Redtree Times

Archaeology: The Silence of the World— Now at Principle Gallery

My sight with the clouds’
Unimpeded rest in changing moves
Across the sky: the aged in endless
Unbecoming are at peace.

—Kathleen Raine, Ah, many, many, are the dead… (1978)

I wrote here a couple of weeks back about another Archaeology painting and how are lives will be told in the very distant future by little bits and pieces left behind that, while they may give a general outline of who we were, will not bear any totality. They will never be able to fully reveal our joys, pains, desires and regrets to those future investigators. They won’t be able to detect the ways our eyes gleamed in our happiness or how they sunk in despair. They will not be able to measure how our faces were transformed by a smile. They won’t be able to see our quietness, our sadness, or our boisterousness.

In these things from us left behind they will not observe how we felt looking up at sapphire blue sky on a September morning. Or in watching the rustle of the green leaves of a tree as a summer storm approaches.

These items will tell our stories but the real story of who we are can only be told through these ephemeral elements that are beyond measurement.

About the time I was writing about that earlier Archaeology post, I came across a poem from the late British poet Kathleen Raine (1908-2003) that really drove that point home for me. It was first in the stanza shown at the top, especially the line:  the aged in endless Unbecoming are at peace. 

That line resonated with me, especially the idea that we are in a constant state of unbecoming that becomes more pronounced as we age and shed so many ideas of our past and present selves. I had just read a 1929 poem, Shadows, from D.H. Lawrence written in the last months of his life while suffering from tuberculosis. The final lines of his poem very much echo this idea of unbecoming:

I am in the hands of the unknown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man

This idea that we are being broken down into an oblivion made sense to me in a way that it would not have when I was much younger. It made the thought that we might someday be defined by things that might seem insignificant to us now seemed to make sense as well. These were mere things that might have once held meaning for us but were shed and left behind in the process of our unbecoming.

That might seem a daunting, even sad, thing to many of us. But it is merely the way of all things. It is a transition from one state of being to another, from the unbecoming of one state to the becoming of another. Nothing to fear, nothing to be done but watch and appreciate the clouds in the sky.

Raine’s poem is shown in full below as well as a reading of it by British philosopher/psychiatrist Dr. Iain McGilchrist. I particularly how she describes, in her unbecoming, how a cloud presently crossing the sky or green buds being gently stirred by the wind take on more meaning than the joys and pains she has known in the past.

Her poem has a feeling that that I see in the painting at the top, Archaeology: The Silence of the World. This is emphasized by the many chairs in the artifact field. I often cite my Red Chair as being mostly being symbolic of the loss of another or the fading of memory. Both seem to fit here. I also think Raine’s poem and this painting have a similar ethereal quality.

I am also throwing in a song. Yeah, it’s also in the same theme– sort of– but Leonard Cohen‘s humor in the intro to a short version of his Tower of Song make it worth a listen.

There’s lot here to read, listen to, and think about. Probably too much for a Friday morning. Well, like many things, that’s the way it is.

If you don’t feel like reading it, listening to it, or thinking about it, then maybe you should leave now. You know– git.

Ah, many, many, are the dead…

I have a room all to myself; it is nature. It is a place beyond the jurisdiction of human governments. There is a prairie beyond your laws. Nature is a prairie for outlaws.

–Henry David Thoreau, Journal January 3, 1853

[From 2015]

At last weekend’s Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery I was asked if there was work that I do for myself alone and I replied that there is, that I sometimes do small pieces in moments of frustration or anger that I won’t share with the outside world. I feel that even a person living the most transparent of lives should not share every waking thought.

And I probably share more than I should as it is.

This question led to a short description of the work from my earlier Exiles and Outlaws series, both of which I have written here a number of times in the past. The Outlaws series probably was closer as an answer to the question posed to me that day, consisting of images that examined the darker aspects that make up the prism of our personality. The central characters in these pieces were often armed with handguns and were definitely haunted by their past actions, existing in a state of fear.

At least, that is how I saw them. Some others saw them as predatory stalkers who might be lurking outside their own windows. It was an interpretation that I wasn’t initially expecting when I painted this work. But it might make sense, given the fear and sometimes paranoia that infects many people, one that probably feeds our obsession with guns.

The piece above, Outlaw’s Vigil, is from that 2006 series and hangs in my studio now. It is a prime example of the differing perceptions of the work. Many have seen him as a potential danger, a symbol of imminent evil, while I see him as a person filled with absolute fear, always looking over his shoulder to see what is coming upon him from behind, from his past. He is forever frozen in this instance of terror.

There is no looking ahead, no future.

Just the present being crowded out by the past.

Odd as it might seem, this small painting is inspirational to me. It serves as an object lesson, an example of how I do not want to exist in this world. I do not want to live in fear of the past or so fearful of others that I cling to a gun in my own home, peeking out my windows.

This piece lets me know that I want to live a fearless life. That’s most likely a fool’s mission but this odd little painting reminds me to not give in to my fears like that haunted figure peeking out their window.

The Confession (2006)

Back to the present. I’ve been looking at a lot of older work in recent days, and this piece held my gaze for some time. The work like this from the 2006 Outlaws series generally does that for me. I remember when I introduced these figures at my opening at the Principle Gallery in 2006 that a number of people were alarmed by them, fearing that this was the direction in which my work was heading, that the Red Tree landscapes had been run out of town by these gun-toting miscreants.

There was a lot of explaining about how this work was just another facet in my own personal prism, something we all possess. And usually suppress and hide. In my case, that facet most often shows itself in the black underpainting on which much of my work begins, giving even the most colorful landscapes a dark undertone that sometimes goes unnoticed at first.

I feel that dark undertone is just part of our nature. And as Thoreau wrote at the top: Nature is a prairie for outlaws.

Okay, maybe that’s stretch. Actually, this whole thing is a pretense for me simply wanting to share a song, Ten Cent Pistol, from the Black Keys. I can be deep in my work, oblivious to seemingly everything, but when this song comes on my attention immediately goes to it. Felt like it fit with my Outlaws work.

Maybe not.

I’m an outlaw this morning so who cares?

Ecclesiastes (1995)

To everything (Turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (Turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

— Turn! Turn! Turn!  Pete Seeger (1959)

The painting above was painted in 1995 and for probably the last 27 or 28 years been in a closet, in an unseen stack of old work, most of which deserved to be in there. I pulled it out recently and took it out of the cheap frame that held it so I could better examine it. There was so much I liked about it that I wondered why I had kept it under wraps for so long.

It has an earthiness in its colors, an organic quality in the roll of its lines and forms, and an overglaze of cobalt blue that left a wonderful sedimentation in the sky that excites me now in the same way I am sure it did 31 years ago. It also had a title that tells me that I held it in high esteem at the time: Ecclesiastes.

I have mentioned a number of times that I was not raised with any religion but some of the stories and literature of the Bible came to me in other forms. I learned a lot from my reading, from grade school presentations where a local church lady would tell biblical stories with a felt board, and, surprisingly, from watching Jeopardy with Art Fleming in the 60’s and from my reading.

And also, from listening to music.

It would most likely have taken me many years to discover the book of Ecclesiastes if not for the adaptation of its words into a folk song, Turn! Turn! Turn!, written by Pete Seeger in 1959. And I only learned of that from The Byrds’ cover of it in 1965. Their single was never far from the turntable of our stereo console in the 60’s and those opening chords still give me a satisfying chill.

My use of that painting’s title stemmed from that song and meant that I saw something important for me in it back in 1995. Why I had chosen to ignore it, even hiding it away, for so long remains a mystery. And I guess it doesn’t matter. I have had it out with me in my painting area for a couple of weeks now and it gets many look every day. I am really intrigued and pleased by it, maybe even more that I was when it was first painted. That probably comes from me seeing in it the importance it then held for me as a leading edge of what I was doing then.  Even though its mine, I don’t know that I could paint this today. It would be different and most likely not better in any way.

You can never fully recreate those things which truly capture a moment in your development, in art and in life.

For now, I am enjoying this painting’s presence and the reminder that comes from its title, that to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.

Here are The Byrds and Turn! Turn! Turn!.

I was going to tell you to Git! but I think I would like you to stay and give a good listen.

I am enjoying your company this morning,

Into the Blue Tangle- Now at Principle Gallery

We are one of only three species on our planet that can claim to be self-aware, yet self-delusion may be a more significant characteristic of our kind.

–Michael Crichton, Prey (2002)

I often find myself worrying about self-delusion.

Some of it comes from our delusions about our abilities and powers as humans to master and control nature or the new technologies we have unleashed on the world. Michael Crichton examined that theme in two of his books. Jurassic Park examined the hubris that we displayed in thinking we could control nature’s creation and Prey looked at our inability to see the consequences of the power of new technologies such as nanotechnology and artificial intelligence.

Call me skeptical but whenever I hear someone make boastful claims about our abilities to control anything, especially on a grand scale, I get a little tense.

So, while I may worry about our claims to have mastery over weather, AI, dinosaurs, outer space, or war, the self -delusion I find myself worrying most about is in my own judgement in my own little world. Primarily, how I see my own work.

I sometimes worry that my own self-delusion about some of my work blinds me to obvious flaws or deficiencies within it. Work that I think is among my best often receives less attention than I think it deserves.

I then find myself asking all sorts of questions.

Is the work itself not as good as I believe it to be?

Am I seeing or sensing something in it that doesn’t come across to the viewer?

Is it a matter of timing– the wrong work in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Is it too wide a departure from my regular body of work?

It goes on and on.

I very much felt this way about much of the work I produced last year for my two solo shows. Much of this work consisted of tangles making up the sky, such as those seen in the painting shown at the top, Into the Blue Tangle. I felt at the time that this work was important for me, that it would have a lasting impact. It felt strong in its emotional impact for me. It had a simplicity in its profile that spoke easily to me. I found myself being drawn into the tangles and curves of the skies, following them in a mesmerized way. It was work that I thought would speak well beyond the here and now. Work that would have legs.

I felt that many of these pieces were among my best works. But it was not as well-received as I anticipated. I began to question my perception of the work.

Was I delusional in how I saw these paintings?

I still don’t know.

I have had two of these paintings on the fireplace in front of my desk for most of this year and spend a lot of time examining them. I look constantly for deficiencies in them or ways in which they could be improved. But I always find them just as they should be and they still elicit the same strong response from me. If anything, this constant examination has strengthened my belief that their time is still to come, that they will speak much louder in some future without me.

At the opening of my current show, Into the Blue Tangle was hung to fill in for a sold piece. In my time at the gallery, my eyes kept going to it, wanting to be drawn into the tangled cords that made up its sky. It was as mesmerizing as I remembered and felt important to me still as though the past year had somehow validated my belief in it.

Is this self-delusion?

I don’t know.

And the more I think about it, the less I care if that is how it’s seen. Much art, my own included, is an act of self-delusion, a distorted reflection of the human condition.

That begs the question: Can an artist function effectively without at least a bit of self-delusion?

I don’t know. Maybe self-delusion is that valuable tool in our toolboxes that we don’t like to admit having. It is, after all, as Crichton wrote, a significant characteristic of our species.

Okay, let’s clear out this place with a song. As I wrote, I glimpsed up at a carved wooden figure of Don Quixote on the stone shelf built into my fireplace. My sister gave it to me about 55 or so years ago and it seems to hang over me. Maybe his self-delusion inspired my own. Here’s a song from Welsh musician Gruff Rhys called The Last Conquistador that seems custom made for Don Quixote and me.

Night’s Dream– At Principle Gallery

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.

-Elie Wiesel, interview with U.S. News & World Report, October, 1986

I’ve been sitting here for quite some time now, staring at the quote above from Elie Wiesel. I had planned on writing about how my work evolved as a response to the indifference of others but now, looking at those words and putting them into the context of  Wiesel’s experience, I feel a bit foolish. Wiesel, who had survived nightmares of the Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust to later spend his life crusading so that it might never happen again, was eyewitness to indifference on a grand scale, from those who were complicit or those who did not raise their voices in protest even though they knew what was happening to the personal indifference shown by his Nazi guards, as they turned a blind eye to the suffering and inhumanity directly before them on a daily basis, treating their innocent captives as though they were nothing at all. Less than human.

The indifference of which he speaks is that which looks past you without any regard for your humanity. Or your mere existence, for that matter. It is this failure to engage, this failure to allow our empathy to take hold and guide us, that grants permission for the great suffering that takes place throughout our world.

You can see where writing about showing a picture as a symbolic battle against indifference might seem more than a bit trivial. It certainly does to me.

But I do see in it a microcosm of the wider implications. We all want our humanity, our existence, recognized and for me this was a small way of raising my voice to be heard, of having my very existence recognized.

When I first started showing my work I was not far removed from a period that was the lowest point of my life. I felt absolutely voiceless and barely visible in the world, dispossessed in many ways. In art I found a way to finally express an inner voice, my real humanity, that others could see and react to. So, when my first opportunity to display my work came, at the West End Gallery in 1995, I went to the show with great trepidation.

For some, it was just a show of some nice paintings by some nice folks. For me, it was an actual test of my existence.

It was interesting as I stood off to the side, watching as people walked about the space. It was elating when someone stopped and looked at my small paintings. But that feeling of momentary glee was overwhelmed by the indifference shown by those who walked by with hardly a glance. That crushed me. I would have rather they had stopped and spit at my work on the wall than merely walk by dismissively. That, at least, would have made me feel heard.

Don’t get me wrong here– some people walking by a painting that doesn’t move them with barely a glance are not Nazis in any sense of the word. I held no ill will toward them, even at that moment. I knew that I was the one who had placed so much significance on this moment, not them. They had no idea that they were playing part to an existential crisis.

The funny thing is that now, I am even a bit grateful for their indifference that night because it made me vow that I would paint bolder, that I would make my voice be heard. Without that indifference I might have settled and not continued forward on the path I had chosen to follow.

But in this case, I knew that it was up to me to overcome their indifference.

Again, please excuse my use of Mr. Wiesel’s quote here. My little anecdote has little to do with the experience of those who suffered horribly at the hands of evil people who were enabled by the indifference of those who might have stopped them. I apologize for invoking his words in my poor analogy.

The point is that we all want to be heard, to be recognized on the most basic level for our own existence, our own individual selves. But too often, we all show indifference that takes that away from others, including those that we love. We all need to listen and hear, to look and see, to express our empathy with those we encounter.

We need to care.

Maybe in that small ways the greater effects of indifference of which Elie Wiesel spoke can be somehow avoided.

We can hope.

This post first ran here quite a few years ago and has been replayed several times. I had been thinking about it and the Wiesel quote recently and how indifference has played such a large role in the current state of the world so when I ran late again this morning, I decided to replay it. Plus, it remains a favorite of mine. I have told the story many times of the first exhibit in which my work was shown but have often edited out the part where this show represented an existential crossroad in my mind. It felt at the time that if there had been nothing but indifference that first night, I would have been back in the wilderness. Pathless and lost.

But thankfully, there were inquisitive eyes and kind words that kept me on my path. Because of the grace contained in those eyes and words, the indifference I experienced that night did not overwhelm or defeat me. It only made me even more determined to make my voice heard.

I still think my experience is a poor example of Wiesel’s words but if it makes a single person question the times that they have easily chosen indifference in their lives when a kind word or a helping hand may have changed someone’s day or life, then I am okay with my use of it.

Also, I have to point out that the sentiment behind the Wiesel quote is not new. I would like to go into it now but don’t have the time. You can read about it at Quote Investigator.

Here’s a song that gets to the point here. This is the great Etta James with her version of I Wish Someone Would Care. I love the original. written and performed by the Soul Queen of New Orleans, Irma Thomas, but Etta James puts some extra hurt in her cover.

I hear you and I see you. Now you have to leave. Git.

Edge of Doubt- At Principle Gallery

I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated. I hope you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people. And when you fail, and are defeated, and in pain, and in the dark, then I hope you will remember that darkness is your country, where you live, where no wars are fought and no wars are won, but where the future is. Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing — instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.

~Ursula K. Le Guin, A Left-Handed Commencement Address, delivered at Mills College, May 1983

I’ve read the commencement address that author Ursula Le Guin delivered to the 1983 graduating class of Mills College, a historic women’s college in Oakland, CA, several times and find something new and wonderful with every read. It is definitely not your typical commencement address. It is a radical rejection of the patriarchy and the definition of success that it imposes on society, and particularly on women. Powerful stuff.

I especially like the last section shown above, but the whole of it speaks clearly in a language I best understand, one that is written from a place of both exile and defiance. Of dealing with failure and darkness, learning how to find one’s own place in such an environment. Brutally honest without a single word of puffery.

Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure. You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss. You will find you’re weak where you thought yourself strong. You’ll work for possessions and then find they possess you. You will find yourself — as I know you already have — in dark places, alone, and afraid.

What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place. To live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign.

I don’t exactly know why I am sharing this today. Maybe it becomes obvious when I look around and see the glorification of the ultra-wealthy while so many others see themselves losing ground both financially and, more importantly, in terms of personal freedoms.

As someone who exists in that darkness Le Guin describes, I think her words should be read again and again.

Maybe that explains the compulsion to share this today.

I don’t know.

Maybe it came from the song I wanted to share for this week’s Sunday Morning Music. I recently came across a cover of Lose Yourself, the megahit from Eminem, that really caught my attention. It was performed by Aussie country(?) star Kasey Chambers. I enjoy hearing cross-genre covers of many songs, finding that they often yield surprises that sometimes aren’t readily apparent in the original. This performance does not disappoint. It falls in line with Le Guin’s address, of finding your own definition of success in your darkness. It is a surprisingly powerful version of the song.

The same but much different in many ways. Just the way I like it.

Dark Eye of Quiet (2019)

“…that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.”

–Ray Bradbury, The October Country

Running late this morning. Overslept. Not something that happens often with me. I don’t mind except that it busts up the routine that is my mental anchor. Days like this have me scrambling and everything seems a bit scattered. It takes a while to get settled and back on an even keel. It makes writing this blog a difficult task since time becomes a factor. There is a self-imposed pressure that makes getting something cogent down with a time clock running seem like a Herculean task.

This morning instead of taking on that task fully head on, I am employing an old tried-and-true workaround– rerunning a post from several years ago. I chose this post from 2019 because the painting, Dark Eye of Night, rests against the wall behind my seat here at the desk. It is a piece that never fails to grab my eye and one that I always felt was greatly underappreciated in its short forays out into the world. I think a lot of us can relate to that.

I liked the connection to Ray Bradbury’s words outlined in this post, felt that they captured this painting’s tone. And with the dog days of summer officially beginning tomorrow, my aversion to the heat and slow burning drag of summer, made me yearn for the dark coolness and mystery of October. I tend to recognize myself as one of his autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts.

And this painting was definitely painted for the autumn people.

I am adding Blue in Green from Miles Davis at the bottom. I think it was made for us autumn people, too.

[From 2019]

Every so often you come across something from your distant past that has long passed from memory.  It could be a book, a song, a photo or some small insignificant memento, something once cherished but now tucked away in the piling up of time. Coming across such a thing after so many years illuminates how much that thing meant to you. In some cases, being able to look back at the years allows you to see that it actually influenced your way of thinking and, therefore, your life.

That’s how I felt this morning when I came across the short prologue, shown here at the top, to the 1955 book of short stories from Ray Bradbury, The October Country. I probably read this book last in the late 1970’s at a time when I devoured most of Bradbury’s books. They were all great and interesting reads and Bradbury had a poetic nature to go with his active imagination that often found feelings of isolation and fear at the edges of the mundane.

I don’t know how I reacted when I read the words above forty years ago but reading them now, I felt like he was describing me. Or at least, describing the occupants of the world I depict in my paintings, those folks who, by extension, are built from parts of myself.

They are definitely the autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts.

Lingering in twilight, tucked in dark niches inside, facing away from the sun.

The painting at the top, Dark Eye of Quiet. When I read Bradbury’s prologue to The October Country, I could see in this piece how his words, perhaps unbeknownst to me, had stayed with and filtered through me over the time. It’s a painting that aptly illustrates this point, from its title to the doorless and windowless houses that reside in shadow, seeming to be avoid the gaze of the dark sun. It has the wistful isolation of a Bradbury story.

I went through a stack of old paperbacks in a closet and dug out my dog-eared copy of the The October Country. Leafing through it, I saw a few titles in the list of contents that I had circles eons ago. I don’t remember doing this, of course, but I obviously saw something in it that made me do this. One was titled The Wind and turning the pages to that story I was greeted by a black and white illustration for the story from artist Joe Mugnaini.

I didn’t recognize or remember it but even so, it had a familiarity that made me smile.

I found an image of it online and am sharing it here. Maybe it was not only Bradbury’s words that influenced me forty some years back?

The mind works in weird and wonderful ways, eh?

Exiles at Gmeiner Art Center Wellsboro PA January 1997

Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings.
Not all things are blest, but the
seeds of all things are blest.
The blessing is in the seed.

–Muriel Rukeyser, The Green Wave (1948)

The blessing is in the seed…

Everything we accomplish or attempt has a seed, a beginning.

My career path as an artist had such a seed, which was when the West End Gallery graciously invited me to show my humble little paintings in their gallery. It’s a well-worn story, one that I’ve recounted hundreds of times. I’ll spare those details now except to say that my career there, as it were, began with no intention, no thought that it would ever grow beyond the shell of that seed. I was ignorant like most seedlings, reacting and moving toward whatever stimuli that would nourish and help me grow.

That was in February of 1995. My seed was planted then. Little did I know that it would take root and grow rapidly, thank in great part to two encounters with a lovely Art Center located in the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania. In the summer of 1995, just a few months after first showing my work publicly, I decided to enter a well-known regional art competition held by the Gmeiner Art Center in Wellsboro, a bucolic rural village in northern PA, about forty-five minutes from my home.

The Sky Doesn’t Pity (1995)

I had never entered my little paintings in a competition of any sort. It was all new to me and, to be honest, I expected absolutely nothing. I had only sold a few paintings at that point and still was unsure that this painting thing would ever be more than a happy pastime. I wasn’t even sure I could take decent photo of my painting for the entry. But I somehow managed to send it out with my slides. That painting, The Sky Doesn’t Pity, is shown here on the right

Soon after I was notified that I had taken one of the top honors in the show. It might have only been a third-place award but it felt like Olympic gold.

I was shocked. And filled with encouragement. To have someone see something in my work that made it stand a tiny bit above the other submissions from a variety of artists, including many pros that I knew of, made me feel seen and heard in a way I had not expected. Maybe there was something in this work that could speak to others as it did to me.

My seed was now nearly fully sprouted thanks to that show at the Gmeiner in 1995. The Gmeiner would soon provide an even greater boost in my growth.

Exiles: A Prayer For Light (1995)

My mom was diagnosed with metastatic cancer around that same time. She went through a hard and ugly battle with it that ended with her death in November of 1995. Her battle inspired a group of personal work that I called the Exiles. They were primarily the faces of the afflicted and the estranged, each showing the effects of illness or grief. They were, as I said, personal expressions of my own grief for my mom.  One piece from that group that felt important to me, A Prayer for Light, is shown here on the left.

By mid 1996 I had completed a large number of these Exiles paintings. I didn’t feel as though I could put them up for sale at that time. The feelings were still deep and raw for me. But I felt that they need to be seen. But where? I was, after all, still a part-time artist with a pretty short track record.

The Gmeiner came to mind. It had a wonderful exhibition space, clean and open. Perfect for my work. And I had a tenuous connection in that they at least knew my work. That was not much but it was something. I decided to approach them. What was the worst that could happen?  They might reject me. I fully expected that.

But I also knew that things didn’t happen unless you made them happen. I had to at least ask for what I wanted.

I had written business plans for my own business a few years before so I used that as template for my proposal, describing in detail why they should offer me a spot in their exhibition rotation. I made an appointment with their director with my plan along with photos and examples of the work that would make up the exhibit. Much to my surprise, she loved the proposal.

In January of 1997, over 29 years ago, the Gmeiner Art Center hosted my first solo show.

My seed was breaking the surface and reaching ever upward. It felt like a huge deal to me. It still does. I have done over 70 solo shows over the decades, but that first solo show in Wellsboro may well be the most important for me in so many ways up to this point.

The Gmeiner holds a special place in my heart. And now, over 29 years later, I get to show my work there again. Next month, beginning on July 18, the Gmeiner Art Center in a collaboration with the West End Gallery will host Big Gems It is a take off on the West End’s very popular annual show, Little Gems, but here will combine the larger and much smaller works of artists from the West End Gallery. I will be the featured artist in the Atrium Gallery there.

There is an opening reception on Saturday, July 18th, from 2-4 PM that will also feature Brian Keeler giving a demo of his wonderful work. That is not to be missed.

I am truly thrilled to be going back to the Gmeiner and am looking forward to this show. I feel a deep sense of gratitude to them for the nourishment they provided when I was but a seedling. Without that first award and first show, I don’t know in what manner I might have grown, if at all.

Thank you, Gmeiner Art Center!

Inner Sanctum (2002)– Now at Principle Gallery

Child, Sister, think how sweet to go out there and live together! To love at leisure, love and die in that land that resembles you! For me, damp suns in disturbed skies share mysterious charms with your treacherous eyes as they shine through tears.

There, there’s only order, beauty: abundant, calm, voluptuous.

Gleaming furniture, polished by years passing, would ornament our bedroom; rarest flowers, their odors vaguely mixed with amber; rich ceilings; deep mirrors; an Oriental splendor—everything there would address our souls, privately, in their sweet native tongue.

There, there’s only order, beauty: abundant, calm, voluptuous.

See on these canals those sleeping boats whose mood is vagabond; it’s to satisfy your least desire that they come from the world’s end. —Setting suns reclothe fields, the canals, the whole town, in hyacinth and gold; the world falling asleep in a warm light.

There, there’s only order, beauty: abundant, calm, voluptuous.

—Charles Baudelaire, Invitation to the Voyage from The Flowers of Evil (1857)

This sort of an off day here on the blog. Not that I didn’t spend an inordinate amount of time just to get to this point. I don’t consider that time spent looking, listening, and reading wasted time, even when most of what I took in doesn’t find its way to the blog.

It’s more like planting seeds of ideas and thoughts that someday might sprout here. They often do which is not all that surprising given the amount of fertilizer I sometimes spread.

Just kidding, of course.

Today is a personal day that can’t really write about. I know that sounds funny because I pride myself on my transparency and pretty much share everything here. But this remains private. Maybe on this day next year, I will tell you about it.

Probably not.

So, for today let me share the Baudelaire poem above from The Flowers of Evil. It was tricky because the many translations from its original French vary greatly. Some are quite awkward in my eyes though they might be true to the original, for all I know with my limited knowledge of French. I like the version above from Keith Waldrop’s 2006 translation.

Its refrain– There, there’s only order, beauty: abundant, calm, voluptuous— felt right this morning with the painting above. It is Inner Sanctum, a 2002 painting from my current Principle Gallery show. It’s a painting that has an ability to connect with me in a multitude of emotional moments. This morning, it feels like that refrain. This feeling of beauty, abundance, calm, and voluptuousness is my favorite translation of this painting.

Let’s tie this package all together with a song that definitely fits that refrain and the tone of poem as I read it this morning. It’s a bit of bossa nova written by Antonio Carlos Jobim in 1960. This version is from Stan Getz along with bossa nova legends Jobim and Joao and Astrud Gilberto. The song is Corcovado, also known as Quiet Night of Quiet Stars.

Good stuff all the way around.

You know, I am not even going to tell you to get out this morning. Stick around if you like. But don’t touch anything and for god’s sake don’t run your grubby fingers over any of the paintings. I can do that. You can’t!

On second thought, you better leave.

Git…