997 from the Verve, Lucky Man.