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Wondering Why

February 5, 2026 by redtreetimes

Blue Moon Rising– At West End Gallery

I have no doubts that our thinking goes on for the most part without use of signs (words) and beyond that to a considerable degree unconsciously. For how, otherwise, should it happen that sometimes we “wonder” quite spontaneously about some experience? This “wondering” seems to occur when an experience comes into conflict with a world of concepts which is already sufficiently fixed in us. Whenever such a conflict is experienced hard and intensively it reacts back upon our thought world in a decisive way. The development of this thought world is in a certain sense a continuous flight from “wonder.”

A wonder of such nature I experienced as a child of 4 or 5 years, when my father showed me a compass. That this needle behaved in such a determined way did not at all fit into the nature of events, which could find a place in the unconscious world of concepts (effect connected with direct “touch”). I can still remember—or at least believe I can remember—that this experience made a deep and lasting impression upon me. Something deeply hidden had to be behind things. What man sees before him from infancy causes no reaction of this kind; he is not surprised over the falling of bodies, concerning wind and rain, nor concerning the moon or about the fact that the moon does not fall down, nor concerning the differences between living and non-living matter.

–Albert Einstein, Autobiographical Notes (1949)

This passage from Albert Einstein seemed to fit well with what I see in this new painting, Blue Moon Rising, as well as an observation that has been on my mind for some time. It is about our sense of wonder. Or should I say, our sometimes lack of wonder.

Einstein writes about some events in his early life that upset his view of the world in some way, that went against what he felt he knew and believed at that point. Instead of simply accepting this new view, it instead awakened a sense of wonder in him. He goes on to say that without this sense of wonder, we begin to accept whatever appears before our eyes without thought or question.

It’s the equivalent of sleepwalking through life. The great wonder of this world and our place in it is simply taken for granted and largely ignored. Unseeing and unquestioning, we become inured to both the beauty and ugliness of this world. We lose the ability to be emotionally connected to the world around us, to feel, to love, to care for others.

It is our sense of wonder that is the basis for all compassion and grace. And it is a lack of this that creates all ignorance and cruelty.

Asking a question out of wonderment often has a unifying effect for us to whatever or whoever the question is directed. It sometimes feels that we have become a society based on statements of belief that are devoid of that sense of wonder. It feels like we don’t ask many questions of others nowadays. We say what we think we need to say and just accept what others say or present to us. No sense of wonder about the other person is ever created and, as a result, our connection to them is tenuous at best.

I see this scenario in this painting, Blue Moon Rising. I see it as the Red Tree observing the unusual Blue Moon rising. It alone questions the why of it all while its neighbors in the houses around it remain locked away. Unseeing and unquestioning. The colors in the Blue Moon and the Red Tree, for me, symbolize the connection created by the Red Tree’s observation and wonderment. The very questioning of why the rising moon is blue creates a connection to it.

Of course, that is only how I see it. Like all art, you will see it in your own way, with all that you bring to it.

Hopefully, you will bring your own sense of wonder.

Here’s a song from the Red Clay Strays that is kind of about this sense of wondering, except in a very specific way. Called Wondering Why, it’s about wondering why someone loves us in the way they do. Given all our faults, that’s a good question.

 Blue Moon Rising (6″by 12″ on canvas) is included in the Little Gems show at the West End Gallery that has an Opening Reception tomorrow, Friday, February 6, running from 5-7 PM.

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Fashionista

February 4, 2026 by redtreetimes

Dedicated Follower of Fashion (1996)

Fashion is made to become unfashionable. I design my clothes always for tomorrow. Already I would throw out nearly everything in this collection.

–Coco Chanel, Life magazine (August 1957)

And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

–Oscar Wilde, The Philosophy of Dress, The New-York Tribune, 1885

This post came about in a weird way this morning. Or, at least, I think it will come about. It’s still taking shape in my head.

I began with no idea as to what to write this morning, thinking it might be a good day to take a break. I’ve posted something every morning for something like 75 days now which is a little unusual, even for me. It might be some sort of response to my treatment, a psychological recognition that our time here is limited, making me want to blurt out what I have to say now because there may not be many tomorrows.

We won’t get into that now.

Getting back to this post, I knew that even though I had no ideas, I was going to play Eli’s Coming, the Laura Nyro song that was a big radio hit for Three Dog Night in 1969. The reason for this was that one of the vocalists for the band, Chuck Negron, died Monday at the age of 83.

Watching the video below from 1969 reminded me of the fashion of that time and into the 70’s, particularly the striped bell bottoms worn by Danny Hutton. I never had striped bell bottoms at the time but it did remind me of a pair of bell bottoms that I did own.

I bought them at Harold’s Army Navy store in downtown Elmira. Harold’s was the cool place to buys jeans at the time, with a widely known reputation. When the Grand Prix teams hit Watkins Glen every year many headed to Harold’s to buy the Levis that were hard to obtain in Europe at that time. Not long after this time, Tommy Hilfiger made his first foray into the world of fashion, opening his People’s Place store a few blocks away from Harold’s.

I would go into Harold’s after school during my Junior High days, looking for bargains. One day, I found what I thought at the moment might be the greatest pants ever. They were maroon bell bottoms and the price was great, too low to pass up. They would certainly look cool on me as I walked down the hallways of Ernie Davis Junior High.

And maybe they did. All I can remember is that they were the stupidest pants I ever came across. They had no zipper. They had a button fly, which is okay in itself. However, this pair of pants had two sets of button flies, one running up the top of each thigh, forming a big square flap at the front. It was a pain in the butt fiddling with the eight buttons to simply get the damn things on, and going to the bathroom took on a greater urgency. Every trip to the toilet was an ordeal.

But being a dumb kid, this didn’t keep me from wearing these awful pants. I lived with its drawbacks and discomfort all for the sake of feeling cool. It wasn’t my first or last experience with trying to stay fashionable back then. These days, I make no effort at all to wear what the cool kids wear. I am as unfashionable as they come.

I often equate this with my work. It has been fashionable at several points in my career, the flavor of the month. It seems like everything I put out flies off the walls. And that is great. Who doesn’t enjoy that? But I realized years ago that that kind of reaction is ephemeral. I’ve seen it with my work and with the dozens of other artists who replaced me as the then flavor of the month. Many, if not most, are not even with those galleries where they once shined brightly for a short time. Most are still trying to satisfy the appetites of others.

I realized that I couldn’t remain the flavor of the month all the time. Trying to do so meant that I would forever be trying to satisfy the ever-changing appetite of a fickle public. That is an impossible task. It also goes against whatever idea of artistic integrity I maintain. I wouldn’t try to change my work to please others.

I would cook for myself, first and foremost. If others like the flavor, they are welcome at my table.

It might not be the fashion of the moment, the flavor of the month. But that would be okay with me. I would just do what I do and do it as well as I can with a consistent level of quality. I saw my work as being like a good pair of jeans. Sturdy, comfortable, and fitting into most any situation. Dependable and never thrown into the trash heap of fashion.

Wasn’t planning on writing about this when I set out from the house this morning. But there you go. You never know what the day will bring you.

Here’s Eli’s Coming. The late Chuck Negron is to the far left.

Better hide your heart…

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Odd Bodkins Blue Sky…

February 3, 2026 by redtreetimes

Odd Bodkins Blue Sky– At West End Gallery

And where are the dreams I dreamed
In the days of my youth?
They took me to illusion when they
Promised me the truth
And what do sleepers need to make them listen,
Why do they need more proof?
This is a strange, this is a strange affair

—Richard Thompson, Strange Affair (1978)

This is another of the small early paintings that I have released from their captivity. This one carries a memorable title, Odd Bodkins Blue Sky. which in itself indicates that it is a favorite of mine. It was painted in August of 1994 and it is being shown at the West End Gallery as part of the annual Little Gems show that opens on Friday.

It’s a piece that has always elicits an approving reaction those many times I’ve looked at it over the years. It makes me both happy and slightly regretful. I get a lot of joy from the painting itself but there’s just something in it that makes me wonder what might have been if I had followed the path that it promised me.

And it seemed to promise a lot.

It has a sort of organic abstraction that gives only hints of a narrative. It gives no answers but instead raises many questions. What is that red patch in the upper foreground? Are those clumps of grass? Is this even a landscape or something else altogether? What is the significance of the blocks of blue and violet making up the sky?

I, of course, can’t answer these questions for anyone but myself. And I am not sure I can fully answer them for myself. This enigmatic quality think that is part of this piece’s appeals for me.

Another part of that I am particularly drawn to is the organic feel of its forms and lines. It has the feel of a living thing, if that makes any sense. One part of it that gives me great pleasure comes in the line between the two green forms that make up the foreground. You might not be able to see this unless you zoom in to the image, but there are little flecks of white from the underlying paper. I don’t know why they give me such joy but they do. It’s a tiny aspect of this painting but for me, it makes the whole piece resonate.

It’s a strange little piece in many ways. And that is also part of its appeal.

A special child whose oddness is its gift to the world.

Odd bodkins, by the way, is an old English exclamation that comes from the Middle Ages. It was a way of swearing without actually blaspheming. If you yell Gosh darn it! after you hit your thumb with a hammer now, you might have yelled Odd bodkins! if you did the same thing in England a thousand years ago. How this applies to this painting, I have not a clue except that it kind of points out its strangeness.

Speaking of strange things, here’s a favorite song that, much to my surprise, I discover that I haven’t shared since early 2016. This is the great Richard Thompson song, Strange Affair, performed beautifully by June Tabor, accompanied by another of my favorites, Martin Simpson, on guitar. Tabor’s smoky voice makes this a memorable interpretation.

 

A quick note: The Opening Reception for the Little Gems show at the West End Gallery is this Friday, February 6, from 5-7 PM.

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A Look Back: Into the Valley

February 2, 2026 by redtreetimes

 

 

Into the Valley (1995) – At West End Gallery

There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.

–Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850)

 The painting at the top is another early piece that is going to be included in the Little Gems exhibit opening at the West End Gallery this coming Friday, February 6. This painting, Into the Valley, has a direct connection to the Little Gems show of 1995, which was the first such exhibit for the gallery as well as the first public showing of my work.

Painted on February 4, 1995, this was the first work produced after I had attended the opening of the show the night before, on February 3. In the painting diary I kept at the time there was no mention of the night before. I was a bit surprised that there was no mention of the opening since it had an immediate effect on me. But after looking at the diary a little more, I wasn’t so surprised. It included mainly simple direct information about each piece such as the date, title, the type of paper used (I was working solely on paper at that point), and some notes on the piece. These notes sometimes pertained to the paints I was using as well as my first impressions of the painting.

Here’s the entry for this painting what will be from 31 years ago in just two days:

Lovely piece, good greens, interesting sky and eye-intriguing shape. I like it, at this moment. Fabriano is exquisite.

It’s a short entry but it gives me a world of pertinent info. Mainly, it tells me that my first impression of it was very positive, but I wasn’t totally confident in my own opinion of it. Some things never change. It was this hesitation in my judgment that probably kept this painting in a box for the past three decades.

My first impression of Into the Valley as I wrote then was right on the money. It is a lovely piece. It does have good greens and its sky is interesting and its shapes are eye-intriguing. And the Fabriano paper that I was just working with for the first time around then was and is exquisite.

Looking at it now, I realize that I made a mistake in not freeing this little guy long ago. I hope that it gets to have a long life of the appreciation it due.

A little side note. I stopped using this painting diary at the end of 1995. My entries for the time after that are regrettably even less informational. But I am thrilled in having these notes for the earliest works. Reading recently, I noticed that I seldom went beyond this terse format in my painting diary.  One interesting except was an entry a few weeks before I painted Into the Valley.

It came on January 17, 1995. I don’t remember much about the painting from this entry except that it was renamed Teasdale which I remember did find a new home later in the year. I don’t think I even have an image of that painting or, if I do, it is lost in a jumble of poorly shot slides from that time.

But the painting is not the interesting thing here for me.

More importantly, this short entry came from the day I took my work stuffed willy nilly into man old blue milk carton out to the West End Gallery. That was the day when all kinds of new horizons opened for me that I hadn’t even dared to imagine before that day. Here’s what I wrote after that meeting with Tom and Linda Gardner at the West End:

A good day… I floated all day. It now seems like such a restrained understatement for what I was feeling on that day and for what it came to mean for my future.

This probably gives you an idea why I have such deep appreciation and fond feelings about the Little Gems show. It is an integral part of my career, the point of departure for my artistic path. Without that day in January back in 1995 and that first opening a few weeks later, I have no idea where I might be now. The only thing I can say for certain is that I could not be any more content wherever I might have ended up.

When I see new artists, especially the younger ones, show for the first time at the West End, or any gallery for that matter, I look at them closely, knowing how excited and hopeful they must be. I can only hope they use the opportunity to find a path forward that is as satisfying for themselves as mine has been for me.

I’ve said it before, but I owe so much to Tom and Linda Gardner for that opportunity, that good day back in January of 1995.  Thank you, Linda. Thank you, Tom. Thanks to you both, I still find myself floating.

The 32nd annual Little Gems opens Friday, February 6, 2026, with an Opening Reception that runs from 5-7:30 PM.  Hope to see you there.

 

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Maintaining Balance

February 1, 2026 by redtreetimes

Maintaining Balance— At West End Gallery

Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery. Negative silence blurs and confuses our identity, and we lapse into daydreams or diffuse anxieties. Positive silence pulls us together and makes us realize who we are, who we might be, and the distance between these two.

–Thomas Merton, Love and Living (1979)

I’ve had this passage from the late Trappist monk/poet/author Thomas Merton rolling around in my head for a while now. Silence and quiet have been themes in my work for a long time for a good reason. I have found peace and understanding at times in silence, in stilling my mind and just trying to be where and what I am at the moment.

It’s a good place to be.

On the other hand, I have also known the negative silences of which Merton writes. There is silence but not emptiness nor stillness–important distinctions. Even in this silence, there are things– worries, fears, regrets, grievances, despairs, etc.– occupying the space and in constant motion. They distract the mind and take its focus off its silence. The mind darts through the mind space from each of these things to the next.

The desired stillness is lost in what seems to be a cacophony of motion.

I don’t know that you can totally eradicate these negative silences. They are insidious, always ready to jump back onstage and do their little silent song and dance. Maybe you can if you’re monk or a total hermit far removed from the world in all ways.

I am neither of those nor are most folks.

I guess the best we can hope for is to keep trying to find silence and stillness when it is most needed. To not fall prey to the lures of the negative silences. To drop the curtain on them when they start their little act.

And to make the most of those times when we find ourselves in that positive silence. To heal. To appreciate. To be.

It’s easy to write this. Much harder to accomplish. I always felt that if I have many more moments in the positive silent space than in the chaotic negative space, I am doing okay. I’ve been doing this delicate balancing act for a long time now and it’s always difficult to maintain. But it has become get easier. As it is with anything, rehearsal, practice, and repetition are the key to getting where you want to go.

I don’t know that this makes any sense this morning to anyone outside the space in my head. I’d be surprised and glad if it does and can only say sorry if it doesn’t. Don’t want to waste your time.

In the spirit of saving time, let’s move on. The image at the top is of a new piece, Maintaining Balance, a 6″ by 12″ painting on canvas. Just a little bigger than a true Little Gem, it is now at the West End Gallery whose Little Gems show opens this coming Friday. I had the Merton passage in mind when I was painting and titling this piece.

For this Sunday Morning Music, I am going with a song originally sung by Dick Van Dyke in the 1968 movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It was written by the Sherman Brothers who produced more motion picture song scores than any other songwriting team in film history, including the many memorable songs from Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book. This performance is from a favorite of mine, Lisa Hannigan, and British musician Richard Hawley.

Just a lovely stillness and delicacy. Just what’s needed to maintain balance…

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Let Me Be

January 31, 2026 by redtreetimes

Let Me Be— Now at West End Gallery

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

 -Helen Keller, The World I Live In (1908)

Really tired this morning. I think the hormone therapy is finally catching up with me a bit as my fatigue has increased a lot in the past couple of weeks. Still not terrible, not yet up to the fatigue I suffered last summer with the undiagnosed anaplasmosis. That kicked my butt in several different directions.

Even though I am tired, I already wrote a post this morning. However, it felt too personal, too exposing. That may surprise some of you since I seldom hesitate with openness or transparency. But I think my physical weariness made me a little more protective of my private domain this morning.

Made me want to withdraw a bit.

Which coincidentally and fortuitously might pertain to the new painting at the top. It’s called Let Me Be. It’s a 6″ by 8″ painting on canvas that is part of the Little Gems show that opens this coming Friday at the West End Gallery.

Its title and the feel of wanting to be left alone that I take from it suit me this morning. Well, most of the time actually.

There’s a lot more to say about this painting and what I see and feel in it. It has a lot to say. But this morning I am going to let it speak for itself.

If it speaks to you, great. If not, that’s great as well. I am on my little quiet island. I can’t trouble my mind with such concerns this morning.

Here’s song from Rising Appalachia that fits the feel and tone of the morning for me. This is Silver.

Listen but don’t linger. The boat is leaving to take you back to shore. You better catch it now. Otherwise, you’ll be swimming back. Only room for me here this morning.

Now get on the damn boat.

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The Juncture

January 30, 2026 by redtreetimes

The Juncture— At West End Gallery

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way… As a man is, so he sees.

–William Blake (1757–1827), 1799 letter to Dr. John Trusler

Ot it could be a red thing, right?

I would like to think that Blake would be okay with red trees. He was someone who definitely marched to his own drum in his time, never compromising his artistic vision to suit anyone other than himself. He willingly paid the price for choosing to maintain the integrity of his work, dying a pauper.

Such choices are not the sole province of artists. We all face similar choices in our lives about love, family, friends, work, and so on. Our lives are built on the decisions we make when faced with such choices. Some of our choices have huge and obvious consequences but even the smallest decision has some bearing on where we eventually end up and who we become.

To me, this new small painting, The Juncture, represents such a choice.  The path brings us to a fork in the road. We can see a bit ahead where one path will lead us. It seems safer and even bends back towards us. The other veers off and over the mound, giving away few hints to where it might take us. One is safe and one entails the risk of the unknown.

There is no telling if it will end up being a big or small choice. You often don’t know at the time you decide. Choices can sometimes hide or mask their eventual importance and, as a result, we end up taking them too lightly I think that’s why we make so many decisions.

Some may see the Red Tree here as just something to rush by, much like those who according to Blake see trees as something merely standing in the way. In my mind, the Red Tree here is advocating for taking that risk, for pushing ahead to the new unknown. I see it as a knowing guide, letting you know that it can see further ahead than you and that it can be okay– if you commit fully to that path.

That unknown path is not for the squeamish or those require absolute comfort and security. The unknown path has other rewards.

William Blake understood this.

This is a simply constructed painting but its colors the relationship of its forms make it seem bigger and more complex. It makes it feel like makes a statement even though it is smaller and spare in detail.

Well, that’s how I see it but, of course, I am more than a little biased.

This piece, 6″ by 8″ on canvas, is included in the Little Gems exhibit at the West End Gallery, opening one week from today, on Friday February 6.

Here’s a song from Ray LaMontaigne that may or may not mesh with the other part so this post. Actually, it just came up on my playlist as I finished that last paragraph. It’s a song that I have liked for a while and it felt right in the moment. Even its title feels right– Highway to the Sun. And its chorus below could easily be applied to this painting, representing why one might decide to take that unknown path.

I just wanna wake upUnderneath that open skyJust wanna feel something realBefore I die

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Be Ignited, Or Be Gone

January 29, 2026 by redtreetimes

Burning Bright— Now at West End Gallery

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of — indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

—Mary Oliver, What I Have Learned So Far (1999)

Be ignited, or be gone,,,

For me, this means that our dreams and desires require action. Our wishes and words have the power to manifest themself but only if we follow through and make it so.

The fire might be ignited in our mind, but it must be tended and stoked for it to come to full flame. Otherwise, it flickers and dies eventually.

Tend your fire. Let it burn bright.

The idea of letting your flame burn bright for all to see is easy to say but is a difficult task for most folks. There’s a risk involved that is daunting to most. First and foremost is failure. The fear that your dream’s flame could be forever extinguished keeps most folks from ever lighting it. It seems easier and safer to just keep the possibility of it alive in your mind.

But that is like taking the potential blaze held in a pack of matches and throwing them in a drawer where they will soon be forgotten.

They are your matches, your fire. They want to burn. Let them burn bright.

I thought this Mary Oliver poem was a good match for the new painting above, Burning Bright. Though it is slightly bigger than a Little Gem at 10″ by 10″ on wood panel, it made its way to the West End Gallery ahead of their annual Little Gems exhibit opening next Friday, February 6.

This feels somewhat incomplete and I am sure I could edit this better or add more context but, hey, you get what you pay for here. It might not be much, but it keeps my flame alive.

Let’s have a song to fill out the triad. Here’s the great Leonard Cohen with a live performance from 2008 of his Who By Fire. I feel warmer already on this cold morning.

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The Bargaining

January 28, 2026 by redtreetimes

The Bargaining–Now at West End Gallery

I have been reading the morning paper. I do it every morning-knowing well that I shall find in it the usual depravities and basenesses and hypocrisies and cruelties that make up civilization, and cause me to put in the rest of the day pleading for the damnation of the human race. I cannot seem to get my prayers answered, yet I do not despair.

–Mark Twain, letter to William Dean Howells, April 2, 1899

 I could see this new small painting as representing someone pleading to the heavens for either the salvation of the human race or its damnation. perhaps it’s Mark Twain after reading his morning paper. I know that I suffer that same feeling when reading of how we mistreat one another on a constant basis.

It’s hard to not come away wishing that the Fat Lady would finally sing and bring this whole damn human opera to an end.

Yet there is always a part inside that recognizes that we also possess a huge capacity for goodness and love.

This love-hate relationship that many of us have with our species is a good example of those contradictions I mentioned here yesterday. From moment to moment, we move from begging for forgiveness for our species’ transgressions to pleading that the whole group be obliterated and returned to dust and ash.

With little to offer and not really knowing what we need, we bargain sometimes for the best and the worst.

And unfortunately for us, our bargain for either is sometimes accepted.

The results never match our hopes or expectations. It might be best for us if our pleadings go unfulfilled, much like Twain wrote: I cannot seem to get my prayers answered, yet I do not despair.

I can see this in this piece called The Bargaining. It is included in the annual Little Gems show opening next Friday, February 6 at the West End Gallery. It has a feeling of someone bargaining to both heal and injure. To live or die.

Whatever it takes to keep us from despairing.

Hmm. This went in a much different way than I had expected. But that’s okay. I can live with that. That seems like a pretty good deal I’ve bargained for this morning.

Here’s a song that you may struggle to see how it connects with the rest of this post. It’s a recent performance by Moby and Jacob Lusk of a 1995 song from Moby, When It”s Cold I’d Like to Die. It’s a powerful and stark performance. Like the image of tree without its foliage in the winter.

Maybe I chose this song because I walked to the studio this morning in -2° temps. There is a solemnity and silence in this kind of cold that makes you ponder the coldness of nonexistence. This song presents one of those human contradictions, feeling the pull of both death and life. Many of us have felt an emptiness within us at times brought on by the coldness and dangers of this world. At such times, we feel hopeless and powerless, too tired to keep going. But though we might think that death would end our suffering, we know that the only way out is to keep moving, to find the hope contained in despair.

Maybe that’s the connection of this song here. I don’t really know.  But it is a beautiful song in my opinion.

And that is good enough for me on this frigid morning.

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A Look Back: Easter Egg

January 27, 2026 by redtreetimes

Easter Egg (1996) — At West End Gallery

The opinions of men who think are always growing and changing, like living children.

—Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Thoughts about Art  (1873)

On Friday I delivered a group of small paintings to the West End Gallery for their 32nd annual Little Gems show. Most of the work is new but there also some of my earliest pieces, a couple that I have featured here in recent weeks, Summerfield and Isolation both from 1994.

My opinions of these older pieces have all evolved and changed since I first painted them. I don’t believe any of the five were ever shown in a gallery and at the time I simply just didn’t think they were good enough. ‘

But it’s been a long time, over thirty years now, and I have changed as have my opinions and perspectives on many things, including these paintings. The quote above from an essay on the qualities it takes to be a good art critic written by the 19th century British artist, author, and art critic Philip Gilbert Hamerton stresses just that point. He advises would-be art critics to accept inconsistency and changes of opinions about many things. He says that a writer or art critic (or an artist) must constantly be reviewing what they have done in the past and be willing to change their opinion of it based on the new knowledge and experience they have gained in the time that has passed since it was first done.

Hamerton states that consistency of opinion is the mark of a stupid person. They form an opinion and refuse to change despite all evidence to the contrary coming to light after that opinion has been formed. The intelligent person on the other hand has a more flexible mind, one that can honestly accept that their prior opinions or statements can evolve and change. In the words of Uncle Walt from Song of Myself: Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.) 

The painting at the top is a perfect example of a change of heart on my part. It was painted it in February of 1996. I had been showing my work at the West End Gallery and within a few weeks would be starting a long relationship with the Kada Gallery in Erie. I was starting to really find my groove as a painter and was at a point where I had some control of the media.

On this particular little piece, I had an idea of how I believed the colors of the sky would merge and blend. It was something I had done many times before over the past year and I had certain expectations. What emerged after I dropped the colors together was completely different than what I had anticipated. It was mélange of pastel colors., pink and yellow and robin’s egg blue. An Easter egg. Not even close to what I wanted or expected which was bold deep colors.

I was not happy with what I was seeing. In fact, I was a little angry. I had high hopes up to that point for the piece. I thought the foreground that made u the bottom quarter of the piece was truly exceptional with strong colors and forms with a real organic feel that pleased me greatly. It deserved a bold strong sky. Instead, it was like an Easter egg with puffy pastel colors that somehow weakened the feel and tone of the piece in my mind then. It just was not the piece I wanted to see. I felt somehow deceived by it.

I decided to just put it aside and move on to the next piece. It never left a crate of old work until now.

It is titled Easter Egg now. That was not its original title that I noted on the bottom of the piece. When first done, in my frustration and anger, I wrote It’s Easter!– So Kiss My Ass. This little painting will always live happily in my mind with that title.

Over the past thirty years, I pull it out at least a few times a year and look at it. It always makes me smile. The anger faded a long time ago, replaced by a growing appreciation. What I initially liked in it was still there and I began to see the sky and its colors much more favorably.

Yes, it was not what I wanted to see all those years ago. It was something different and I needed the time to put aside my disappointment in order to see its true qualities. I have found that when someone or something is not what we want it to be, we fail to see and appreciate what it truly is.

I see this now for what it is. And I like it very much.

It is a great example of an evolving opinion, one of those little contradictions we all hold inside us. I believe that both Hamerton and Whitman would concur. Uncle Walt might even chuckle at the original title.

Here’s a song about things changing. It’s a cover/interpretation of the Bob Dylan song, Things Have Changed, from soul/blues legend Bettye LaVette. She released an album of Dylan covers with the same title as this song in 2018 that received a Grammy nomination. Good stuff.

 

 

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