Redtree Times

Ten Moons of Wonder– At West End Gallery

You yourself are in an ecstatic state to such a point that you feel as though you almost don’t exist. I’ve experienced this time and again. My hand seems devoid of myself, and I have nothing to do with what is happening. I just sit there watching in a state of awe and wonderment. And it just flows out by itself.

–Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, FLOW: Studies of Enjoyment (1974)

The passage above from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (the last name is roughly pronounced Cheek-Sent-Me-High) captures the words of a composer describing the state of mind they enter when they become fully immersed in a composition. Their self and ego recede into a distant point outside of what is being created.

The creative flow.

Been there, done that, and have to say there isn’t anything more wondrous than it. The outside world is far removed, and you are almost like a point in space witnessing what is being created. Picture the beam from a light pointer zipping around. It is a sense of weightlessness and timelessness. In the words of a poet also interviewed by Csikszentmihalyi:

It’s like opening a door that floating in the middle of nowhere and all you have to do is going turn the handle and open it and let yourself sink into it. You can’t particularly force yourself through it. You just have to float. If there’s any gravitational pull, it’s from the outside world trying to keep you back from the door.

As I said, it is a feeling I have encountered many times over the years. In this past year it has been, I have come to appreciate the special quality of this creative flow as there have been times when my mind has been consumed by health concerns. I have often felt overwhelmed in the outer world yet once I have floated through that door into nowhere, those things that disturb me fade away and are replaced by a feeling of wonder at what is before me. Worries and fears, aches and pains, thoughts both negative and positive, all dissipate for a time.

The creative flow has been a saving grace this past year.

The painting shown at the top, Ten Moons of Wonder, is symbolic of the being in that creative flow. It’s as though I am on remote island, far removed from the chatter and drone of the world. My mind becomes clear and with that clarity I am able to see beyond the what is. and into the what might be where the ten moons crowd the dark sky.

And I am filled with awe and wonderment.

I’ve struggled to describe the meaning of my paintings with multiple moons, but this might well be the best explanation I can offer. There is a certain alchemy that comes into play with them that never fails to thrill me when I am working on them.

I hope it will always be that way.

Here’s a song, a composition actually, that feels like it could be the soundtrack for some sort of creative flow. Well. at least my creative flow. You might have a different soundtrack, if you have on at all. This is Tout Suite No. 1 in F Major 1 from Moondog performed with the London Saxophonic. Moondog was a truly unique character in many ways, a homeless and blind composer called the Viking of 6th Avenue during his time as a street person in Viking garb from the 1950’s up into the 70’s in NYC. He has made a couple of appearances here in the past and I still want to write more about him here. But for today, let’s just listen to his music.

A Call to Action– At West End Gallery

The waterfalls trinkling like bells to my ear
The earth rolls out before me through smiles and tears
A country lost, a soul discovered
The ruin that I once was will soon recover

And I know a howlin’ wind runs through here
Blowin’ everyday
Yeah a howlin’ wind runs through here
Takes my breath away

–Graham Parker, Howlin’ Wind (1976)

I was surprised that I had not shared the song with the lyrics shown here. It’s the title track from the 1976 album, Howlin’ Wind, from Graham Parker. The album was a big hit with the critics at the time, and it is still considered a landmark record that ushered in the punk era. I loved so many of the songs on this album, many of which have been shared here. Don’t Ask Me Questions is pretty high up on the list of my all-time favorites. Pretty sure I had this album on both vinyl and 8-track, a format that seems incomprehensible in these technologically advanced times. But at the time, carrying a shoebox in your car that held about 8 or 9 of the clunky big cartridges felt pretty posh.

I was listening to this song this morning and that first verse hit me, especially its final two lines:

A country lost, a soul discovered
The ruin that I once was will soon recover

It instantly fell into the context of what is taking place in this country, where every day seems to contain more and more revelations of the madness, the massive corruption that has never been seen before here, traitorous maneuvering that pits us against our allies and in the camp of our longtime foes, and on and on and on and on. As I have said many times before here, it is as though they are battering us with firehoses of awfulness. They know that so long as they keep it coming full force, we will not be able to keep our balance long enough to muster a unified front that can overcome their efforts to strip away the wealth and freedoms of this nation.

We are on the verge of becoming, as the song says, a country lost. But in their attempts to overwhelm us, I believe they have unwittingly awakened a fighting spirit among the masses who are finally beginning to see that they have been played like pawns on a chess board, all for the benefit of an international cabal of the ultra-wealthy who desire to own and control everything. It feels like people are beginning to realize that the things that concerns them are not the same as those who seek to manipulate them.

Maybe that is the soul discovered in that line of the song? Maybe.

And hopefully, the last line– The ruin that I once was will soon recover— is an accurate prediction.

It feels like something is in the air, that people are responding to the call to action. I am not going to use the word hope here today. Though it is a word that shows itself again and again here, in times like these we need the power of hopelessness, something I have written about here before. As I wrote in 2020:

Hope is a promise unfulfilled, a wish without action.

No, in times of doom, hopelessness is your greatest ally.

Hopelessness demands action.

Hopelessness is the greatest agent of change.

Hopelessness is fearless, with nothing left to lose.

That is the thought behind the painting at the top, A Call to Action. Desperate times require that you discard the notion that someone else will bail you out. That’s hope. And as I said, hope can sometimes keep you from taking the action that will save you.

Is this hyperbole? I don’t think so at this point. What has taken place over the past decade provides ample evidence that it is not. There is absolutely nothing normal taking place.

I will use hope just once this morning.

I hope people can embrace the power of their hopelessness and answer the call to action that comes on a howlin’ wind.

Mysterious Night– At West End Gallery

Sweet moonlight, shining full and clear,
Why do you light my torture here?
How often have you seen me toil,
Burning last drops of midnight oil.
On books and papers as I read,
My friend, your mournful light you shed.
If only I could flee this den
And walk the mountain-tops again,
Through moonlit meadows make my way,
In mountain caves with spirits play —
Released from learning’s musty smell,
Your healing dew would make me well!

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust (1808)

I guess if the healing dew of one moon would make one well then would the light of seven moons work even better? Or would be an overdose? Just wondering this morning. Reading my first sentences here reminds me that my life has become one where doses and meds have become dominant. I didn’t see that coming a year or so back. But it’s just part of the price one pays. I would much prefer to be made well by moonlight’s healing dew. I imagine there might be fewer side effects.

I am tired this morning, something I can see in that first paragraph. Unfocused and a bit rambling. As is the case with every solo show that I have done over the past 26 years or so, which includes 70 shows, the days after the show opens are filled with a mix of emotions, something I have documented here many times in the past. There is, of course, relief in that the obligations for the show have been met and my time is freed up a bit. Sometimes there is elation in that the show was wildly successful but even for those shows there is also a sense of a big letdown, bringing with it an almost depressive state.

The carrot that lured this mule forward has been removed and I stumble around in a somewhat aimless state. It often takes a few weeks to shake the blahs that appear during this time. But after 70+ shows, I don’t fret too much when they do appear now. Like the tide, they come then go. A natural occurrence.

I can imagine how difficult if must seem for a young artist encountering this for the first time. I have heard from a number over the years expressing how this feeling surprised them as they expected the exact opposite reaction, that they would feel like life had changed somehow. That the tide would come in and somehow stay there for them. And maybe there are the fortunate few for which this happens.

I don’t know. As it is with so many things, the breadth of my knowledge is limited. On this subject, I can only speak of my experience.

The experience of one befuddled mule with a mysterious disappearing carrot.

I am going to go lay on the floor now. My studio cats are gathered and demanding attention. Maybe I will find the missing carrot down there. Who knows? You never can tell when or where it will reappear.

Here’s hoping…

Here’s also this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s Moonlight Mile from the Rolling Stones, a favorite of mine from their 1971 classic album, Sticky Fingers. There’s something in this song that matches up really well with the Mysterious Night at the top and Goethe’s lines— and my own mood this morning.

Now, let me gets to my cats. Don’t step on me on your way out.

The Hallelujah Garden— Now at the West End Gallery

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

–Marcel Proust, Pleasures and Regrets (1896)

Count me in as a blossomed soul.

I am so grateful for those folks who made their way to the West End Gallery last night for the opening of my show, The Jubilee Dance. Their presence and the happiness they brought and created made it a very pleasant evening. It was so good to see old friends and meet the many new folks who showed up. Overall, the show seemed to strike a chord with most of those in attendance.

As an artist, it’s all you can ask for.

I’ve written here many times before about the shock to the system that comes in doing events like this. I spend almost 99% of my time by myself in the studio with only Cheri as my only human contact during the day. When an opening or gallery talk comes around, it sometimes feel as though I am an inmate who has been in solitary confinement (self-imposed, mind you) for a long period who has been suddenly thrown into a crowd. I almost have to consciously remember how to interact with others so I don’t seem as awkward as I feel.

Generally, it works out and most folks don’t recognize that my mind is racing out of control the whole time. It is all kind of kept in check by the extraordinary warmth and kindness I encounter at these things, which is both soothing and gratifying.

It makes me happy and like Proust’s admonition, I am grateful.

There’s a lot more that could be said. In the usual course of these things, I will spend the day after overthinking last night’s events. That’s normally has me second-guessing and regretting some of the things I said and didn’t say or the folks I wasn’t able to get to or spend much time with.

It makes for a curious mix here back in solitary confinement– both happy and fretful.

Today I will try to focus on the happy part.

Again, many, many thanks to everyone who came out last night. And as always, a special to Jesse and Linda at the West End Gallery for everything they have done for me with great friendship and affection over the past thirty years. My life would be much different without them.

Okay, let’s have a song, shall we? This is an R.E.M. song from 1991 that features Kate Pierson of the B-52s singing with Michael Stipe. I haven’t heard this tune in several years and it came on while I was writing which I took as a tiny bit of serendipity. It works this morning. This is Shiny Happy People.

The Elevating Spirit– Now at West End Gallery

We are adapted to infinity. We are hard to please, and love nothing which ends: and in nature is no end; but every thing, at the end of one use, is lifted into a superior, and the ascent of these things climbs into daemonic and celestial natures.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Swedenborg; or the Mystic (1850)

Well, my annual solo exhibit at the West End Gallery opens tonight.

Finally. Phew.

This was a tough one in a lot of ways, as I have noted here in the past few weeks. It really took it out of me and even after the work for the show was delivered, it didn’t end or bring the expected relief. As it is with every show, the time between delivery and opening is stressful as I wait to see how the show will be received.

And when I am not fretting, I am promoting the show here and on other social media platforms which in its own way is equally tiresome. But it is mandatory since artist is basically much like any other small business; it needs the eyes and ears of people if it is to be successful. It is one part of doing what I do that gets old fast. After the day of the opening, the pressure to promote lessens somewhat but doesn’t go away fully.

I have to admit that promoting this show, even with the stress and health issues, has been made much easier by the work that populates this exhibit. There are so many pieces in it that I am eager to point out and say a few words about. Even with the constant drumbeat of my promotion the past month or so, I have only shown a portion of the work from this show. There are so many pieces in the show that I consider extremely strong in all ways that I just won’t be able to get to here.

Take for example, the painting shown here, The Elevating Spirit. I was surprised when I realized that I hadn’t yet featured it here. It’s a richly colored painting that has a gorgeous glow on the wall that comes with a message, as I see it, that could easily be the theme for this show. It’s pretty much summed up in the passage at the top from Ralph Waldo Emerson.

We are adapted to infinity…

Damn, that’s a fine line! it sure fits what I see in The Elevating Spirit. I see the Red Tree being lifted above the earthly and into the celestial.

And just for your information, daemonic as used by Emerson above is not the same as demonic. A daemon is an ancient Greek guiding spirit, inner voice, or lesser divine power that acts as an intermediary between gods and humans. A demon is a daemon– an evil one– but not all daemons are demons. Try to keep that straight, okay?

I am going to say it one more time: Phew. My 25th annual solo exhibit, The Jubilee Dance, opens tonight at the West End Gallery in Corning with an Opening Reception that runs from 5-7 PM.

I will be there to answer questions and generally be in the way. Hope you can come and be in the way with me for a while.

Here’s a song about elevating the mind, body, and spirit. It’s a favorite of mine, The Rising, from Bruce Springsteen written in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The song is performed here by Sting from the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors. There’s a political/cultural statement to be made here but I am going to leave that for another day. But it will be made, you can count on that.

For today, I am going to be inspired and elevated by this performance.

The Far Outpost— Now at West End Gallery

An island always pleases my imagination, even the smallest, as a small continent and integral portion of the globe. I have a fancy for building my hut on one. Even a bare, grassy isle, which I can see entirely over at a glance, has some undefined and mysterious charm for me.

–Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)

I share Thoreau’s fascination for islands, especially those small ones that you can take in, as he wrote, entirely with a glance. I see that same mysterious charm in them. But I also see them as a place of refuge and quietude as well as a symbol of one’s own sovereignty.

Apart from all things and people with their intrusive noise and nosiness, an island can feel like its own kingdom or nation or even universe.

A place to call one’s own.

I suppose in some part that is why islands show up in many of my paintings. They have become so much of an ingrained element that I am not even aware of how often that they do appear in my work. They just show up and I happily work around them. For example, in my solo show opening at the West End Gallery tomorrow, there are no less than eleven paintings with islands as the central focus of my landscapes. And there are several other that might be either islands or long promontories. I leave that up to your imagination.

The painting shown here, The Far Outpost, leaves no doubt that it is indeed an island. It is a piece that exudes a certain contentment that pleases me greatly. It comes no doubt from the warm blend of colors and light in the sky and the burnt orange of the island itself. The Red Tree also adds to this sense of contentment with the golden tone in its red crown and its almost relaxed posture, as though it is casually standing with one hip out, at ease with the world and its place in it.

I could be very happy on this island.

Now a word from our sponsor. Here’s the obligatory promotion of my show.

The Far Outpost is included in The Jubilee Dance, my 25th annual solo exhibit at the West End Gallery, the very place where I first started showing my work. The show begins tomorrow, Friday, October 16, with an Opening Reception that runs from 5-7 PM. I have promised to come off my island for the reception so if you want to talk a bit, come on in.

I will also be off the island for a Gallery Talk at the West End on Saturday, November 7. The Gallery Talk begins at 11 AM but we are advising you to get there early to insure you get a seat. Doors open at 10:30 AM. If you do come early, I will be there to chat. I will also be bringing some goodies including at least one of my paintings that will be given away in a free drawing at the conclusion of the talk.

Both the Gallery Talk and the drawing are free and open to one and all.

Here’s a song, Island in the Sun, from Weezer. Not to be confused with the Harry Belafonte song of the same name. Hard to believe this song is 25 years old. How time does fly.

But it still sounds good on my little island.

This Place, This Life— Now at West End Gallery

Every soul is engaged in a great work—the labor of personal liberation from the state of ignorance. The world is a great prison; its bars are the Unknown. And each is a prisoner until, at last, he earns the right to tear these bars from their moldering sockets, and pass, illuminated and inspired into the darkness, which becomes lighted by that presence. We can only escape from the world by outgrowing the world. Death may take man out of the world but only wisdom can take the world out of the man. As long as the human being is obsessed by worldliness, he will suffer from the Karmic consequences of false allegiances. When however, worldliness is transmuted into Spiritual Integrity he is free, even though he still dwells physically among worldly things.

–Manly P. Hall, The Lost Keys of Freemasonry (1923)

Manly P. Hall was only 22 when wrote the book The Lost Keys of Freemasonry. In fact, he was not even a Freemason at that point. That didn’t happen until 1954. Hall was an interesting character, the head of a church in Los Angeles when he was also still 22 who went on to a 70-year career as a prominent lecturer and author of over 150 books, essays and volumes dealing mainly with world mythology, secret societies, and esoteric philosophy. He believed that all world religions, mythologies, and philosophies point to a single, underlying spiritual truth and that service to others, unselfish living and a mastery of our emotions was the key to attaining universal truth.

To be honest, I had not heard of Hall before encountering the passage above and don’t know much about him outside of a quick and cursory search.  Not sure if his teaching were controversial or have been widely discredited but the passage above felt right for this new painting which I call This Place, This Life.

It’s a painting that seems to brim with mystery and symbolism. I see the Red Chair here as being the stand-in (or should I say, sit-in?) for the soul that is engaged in its great work of freeing itself from its inborn state of ignorance.

The trees represent the bars of the soul’s prison, those things Unknown that keep the Red Chair trapped in darkness.

The path symbolizes the passage from darkness past the prison bars into the presence of the moon’s light which serves as the symbol for the illumination that comes with wisdom.

The Red Roofed house represents the soul that has been liberated– free though it still dwells physically among worldly things.

As for its title, This Place, This Life, it was anointed that long before I came across this passage. But even that title seems to fit Hall’s words. We are put into this place at birth, emerging from the darkness in a state of ignorance and with no choice in the matter. Our life then becomes a labored journey on the path from darkness and ignorance to light and wisdom.

That pretty much sums up what I was seeing in this painting when it came off the easel.

Or in the words of Manly P. Hall: We can only escape from the world by outgrowing the world.

Of course, you may not see that in this painting at all. It might not appeal to you in any way. That’s fine. That’s art.

This feels like one of those paintings that might be for me alone, though I can never be sure of these things now. I have pretty much lost the ability to predict how others will react to my work. That’s okay, too. Being able to predict how people will react would make it feel too much like a manipulation rather than an honest expression.

And I believe this is an honest expression. So, who knows?

This Life, This Place is included in The Jubilee Dance, my 25th annual solo show at the West End Gallery. The show is now hanging and is available for previews and presales. I saw the show the other day and I think it looks great but then again, what do I know?  Plus, I also am more than a little biased in my opinion on this subject.

The show officially opens this coming Friday, October 16, with an opening reception that runs from 5-7 PM. Hope you can make it.

There is also a Gallery Talk accompanying the show that takes place on Saturday, November 7, beginning at 11 AM. Details forthcoming though I have to hint that there will be some major giveaways.

Here’s a song that, like most of the songs I share here, has only the most tenuous connection with the painting or words of that day’s post. The song is The Mercy Seat, a Nick Cave song performed by Johnny Cash. It is from Cash’s final years when he produced what I consider to be a group of work that was nothing less than art. The Mercy Seat in the song is the electric chair and the narrator is a prisoner on Death Row about to be executed.

As awful as it is in itself, at least it doesn’t descend into the barbarism of being livestreamed as some sort of bloodthirsty spectacle.

That being said, perhaps the Red Chair here is in some way the Mercy Seat and that we are all eventually condemned to leave this earthly plane. Of course, I could be grasping at straws here. Doesn’t matter. I just felt it was serious song that I wanted to share with what I consider to be a serious painting.

Oaky, I’ve been trying to cut back on saying this but, seriously, you got to git…

Found Grace— Now at the West End Gallery

Life, raw life, the kind we lead every day, whether it leads us into the past or the future, has the curious property of not seeming real enough. We have a need, however illusive, for a life that is more real than life. It lies in the imagination. Fiction would seem to be the way it is processed into reality. If this were not so we should have little excuse for art. Life, raw life, would be more than satisfactory in itself. But it seems to be the nature of man to transform—himself, if possible, and then the world around him—and the technique of this transformation is what we call art. When man fails to transform, he loses consciousness, he stops living.

—Wright Morris, The Territory Ahead (1958)

Art as a transformation of the self and then of the world.

Amen to that.

This pretty much mirrors what I wrote a couple of days ago in reference to the words of Henry Miller, that art is not an escape as it is often described. I most likely have said that in the past but, then again, I say a lot of stuff that is subject to change.

If art is an escape, it is not from the reality of the world around us. N0, it is an escape from the limitations and unreal nature of this life into the absolute reality that exists in our creative imaginations.

The real world exists within us, not outside ourselves.

That sounds a bit crazy, I know. To many, reality is only what we see and hear and touch and taste. The sensory world. For them, the world of dreams and imagination is the province of the weak-minded and the unserious.

I believe the opposite to be true, that the world created in our imagination is for those of strong will, those too strong to be cowed by the false reality that is pushed upon them every day. Those who inhabit the inner world– the dreamers and creators– have an absolute belief that the outer world is transformable, that there remains a possibility that the outer world of unreality will someday align with the reality of the inner world.

The outside world is only changed when our inner world transforms.

That only then will all people have consciousness and be truly alive.

Phew. That’s a lot to think about. Certainly more than I expected when I sat down this morning. I never quite know what the hell is going to come out. I guess that this not knowing, this uncertainty, is where I find the appeal.

It’s kind of like painting– if I knew what was going to come out, why would I even paint?

As Morris wrote above, there would be no need for art in a world that satisfied all realities. And as of this moment, at 6:02 AM on Tuesday, October 13, the outside world is failing to do just that.

Sorry for running on this morning. That does a certain disservice to the painting, Found Grace, featured at the top which beautifully captures, for me, the potential for grace, light, and beauty that exists in the inner realm.

It represents the world transformed.

I like the sound of those four words. I think that whenever anyone in the future asks me what a particular painting means I will utter those words–it represents the world transformed.

At the moment, I can’t think of a painting of mine where that wouldn’t apply. But then again, I could be wrong. It is early and I’m tired and achy.

Found Grace is where I live for now. You can see it at the West End Gallery as part of The Jubilee Dance, my solo exhibit there that opens this Friday, October 16. This year’s show marks my 25th solo effort at the West End, something of which I am kind of proud. I sure didn’t think it was in the cards for me back in 1995 when I first started showing my little paintings.

But I was transformed and hopefully, in some very small way, so was the world.

The Jubilee Dance is now hanging and is available for previews and presales. The show officially opens this coming Friday, October 16, with an opening reception that runs from 5-7 PM. Hope to see you there.

There is also a Gallery Talk accompanying the show that takes place on Saturday, November 7, beginning at 11 AM. Details forthcoming.

Here’s a song from Ben Harper about the power of transformation. This is With My Own Two Hands.

A good vibe to say good-bye.

On the Flats (1995)– Now at West End Gallery

May the countryside and the gliding valley streams content me. Lost to fame, let me love river and woodland.

–Virgil, Georgics (29 BCE)

In my solo show at the West End Gallery that opens Friday, there is a group of five paintings from my earliest days as a painter. I call them my vintage work. I have shared all of them here on the post in the past month or two except for this particular piece, titled On the Flats. I have it listed as being from 1995 but in fact it was painted in November of 1994, several months before my work began showing publicly at the West End.

However, it did show briefly back in 1995. I can tell not from records or anything written but from the awful matting that adorned it for decades. It was obviously one of my first attempts at presenting my work. I was totally unaware how to mat and frame the work that needed to be under glass and didn’t yet realize that a simple white cotton mat was the best way to show my work without distracting from it or even negatively affecting it. The mat I had on this was a textured gray one with a maroon border around the image. Unflattering in every way.

For years, I looked at this painting in that surrounding mat, not fully realizing how it affected my own judgement of it. Only when I finally removed the mat recently did I truly recognize the quality of this piece. The sky, for example, was a perfect example of the coloration I was seeking in my work, a complex blend of hues achieved by adding and subtracting the pigments in a way that let the white surface glow through.

The sky in this piece is exceptional, and I doubt that I could replicate it now. It is a unique product of its time. That actually can be said for a lot of my work. My process continually changes as does my color palette and even my surfaces. This was painted on watercolor paper without the gesso that became the preferred base for my surfaces.

I actually look at this piece with a bit of envy now because I know how attuned I was then o the particular process that created it. My work has grown and widened in its scope but, in the process, some things are lost along the way and most likely will never be recovered. When I painted this piece back in late 1994, I thought it was beyond me, as both a painter and a person. Looking at it now, I no longer think it is beyond me as a person. It took years for me to catch up with it. But as a painter, it is still beyond me, though for different reasons.

Another thing I like about this piece is its tangible sense of place and its feel. I am a hill person by nature and live in an area marked by valleys of varying sizes. Some are very narrow, running at the base of two hills alongside creeks that carved their tight little valley. Others are broad and airy, as though they exist in a dome of clear air. One local town is named Big Flats for very obvious reasons.

This wide valley flatland was exactly the sort of place that made me give up writing years before. When I aspired to be a writer, I found that my work always gravitated to descriptions of wide spaces and silence, with little narrative. Hardly the stuff that made for great reading. I don’t know that I made a conscious decision then, but it showed me plainly that I had to find a better outlet to express myself, one that made wide open space and silence more palatable to myself and the viewer.

Luckily, I fell off a ladder and ended up as a painter.

That’s the whole story this morning.

Here is the immortal Otis Redding with Down in the Valley. Doesn’t get much better than this.

As I said, On the Flats and four other vintage paintings (shown at the bottom of the page) are included in The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery. The show is now hanging and is available for previews and presales. The show officially opens this coming Friday, October 16, with an opening reception that runs from 5-7 PM. Hope to see you there.

There is also a Gallery Talk accompanying the show that takes place on Saturday, November 7, beginning at 11 AM. Details coming in the weeks ahead though I am pretty sure there be things given away. If you know, you know.

Bottle Factory (1994)

Factory View (1994)

The Heights (1994)

Eldridge Park (1994)

If you are an artist, that means that you are denuding yourself more and more, that by the time you die you are stark naked and your bowels turned inside out.

— Henry Miller, Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

This new painting, The Tree at Time’s End, is somewhat of an anomaly in the body of my work and in my West End Gallery show that opens Friday. I say somewhat because it fits but has a dimension to it that makes it feel apart.

I have always had a warm spot in my heart for such anomalies. I think some of that goes to the sentence above from Henry Miller. While the vast majority of my work is biographical in some way or at least representing my feelings and emotions of this world, the anomalies often give an even deeper glimpse into the psyche. They seem to pull down the barrier that have been put up to protect our (my) deepest emotions.

I believe my work is overwhelmingly honest for the most part but these anomalies seem to me to be even more honest. Sometimes painfully so.

That is where the denuding come into play. That is just another way of describing the transparency I have often mentioned here and in gallery talks in the past. I believe my work and my writing about it have become increasingly more transparent over the years. I still have some layers protecting parts of me like a fig leaf, but I often feel as though I stand before the world naked through my work and words.

I worried about that years ago, wanting to keep my barriers high enough to only afford those outside them the smallest glimpse. But I soon realized that my work was who I was and when I tried to pretend it wasn’t, the work suffered. I quickly learned that I was mistaken in thinking I could escape by pretending to be something other than what I was and began to feel more comfortable in exposing that person, even when I show my less than flattering aspects.

Art is, in itself, is not the escape we sometimes think it is. I know I have glibly described it as such. But that is a defensive response, one that keeps my protective barriers up. In fact, art is a deeper dive into reality, going to the crux of it in an effort to make sense of our existence here.

Art is not an act of running away. No, it is a confrontation with who and what we are.

This painting feels like that for me. I have been open about my health issues over the past year and there are times when I feel much closer to my own time’s end than I would like. It has certainly felt that way in recent weeks, but thankfully, this morning I feel like that time is further away. But when of comes, as it must for us all, this is how I am envisioning that time. A point where we transcend time. A point where light and dark, coldness and heat, all converge so that we become part of the greater everything.

Now, that might seem sad to some. I don’t see it that way. I think that our time’s end is simply part of our lucky journey into this life, this privileged dimension of being. When I am that Red Tree at the end of time, hopefully many years in the future, I believe I will be there happily and without fear, knowing that I knew what I needed to know of this life.

I had known what love, beauty, and belonging is in this world.

And I’ll be there with a stupid grin on my face. Well, whatever the tree equivalent of a face is.

See? Denuded. And without shame.

This little piece of my nakedness is part of The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery. The show is now hanging and is available for previews and presales. The show officially opens this coming Friday, October 16, with an opening reception that runs from 5-7 PM. Hope to see you there.

There is also a Gallery Talk accompanying the show that takes place on Saturday, November 7, beginning at 11 AM. Details coming in the weeks ahead.

Here’s a song for this week’s Sunday Morning Music that deals with, in a way, with the end of time. This is the Cowboy Junkies cover of the David Bowie classic, Five Years. It’s line, I never thought I’d need so many people, resonates this morning.

Okay, you best leave. I have to put some clothes on…