Oliver rose next morning, in better heart, and went about his usual occupations, with more hope and pleasure than he had known for many days. The birds were once more hung out, to sing, in their old places; and the sweetest wild flowers that could be found, were once more gathered to gladden Rose with their beauty. The melancholy which had seemed to the sad eyes of the anxious boy to hang, for days past, over every object, beautiful as all were, was dispelled by magic. The dew seemed to sparkle more brightly on the green leaves; the air to rustle among them with a sweeter music; and the sky itself to look more blue and bright. Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercise, even over the appearance of external objects. Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.
–Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (1838)
Very short on time this morning but wanted to share the above lines from Oliver Twist to accompany this painting. It’s a great reminder that our own attitude affects how we perceive this world. Not everyone notices the variety and depth of colors or the graceful lines and forms that are around us every day. These unfortunates miss perhaps the greatest gift of this world, its inherent beauty, and live in a world that lacks subtlety and room for imagination and thought.
When I think about it, I feel so fortunate to know and be moved by color and beauty.
There’s a lot more that could be said but that’s all I will say today. Like I said, much to do and I am working with a battery that runs short on power too quickly lately so I must go. hang around if you like and listen to this song, Colours, from Donovan in 1965.
Just don’t touch anything or bother my cats. You’ve been warned…
feel how your breathing makes more space around you. Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength. Move back and forth into the change. What is it like, such intensity of pain? If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night, be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses, the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you, say to the silent earth: I flow. To the rushing water, speak: I am.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower (1922)
My annual solo exhibit at the Principle Gallery opens in a little over a month, on Friday, June 12th. I have been in getting things together for the show in recent weeks, as I normally would though at a much slower pace. Still battling fatigue which requires that there be an almost equal amount of rest for any real effort made. This was to be expected after my recent radiation treatments so early in the year, the Principle Gallery and I decided that this year’s show would be a hybrid retrospective exhibit, a mix of new work and older work, covering the nearly thirty years my work has been showing there, as well as some representing my earliest work.
I would prefer a show of only new work for this show, my 27th at the Principle. There’s something exciting about unveiling a group of new work. Sometimes it’s exciting like opening a wrapped Christmas present and sometimes it’s more like being handed the gun during a game of Russian Roulette. You never know.
But things being as they are, I am happy to put together this hybrid show. It’s been really interesting going through my older work and reexamining them with a newly critical eye. Fortunately, it’s gone pretty easily thus far. The hard part is not in trying to determine which pieces fit into this show as I see it but rather which pieces I cannot include.
I believe that is because the title and theme for this year’s show is Flow. I wanted this show to show how the work has changed over the last thirty years but also how it has maintained a throughline in its identity and feeling.
A continuum.
A flow.
Like drops of water in a stream that moves forward and merges with and grows as it runs toward its place in the great waters of the earth.
I cross a small footbridge every morning while walking to the studio. It’s a runoff creek that dries up in the summer, much more often now than it did thirty years ago. But on those days when the creek is running, the thought that this humble trickle of water is destined to someday move through the Chesapeake Bay and merge with the Atlantic brings to mind the unity that makes up this world.
It seems small but contains greatness.
That’s how I would like to have this work come across, as part of the flow that sees small drops merging into a greater body.
I think the final lines from the poem at the top, Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower, sums it up beautifully:
And if the world has ceased to hear you, say to the silent earth: I flow. To the rushing water, speak: I am.
These were, fittingly, the final lines of the final poem in his 1922 book, Sonnets to Orpheus. These lines spoke to me because when I began painting, I felt unheard in the world. Small and insignificant. Each painting was a small droplet put out into the stream. Over the years, these droplets moved from stream to river, bay, and ocean, continually gaining momentum, proclaiming in its voice that comes from its humble origins in a tiny creek running through the wood: I flow, I am.
So you think you know How to wipe your own nose You think you know How to button your clothes You don’t know shit If you hadn’t already guessed You’re just a bump on the log of life, Cause mother knows best
— Mother Knows Best , Richard Thompson (1991)
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
-Abraham Lincoln
It’s always hard on Mother’s Day, as it probably is for most whose mothers have long passed. It’s an unfortunate fact that most of us experience our parents’ passing at some point so my bit of sadness is no greater or different than that of most other folks.
My Mom passed away back in 1995 at age 63. It’s hard to believe that it has been so many years now and that I’m now several years older than she was when she died. Hardly a day goes by that the thought of her doesn’t enter my mind in some way. A memory of her movement, her voice, her good and bad points– they are all set off by suddenly noticing how deeply they are all ingrained in myself. When I am walking, I see my mother walking. When I am angry, I see her anger.
For me, it is often a day filled with regrets for words, both said and unsaid, and actions. Regrets for not speaking more words of love and appreciation. Regrets for speaking words as a selfish child that may have unknowingly hurt her. But, like most days, these regrets fade away and are replaced with only the memory of her– a simple yet complex woman to whom I owe all that I am or hope to be, as Uncle Abe said.
A Hard Past (2006)
When I am sitting alone in a pensive mood, I see her sitting at her kitchen table with a cup of tea and her ever-present Camel cigarette, in absolute stillness with a thousand-mile stare. I often wonder where she was in her memory in those moments. That look is one that makes this piece from my 2006 Outlaws series, Hard Past, forever remind of my mom. It’s not a flattering painting but it captures what I consider to be a poignant and important aspect of her.
She was an interesting case. As I said, simple and complex, a mass of paradoxes. She was battle-hardened from what I can only describe as a hard life, one that gave her an extraordinary toughness that was well-known to those who knew her. But she was also fragile and generous to a fault. Uneducated but highly intelligent. Stubborn but always willing to change. Deeply private yet still loved parties. Loyal and surprisingly fair-minded and principled.
She was also funny and loved to laugh. I often felt that my job as kid was to make her laugh. I think that is where I first realized that laughter was love.
I wish I could have seen her live into old age–it would be wonderful to sit with her once more and have a cup of her coffee. Ask her all the questions that went unasked, to say all the words of love and gratitude that should have been spoken but went unsaid.
But life is like that, leaving us a handful of memories that leave us feeling both empty and full. While it is often bittersweet to look back on them, it’s been good doing just that this morning.
Most of the above was pulled from earlier Mother’s Day posts. The painting at the top was one I did in my earliest days of trying to paint, one of the few of mine that she ever saw. I had been showing my work publicly at the West End for only a few months when her cancer was diagnosed. She never got to see my work hanging in a gallery or museum. I think it would have made her very happy.
This might not seem like the most sentimental of Mother’s Day songs, but I like it and, for this morning, that’s all that matters. I think Mom might have liked it since it has a driving beat– she loved to hear a drumbeat. Plus, the lyrics like this might have brought a smile from her. Hope so.
So you think you know How to wipe your own nose You think you know How to button your clothes You don’t know shit If you hadn’t already guessed You’re just a bump on the log of life, Cause mother knows best
I think a lot of people have unreasonable expectations because they never stop to consider what life actually has to offer them. They’re always looking for some great epiphany from the skies. They never stop to consider the fact which human beings find hardest to recognize: “Maybe I’m not worthy of an epiphany.”
–Robertson Davies, Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)
The painting above, Epiphany, is another painting that will be heading to the Principle Gallery for my June show. It’s a painting that satisfies me on several levels. The contrast of the corona of light around the Red Tree against the underlying darkness of the black underpainting and the deep reds and yellows are right in my sweet spot. It also connects with me on a personal level, bringing to mind a very early painting that I might consider my one true experience with epiphany.
The word epiphany, of course, denotes someone experiencing a sudden and profound realization. A Eureka!moment. I never really thought about such things before. I mean who has time to seek something like epiphany when you’re just trying to get by in this world? And even if I had thought about it, I would have no doubt ascribed to the words above from the late Canadian man of letters, Robertson Davies, that you could waste your life seeking something that will never be available to you while the miracle of this world and our existence in it is in plain sight all the time. I am pretty sure I would not have seen myself as being worthy of an epiphany.
But you never know, do you? After my accidental fall from a ladder brought me to painting in late 1993, I began to spend several hours a day painting in between my job as waiter in a pancake house and working towards completing the construction of our home. I didn’t have any expectations at that point, never saw it doing anything other than providing an outlet for expressing pent up emotions in a constructive way. I would have been happy with that.
Well, I think would have been. It didn’t turn out that way so how can I really know what I would felt if that had been the case?
Anyway, as I worked in our back bedroom for several months, I began to feel that my painting had something more to offer me but I wasn’t seeing it. And to be honest, I had no idea what it might be or what it would even mean if I were to come across it. How would I know such a thing?
I tried to not think about such things and just focused on what the painting was giving me in the moment. Just seeing it develop and progress seemed to be enough.
One evening that summer, after doing my morning shift then working for a few hours on our house, I went home and sat down to paint. I was working on a small painting and suddenly it beckoned on me that what I was looking at was exactly that thing I was looking for. It suddenly had form and substance. More than that, I could see it in a flash that it instantaneously opened a path forward for me. I didn’t know where it would lead but I knew that it had to be followed.
I remember so distinctly that moment. I felt a giddy excitement that was a shock to me. The hair on the back of my neck was raised and my heart was racing. I didn’t know what to do. I mean, what do you do when something hits you like that? Nobody told me that something like this might happen. I needed to tell someone about this, but Cheri was still at work.
First View (1994)
I paced anxiously for a couple of hours, waiting for Cheri to return. I met her at the door and made her follow me into the back bedroom. I picked up the small piece of watercolor paper that held the painting. I can’t remember exactly how it was phrased but I said something like, “Look at this! Look at this!”
She looked then replied, “Yeah. It’s nice. What is it?”
“You don’t see it? That’s IT!”
“What’s it?
“This is what I have been looking for. This means something. I don’t know where or what, but this is going to take us somewhere.”
I told her how it came to be and my explosion of emotion when it appeared. I still am not sure she was impressed or convinced by what I was saying that night. In retrospect, I can understand that. It’s a quiet, simple little piece. It doesn’t yell or wave its arms to grab your attention.
But that didn’t matter to me. In my eyes that night– and even now– it set off explosions in me that blew down walls that had been hindering me from seeing the path that was now before me. It felt like it had opened up a whole new section of synapses in my brain that I had not been using up to that point.
I later titled it First View since it felt like I was looking at a newly discovered and unexplored vista. This unassuming little painting still retains its power for me. Every painting since this piece has been an attempt to recapture that explosive reaction that I felt on that summer night in 1994. There have been potent and wonderful moments from other paintings but none that came close to the feeling this painting provided.
Was that an epiphany? I don’t know. But if it wasn’t, maybe like Davies said, I wasn’t worthy of an epiphany and will probably never experience one. I don’t know that I could physically or mentally handle a real epiphany if that wasn’t one.
But epiphany or not, the painting above symbolizes and very well captures that moment from 1994. It is a direct descendant of First View and being so, carries elements from it that speak clearly to me, providing moments that recall that first epiphany, if that is indeed what it was. Letting me know that I was not mistaken in following the path I was given.
French Revolution, Execution of Louis XVI, 1793 (by Wm. Dent, UK 1793)
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
–Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
This famous opening paragraph of A Tale of Two Citiesfrom Dickens echoes constantly in my head these days. It sounds a bit cliche but after reading it again, it’s hard not to see the parallels between our time and that of the book in the time of the French Revolution. It most likely applies to anyplace going through times of extreme civil, political unrest and upheaval.
Times of revolution and war.
Like Dickens’ opening words, there are so many ways in which this should be the best of times.
It is a time that finds us standing at the leading edge of scientific knowledge and technical progress. We possess more knowledge now than at any time in our history. We are better equipped to treat and possibly cure disease than at any time in history. Technology continues to advance at a dizzying pace that often outpaces our own understanding of its potentialities and consequences. Technology allows us to now connect to others around the world in an instant. For example, this blog is the product of these technological advances, not even being possible when I began painting in the 90’s. But today I am not surprised by the number of people who browse it from around the world.
If I had the time or desire, I could make a long list of all those things that should make this the best of times. By that, I mean the best of times for everyone, not just the ultrawealthiest and most privileged few.
Yet, we seem to never choose that option, instead tolerating or ignoring what amounts to being the worst of times for many.
For reasons I cannot fathom, we now glorify the stupid and the ignorant and cheer on the bad behavior of reality TV. It has become acceptable to speak words filled with lies, hatred, injustice, and illogical nonsense. It is even required of some, who are then are placed on pedestals. By that, I mean given high ranking positions in our government.
The quiet and measured voice of wisdom, while still there, is drowned out by of the din of insult, blame, falsehood, and conspiracy produced by our ever-swelling stupidity.
Likewise, light still remains but the darkness of stupidity is dense and deep, smothering all light at times.
Hope still remains in many. But despair seems to grow at a much quicker pace.
It often seems, as Dickens wrote, that we have everything before us and nothing.
And Heaven and Hell? Well, I have always thought that Heaven was not in some lofty place among puffy clouds filled with angels in comfortable robes nor was Hell in some deep, fiery pit brimming with screaming souls and hooved demons.
No, my thought was that both were present only here on Earth. You can see evidence of this on a daily basis. You can easily see Hell existing in the words and actions of many people. And there are those who find Heaven in this world, living lives filled with kindness, generosity of spirit, and goodwill towards all.
These Heavenly few are, of course, harder to detect or find since there are not as many of them. As much as we are taught to fear Hell, its lures are potent.
I can’t remember where I read this, but it is said that because of anticipated slow traffic there is only a Stairway to Heaven while there so many going in the other direction that a Highway to Hell is needed.
What does all this mean? I don’t know exactly. Not even sure we have arrived where I thought would end up when I started writing this. Probably not. Usually don’t. I just put it down as it comes into my head and, every once in a while, it works. Not sure if this is in that category.
Looking back over this quickly, I guess what I am futilely trying to say is that even though it seems like we find ourselves today neck deep in a shitpond (yeah, I know that’s gross image to put in your head early in the morning) we have to take some small degree of comfort in knowing that we as a people have been in this unenviable position innumerable times in the past.
Yet, we are still here. We have survived tyrants and despots and the horrors and holocausts they bring with them from their own Hells.
We always ultimately outlast and overcome them.
This time will be no different. It still remains possible that these will turn out to be the best of times once more.
But it won’t be easy. Never is.
And a hundred or two hundred years from now, the people of that time will find themselves neck deep in that same stinky shitpond and will take comfort in our own endurance and triumph. They won’t even question how we let our stupidity lead us into that shitpond because they will no doubt have followed the same route to their own pond.
Count on it.
Here’s a song from the always wise John Prine. It’s about finding that Heaven exists here if we can only recognize it. This is He Was in Heaven Before He Died.
Now, get out of here. Go find your own Heaven. Or Hell. It’s your call, after all.
Can ye fathom the ocean, dark and deep, where the mighty waves and the grandeur sweep?
–Fanny Crosby, A Wreath of Columbia’s Flowers (1858)
When I finished this painting about 31 years back, I thought it was by far the best thing I had painted. Actually, I felt it might be the best thing I would ever paint, that it was as good as it might ever get for me. I was still new to this all. Pretty green.
I had just started showing at the West End Gallery just a few months before and I decided to show it there. As I said I was naive and, feeling that it was the best thing I had done or would ever do, put an absurdly high price on it. I can’t remember the specifics, but I believe I priced it at more than twice the price of other pieces of mine that were around the same price.
Of course, it didn’t find a home. I quickly brought it home and it has remained here since. I did learn a few things from that experience, one being that I can’t price my work based on my subjective judgement of any one piece. What I see as the merits of my work mean little to someone else.
But the more important lesson was that you can never say when your best work has appeared. Or, for that matter, if it will remain your best work forever. Looking back, it would be a sad commentary on my growth as an artist (and a human) if this early were to be my best work.
I would feel like a one hit wonder, a pop star who had some early success then never progressed beyond that.
That is not to denigrate this painting in any way. It is still a hit in my eyes. I still am moved as much by it now as I was then. It still speaks directly to some deep part within me. And at the time, it probably was the best thing I had painted.
But I moved on in many ways. But I took much of what I saw in this piece with me. I wrote a short paragraph about ten years ago about what I saw in this painting:
It reminds me of the feeling of looking out at the ocean. Maybe for us who live and were raised inland, far away from the seas, seeking the far horizon in our landscapes is the equivalent. Watching the roll of the land and how it comes up to meet the sky raises many of those same feelings, creating a sense of awe in us of the great power and vastness of the world and our own smallness in relation to it.
I think much of my work since this was painted has carried that same search for the distant horizon and that sense of being carried over the rolls of the landscape as on a boat. It creates a perspective that allows us to see the grandeur of the sky and the sea and our both own smallness in relation to it and our connection to it.
I have lived all my life in a region with hills and valleys, far from the oceans, yet I always find myself seeking that horizon still, knowing that this same sky hangs over the hills, plains, and oceans. It connects us and represents something greater.
I see that in this piece still and while my work may have progressed and have been and will be other paintings that I see as being the best things I have ever done at any given time, this is the equal of any of those in my eyes.
I am still debating whether I will show this piece again. While it has a place in my heart, it has already served its purpose for me. I know that my work is created to be shared, to find life and purpose beyond myself.
It may show up in June at my Principle Gallery show. Or not. Still not sure.
Here’s a song that goes with this post and painting in several. This is I Am the Sea followed by Can You See the Real Me and the instrumental overture, Quadrophenia, from The Who off their classic album, Quadrophenia, from 1973. All three compositions lineup beautifully with what I see in this painting and what I felt at the time it was done, when I was just finding a way to show the real me.
“There is very little that I can do well,” he confessed. “I cannot have or care for a child. I cannot prepare a meal satisfactorily—the dishes never emerge at the appropriate times. I cannot even eat a meal when I would like to. Things are falling apart; I lack mental and glandular flexibility. My brain doesn’t produce the creative fog, or words or sentences that share anything but the dusty refuse that resides in my skull. I cannot even be a friend for any sustained period of time, because my boundaries, always gently traced in sand—sands of madness—have been blown away and I can’t retrace them. I cannot, you see, really do anything, can’t relate to anything, but goddammit, I thought once, and I think still, that I can write. Can’t I get a single witness to whom I once delivered pages and deliverance to say that I once mattered?”
-Tennessee Williams, interview with James Grissom from Follies of God (2015)
The words above from the late Tennessee Williams really hit hard when I first read them. For one thing, his statement that there is very little that he does well hit a nerve as it is a belief that I have long held about myself.
Don’t get me wrong, I can do things. It’s more a question of whether I can do them well. And in most every case the answer comes back that my skills are unexceptional. Average at best.
Just enough to somehow get by. I guess that’s the most important part here.
There are some things I do somewhat well. My work, for example. But even that assessment is suspect in a field based on subjectivity. I can’t say with any authority that my painting is exceptional. Of course, I want to believe that it is.
Even if it is not, it has been good enough to get by for about thirty years now. That is probably all that matters.
But is it something that I can say that I do well? Something that matters beyond the living and self-expression it provides for me?
Is it relevant outside of my own mind? Does it really matter and have relevance to the outside world?
I think anyone working in a creative field has questions at some point about the relevance of their work. I imagine it is an achingly difficult question for someone like Tennessee Williams who had been often near the pinnacle of his field. I have never scaled to anywhere the heights he reached, of course. Few have.
But whether an artist is standing at the peak of the mountain or toiling somewhere further down it, the question of relevance is much the same: Can my mind create work that is exceptional and, more importantly, work that has a wider resonance?
It’s a hard question. I think most artists try to avoid even thinking about it and that’s probably the right route to take. Just do the work that you feel the need to create and let the others sort it out.
That is what I try to do, for the most part. But there are days– and weeks and months– where that question nags at me. It’s been hanging around a little more with the fatigue I am experiencing. As I try to muster up the energy to get started, that question jumps out at me:Does it really matter?
There are days when the answer is no and nothing gets done. I stumble around in frustration and fog.
But more often than not, the answer comes back to me in the form of another question: If it doesn’t, what does?
Its relevance might simply be in its existence.
Much like our own.
So, I go to work most days, hoping that whatever comes from my efforts has some purpose and relevance. That it has expression and meaning in this time or whatever time in which it is seen. That it doesn’t exist one day as merely a relic of the past.
Being such an internal struggle, I am not sure this makes much sense to many folks. But then again, we all wonder whether whatever makes up our lives has meaning, that it somehow matters. So, maybe it does make sense.
I don’t know.
Thanks for putting up with my wandering– and wondering– mind this morning.
Here’s a song, That’s Where I’m Going, from Eilen Jewell. I am not going to try to explain the relationship between this song, the paintings at top, and my words. There might not be any evident connection though I am sure I can pretzel logic one together if I felt like it.
My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.
–Jean Cocteau, on 26 August 1945; Professional Secrets (1972)
Ain’t that the truth?
And Cocteau would know. Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) was one of those folks who somehow achieve virtuosity in a multitude of fields. Cocteau shone brightly in many ways– as a poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. His 1946 film of Beauty and the Beast is considered a masterpiece of French cinema, as is The Blood of a Poet from 1930.
Though he found acclaim a variety of mediums, Cocteau considered himself a poet, but one who created poetry in many fields. He believed that poetry could and should be found in any creative field, that poetry was the sought after final product of creation.
But he also realized that actively seeking poetry in whatever medium you might work is often a futile effort. Poetry comes not from the poet or artist calling for it. No, one must first immerse themselves in their work in order to find a rhythm and harmony in the words, the paints, the musical notes, or the movement of the dance they employ.
That coming together of rhythm and harmony is the creator of poetry.
Trying to create true poetry without first finding rhythm and harmony is putting the horse before the cart.
Been there, done that. Too many times. Trying to force feeling into a painting usually produces lifeless work. The feeling or emotional tone and message of any piece doesn’t come into being until a rhythm and harmony is established well into the process.
As a result, the most strikingly emotive pieces, those that are poetry, often come when you least expect them. It’s like that when the moment comes where rhythm and harmony come together, poetry senses its opportunity and jumps in, taking over the whole show.
And in those times, few as they may be, when this occurs in my own work, I am happy to hand over the reins to poetry.
The main thing for any artist in any field is to be at work. Poetry needs a vehicle on which to ride. And the work of the artist is that vehicle.
No work, no poetry. Simple as that.
So, every day, though I may not feel like it and may not feel enthusiastic or poetic in any way, I go to work knowing that poetry is always lurking, ready to ride into form if I give it the opportunity.
And if the opportunity arises and poetry does appear, I am grateful to ride along as its passenger on that day.
Will poetry come around today? Don’t know if it will, but I do know that it won’t unless I get to work.
I struggled to choose a piece to attach to this post. It’s difficult because sometimes the poetry I see is not apparent to everyone. Sometimes it seems as though it shows itself to me alone. Not that I mind that. Our private poetry is often the most satisfying.
I chose the painting at the top, Further On Up the Road, because it has a rhythm and harmony to it that seems easily apparent. Well, it does to me. Whether you find poetry in it is not in my control.
But it’s there for me.
Here’s one of the late recordings of Johnny Cash, produced in the final months of his life. I have commented here before that I believe the work from late in his life was as raw and powerfully deep– poetic– as anything in his long and illustrious career. This is his cover of a Bruce Springsteen song, Further On Up the Road, that I shared here a number of years back.
This day will never come again and anyone who fails to eat and drink and taste and smell it will never have it offered to him again in all eternity. The sun will never shine as it does today…But you must play your part and sing a song, one of your best.
—Herman Hesse, Klingsor’s Last Summer (1920)
Only Now, shown above, is a 24″ by 30″ painting from 2012. It is scheduled for inclusion in my June solo show at the Principle Gallery. It has long been a favorite of mine.
I don’t know that I can put a finger on any specific reason for that, but it remains one of those pieces that speaks directly to me. Maybe it is its combination of airiness and earthiness or perhaps it is its clarity of both expression and message for me.
I guess the reason doesn’t matter so much as the fact that it communicates and connects with me on an emotional level. That is the final arbiter for me in all things.
A coincidence occurred while I was looking for a short quote or passage to accompany this painting. I came across the passage above from a lesser-known Hermann Hesse novella that I felt was custom made for this painting. The coincidence came in that I had just purchased the book last week and it still sits unopened and unread on the counter by the backdoor to the studio.
Mere coincidence? Most likely. But it made me wonder about the convergences of things and whether they have meaning in our lives, themes that seem at home in Hesse’s writings. And in my paintings.
By the way, Klingsor’s Last Summer is about a middle-aged painter in the last summer of his life. There is no coincidence here. This will not be my last summer, not by a long shot. Too many paintings still unpainted. Nor am I a middle-aged hedonistic, hard drinking womanizer in Italy like Hesse’s title character.
That description makes my life sound pretty damn boring. But I guess how we experience life is not so important as simply experiencing each day with the understanding that is a once-in-a-lifetime event.
Life is like art– to each his own.
And sometimes the inverse holds true– art is life.
Here’s a song to that might seem at first blush to be an odd choice to go along with this painting. But if you’ve ever really listened closely to the lyrics, you will understand the connection.
Day after day, alone on a hill The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still But nobody wants to know him, they can see that he’s just a fool And he never gives an answer
But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down And the eyes in his head see the world spinning around
The song is, of course, the Beatles classic The Fool on the Hill from their 1967 album, Magical Mystery Tour. Though the Beatles’ original cannot be surpassed, I am sharing this version from Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 for the simple reason that I have always loved its sound and vibe.
And as you know, I am all about the vibe. Says the fool on his hill…
Whatever happens. Whatever what is is is what I want. Only that. But that.
—Prayer, Galway Kinnell (1927-2014)
This is the third time I have featured verses from Galway Kinnell in the last week or so. I wasn’t planning on doing it that way. These three poems just seemed to fall into line with my thinking at the moment. I will most likely never share another of his poems and will struggle to remember who he is if I stumble across his name in the future. Well, maybe not — his name has a memorable quality.
As to this short poem of his, after stumbling over the triple use of is in the second line, my first thought was that it might be referring to the inevitability of all things.
Or maybe the acceptance of whatever happens.
I struggled with that interpretation. I understood it and might well be okay with it under different circumstances. But at this point in time, with what is taking place in this country, the idea of simply accepting whatever happens without question was not appetizing to me.
Of course, after reading it a few times– after getting the rhythm right for the what is is is— I understood that it was not about passive acceptance of whatever life hands you.
It is, to my understanding, at least, about wanting to know life completely, to not be deprived of any experience that marks us as human. No more, no less.
To love and be loved.
To know joy and happiness yet not be deprived of the sorrow, loss, and grief allotted to each of us.
To be both the humble giver and the appreciative receiver of kindnesses and generosities.
To understand that we possess both knowledge and ignorance.
To feel big at times and small at others.
To know both the absolute certainty and uncertainty contained in belief.
To have felt secure and insecure.
To have acted with both courage and cowardice.
To feel both the short-lived elative moments of victory and the lingering, harsh pang of failure.
To care for someone other than yourself and be cared for as yourself.
To know that when you leave this world you do so with the knowledge that you have been exposed to all that is human. Nothing has been kept from you, good or bad. And though you may not want to leave, you do so gladly with that knowledge in hand.
I believe that is what the what is is. I know that this is the what is that I want.
No more, no less.
Only that. But that.
Okay, let’s hear some music, shall we. This week’s Sunday Morning Music is Shine a Lightfrom the Rolling Stones, off their 1972 album Exile on Main Street. I think today’s triad of verse, image, and song work well together.
