I guess I’m just Somebody who Has given up On the me and you I’m not alone I’ve met a few Traveling light like We used to do
–Leonard Cohen, Traveling Light (2016)
Came into the studio early this morning, as usual. Did my usual chores with Momapotamus and the Boys, my family of studio cats. A bit dicier this morning since Mom underwent massive dental surgery yesterday and is still pretty woozy from the sedation from the operation and the opiates she was given afterwards. She seems to be recovering a bit from it already though my own anxiety from the whole affair might take longer to pass. I always feel like I am somehow betraying their trust when I subject them to such treatments, even when they are badly needed.
We’ll both get over it, I ‘m sure.
After tending to the gang, I flipped on some music and Leonard Cohen immediately came up, a song from his last album in 2016, the year that he died. I found it hard to believe that it has been almost ten years since he died.
It certainly has not felt like a decade. Well, in some ways. In others, it has felt like a century, one where the days are a weeklong, an hour is a day, and a minute is an hour. When you’re waiting for something to end, time is a tormentor.
But for most things, the relativity of events in time seems to compress greatly as I age. Things that I thought occurred just days ago took place two years ago. And some things that I thought took place several years ago happened just a couple of months back.
As I said, time seems to be compressing, like it is confined in a box that continues to shrink. You can’t help but notice the finiteness of time as the walls creep inward.
This whole compression thing is made even maddening by the fact that the days of youth still feel fresh and not that long ago in your mind.
And that youth experienced time in such a different way. It felt infinite, expanding in all directions. There was so much space between time then that waiting for anything seemed interminable. The days between Thanksgiving and Christmas then felt like they were obligated to wear concrete shoes, so slow was their passing.
Now, Christmas comes and I find myself asking how this is even possible and if we even have a Thanksgiving this year. Wasn’t Memorial Day just two weeks ago?
I don’t know that I will ever get used to this time compression. I’m sure it is a common thing that comes with aging. Or dementia. Of the two, I’m hoping that is just aging.
I was going to talk a bit about the painting shown here, The Wisdom Beyond Words. Actually, this whole series from this past year. With this time compression that I mentioned and the health horror show of the past year, it feels like the actual painting of it took place years ago. The work itself feels now and in the moment. It’s a weird dichotomy, having work that feels both distant and near in time. Especially for work that felt then and now as being work from my core.
Being such, this work didn’t get the reception I felt it deserved. Though that may have been that way for a number of reasons, I think it might have been, more than anything, because it was out of its place in time. I think time will come around to it eventually and it will fall in place.
Time will tell. Maybe in my time. Maybe beyond. Maybe never.
For me, sitting here in my disjointed and compressed timeline, it is in its place now.
And that is good with me.
Here’s that Leonard Cohen song I mentioned above. It’s Traveling Light. This video begins with Cohen talking about his aging and ailing self. Though I am not nearly at the same location on my timeline, I chuckled knowingly at his words.
Not get out of here. I don’t have time to waste this morning.
Introspection (2002)– Coming to Principle Gallery, June 2026
Wait, for now. Distrust everything if you have to. But trust the hours. Haven’t they carried you everywhere, up to now? Personal events will become interesting again. Hair will become interesting. Pain will become interesting. Buds that open out of season will become interesting. Second-hand gloves will become lovely again; their memories are what give them the need for other hands. The desolation of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness carved out of such tiny beings as we are asks to be filled; the need for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
Wait. Don’t go too early. You’re tired. But everyone’s tired. But no one is tired enough. Only wait a little and listen: music of hair, music of pain, music of looms weaving our loves again. Be there to hear it, it will be the only time, most of all to hear your whole existence, rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.
—Wait, Galway Kinnell (1980)
I’ve recently come across the poetry of Galway Kinnell, an American poet who died in 2014 at age 87. It’s another of those cases where I am a bit embarrassed that I had never heard the name since he was highly acclaimed, having won the Pulitzer Prize. I know that it is foolish to be embarrassed by such a thing since most of us would struggle to name maybe one or two modern poets, if any.
Even so, I still find myself thinking I should know his work after reading just a bit of it.
It has a bite to it. Some call it dark, but I don’t know about that. What does that really mean? I think anything that deals with this ourselves and world in its totality has to have at least some darkness. It’s just part of our wholeness, our beingness.
That’s a nice segue into the painting at the top, Introspection. It is from 2002 and is a prime example of what I call my Dark Work, which was more of a stylistic shift that came in the aftermath of 9/11. My work became more centered on painting on a dark underpainting which gave any piece, no matter how bright and optimistic it might appear, a dark undertone.
I saw this as being a balanced view, as we are, in my view, creatures comprised of both darkness and light.
I feel this painting fits this poem from Kinnell very well. I could even change the title, and it would speak as clearly for it as the title I gave it 24 years ago. It is yet another painting that will be part of my June solo show at the Principle Gallery. As I mentioned in recent posts, this show will be a semi-retrospective, a hybrid of older and new work. There will be a couple of my Dark Work pieces in this show.
Like all art, this poem from Kinnell is open to a variety of interpretations, all validated by our own experience and understanding of life. Art gives us insight to that part of ourselves we recognize but don’t fully know or understand. I might see it one way and you, another.
As it should be.
I was pleased when I saw that Andrew Bird had made this poem the basis for a song. I’ve featured him here before in collaborations with both the Lumineers and Iron & Wine, but this is his first solo effort on the blog. He reconstructs Kinnell’s poem in a lovely way that maintains the feeling of it. Well, at least as Bird sees it. Again, purists might beg to differ.
Myself, I like it very much. It has, as the kids say, a vibe.
And as you know, I’m only here for the vibe. And the cake…
I am unable to describe exactly what is the matter with me; now and then there are horrible fits of anxiety, apparently without cause, or otherwise a feeling of emptiness and fatigue in the head.
–Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to his sister, Wilhelmina, April 30, 1889
I am right there with you, Vinnie, my friend.
Didn’t feel like sharing a post this morning, mainly because of the same sort of feeling that van Gogh described to his sister in the passage above. Been swamped with a feeling of emptiness and fatigue in both my head and body in the past week or so that has been debilitating.
The anxiety was already there. It is standard equipment for my model and, like that of Vincent, often comes on without rhyme or reason. It’s like an irritating friend you can’t ditch and just when you think you have shaken free from them, there they are waiting for you when you pull in the driveway.
Of course, Vincent didn’t know the cause of his torments at the time he wrote this letter. It was just months after he had cut off his ear so he was deep into his mental problems then.
Mine on the other hand, were predictable and knowable. Though I have had problems with bouts of depression in the past, my current situation is the result of my cancer treatment. The fatigue is a natural by-product of the anemia that comes as a side effect of the combination of the hormone therapy and radiation with which I am being treated. Treat doesn’t seem like the right word here but we won’t dwell on that.
Today marks a month since the end of my radiation and the fatigue would normally be on the downswing. Since my slight overexertion two weeks ago which set off what I describe as a sort of systemic inflammation, the fatigue has seemed to deepen rather than lessen. I am okay just after waking up but it increases geometrically through the day and by the afternoon, I am wiped out. The dark rings around my eyes and my slow shuffling walk are testament to that.
The empty headedness is more of a brain fog, or perhaps I should describe it as a lag or slowing down of function. Can’t really say and don’t know what causes this, if it is the from the anemia or just from being bone-tired all the time. Whatever the reason, it affects the focus and thought process needed to properly paint or write effectively.
Painting for me is more than a mechanical process. It is not simply a matter of sitting down and painting, which is sometimes the answer when there is a creative block. This doesn’t feel like a normal blockage. My mind doesn’t seem to be reacting in the same way as I expect. As I said, there seems to be a lag in my thinking and a feeling of general emptiness.
When I call on the mental part to concentrate, to solve the problems painting presents, it doesn’t always respond right now. However, there are short periods where it seems to be close to normal. The work is good then and feels right and full.
It’s just those empty periods in between. They bring on a glum tone in me, one that has me questioning the validity of everything. It makes me yearn for the days of radiation and the steroid, dexamethasone, that brought on a what I describe as a giddy elation. It felt like I was then on the manic side of manic-depression and am now experiencing the depression side.
While I do not like this in any way, I am not worried, at least in the existential way that Vincent’s depression brought on. I know that feeling all too well and this is not that.
This has a reason for being here with me now and will most likely soon pass. Knowing that makes all the difference.
Fortunately, it also gives me glimpses of that return to some sort of normality on most days, usually in the early morning when my energy level is as high as it will likely be for the day. That’s why I try to get to work early, including writing this blog.
On days like today, when I start off not wanting to write anything, it is important for me to stay at it. I think I’ve posted something for around 160 straight days and I find that I need to do this right now. It may not produce anything that interests anyone, including myself, but the sheer act of doing it is vital in staving off a descent into real depression. That’s an altogether different animal.
It lets me know that as energy returns, my painting time and the requisite focus will also increase.
And that’s all I really need to know.
I am including the post below from 2019 concerning the Van Gogh painting at the top, The Red Vineyard. I thought his words to his brother Theo had pertinence to today’s post. Plus, as I say, the painting is a peach.
[From 2019]
“I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I, which is my life, the power to create.”
― Vincent van Gogh, letter to his brother, Theo, September 1888
Amen.
Love the passion in the words above from Van Gogh but really just wanted to share the painting at the top of the page. It’s The Red Vineyard from 1888. It is considered to be the only painting ever sold by Van Gogh in his lifetime.
It was bought by the Belgian Impressionist artist Anna Boch in 1890, the year of Van Gogh’s death. It was bought for what would be abut $2000 in today’s dollars. I include that because when Boch let it go to auction in 1909, its value had shot up to what would be about $150,000 today. Van Gogh’s sister-in-law, the widow of his brother Theo, wanted to get it back but the price went well past her means.
It was purchased by a Russian collector who gave up ownership of it when all private property was nationalized by the Bolsheviks after the Communist Revolution. Today, it hangs in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.
More than likely I will never see this painting in person but it remains a peach.
I don’t expect that many will but if you got this far today, thanks for sticking to it for this long. It is much appreciated.
Anyone in whom the troublemaking self has died, sun and cloud obey. If you wish to shine like day, burn up the night of self-existence. Dissolve in the Being who is everything.
— Rumi, Masnavi, Book I (ca. 1258)
The paintings in the A Look Back series usually drawn are from my earliest work, pre-2000 or thereabout. By that definition, this painting from 2011, Dissolve, is not part of that series. But nothing is carved in stone here and it is more than a few years old. That’s good enough for me.
I used this piece several weeks ago in a post about being humble. The painting was not mentioned and only served as a symbol of humility for that post. I thought it deserved more attention since it has long been a favorite of mine and will be included in my solo show, Flow, at the Principle Gallery in June.
Below is what I wrote about this painting soon after it was completed in 2011:
This painting called Dissolveis another in the series I’ve been working in for the past few months. This 24″ by 36″ piece is based very much on the same format as Like Sugar In Water, [a large 36″ by 60″ painting from that same time, shown below that served as an anchor for my 2012 show at the Fenimore Museum]. Both paintings grow from the bottom where they begin in structured blocks of color. The path cuts through, rising from the geometry of the fields up to a plain that flattens out. The path continues by the red-roofed house and is not seen again as it enters the broad yellow field that runs to the horizon. The path’s upward movement is continued in the spreading bare limbs of the distant tree which merges into the broken mosaic of the sky.
GC Myers- Like Sugar In Water 2011
It’s a simple concept and composition, dependent on the complexity of the color and the placement of the elements in order to transmit feeling and emotion. These simpler compositions, when things click and I feel they work well, are often very potent purveyors of feeling and are among my personal favorites. The stripped-down nature of the scene takes away all distractions and centers the essence of the work in the willing viewer’s eyes, making it very accessible to those who connect with it.
And that is much of what I hope for my work- to create work that stirs strong emotion within a seemingly simple context.
Maybe there’s more to it than this. I can’t be sure if my thoughts and interpretations are any more valid than those of a first-time viewer. That’s the great thing about art– there are no absolutes.
That’s also the thing about art that scares a lot of people. Many people fear the gray areas of this world, of which there are many, desiring an at least an appearance of absolute belief and knowledge in all aspects of their lives. However, art most often lives in the ambiguity and uncertainty of this world.
And that can be unsettling to some.
Dissolve seems absolute and certain at first glance but is all about the gray areas of our world and our belief. At least as I see it…
I realize that this earlier description didn’t really say much about what it meant for me. Here’s how I described this painting to the writer for American Art Collector, which will be featuring it in an upcoming preview for my show:
The title for this painting, Dissolve, comes from the feeling I sometimes have that we humans exist in a state of being in that gray area between the physical solidity of this earth and the ethereal nature of the sky. We are made up of both– the physical and the ethereal– equally. At some point that balance shifts. The body remains but the ethereal part of us begins to disperse and dissolve into the sky. Like sugar in water.
I don’t know if the two descriptions combined do this piece justice. Funny how what seems to be a simple painting can sometimes be beyond the grasp of words yet speak powerfully to some emotion within us.
Maybe that is its strength, the quality in it that draws me to it.
I don’t know. I only know that it always leaves me with the desire to stand out in an open field and feel myself being absorbed into the ether, my atoms mingling once more with those of the universe.
Here is a song in a similar vein. This is a new cover of the Mazzy Star hit from 1993, Fade Into You, from Gregory Alan Isakov, who I have featured here in the past, and Sylvan Esso, which is an electropop duo from Durham, North Carolina , according to Wikipedia. Not knowing exactly what electropop is, they are new to me, but I like their work with Isakov on this song. It has a good feel.
We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return – sending back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms.
–Henry David Thoreau, Walking (1862)
As I have mentioned here recently, I have been going through older work for inclusion in my upcoming solo show at the Principle Gallery in June. I don’t hold tightly to many objects, including my own work. That said, it’s been difficult trying to choose which pieces I am willing to let go.
It comes down to the question: Which paintings do I hold too precious to part with? And if so, why?
There are a few paintings that I consider untouchable. The painting at the top, for instance. It is titled Two Sides and is from my 2006 Outlaws series. It now sits directly in front of me at my desk and serves as a constant reminder of the dualities that make up our lives– darkness and light, good and evil, etc.– and the choice we have to make between the two. it may not be a monumental painting nor may it appeal to many others, but it is one which feels like a part of who I am.
One that I will carry with me to my grave.
A heart to be embalmed.
A Prayer For Light— Exiles series 1995
The same goes for the painting, A Prayer For Light, shown here on the right. It is from my Exiles series that began in 1995 and has so much personal meaning that parting with it seems impossible to me.
Its absence would haunt me. It would be like tearing out my heart before it had a chance to be embalmed.
With this in mind, I recently came across this passage from Thoreau’s deathbed essay that was published posthumously in The Atlantic in 1862. In the context of what I was doing, I wondered what pieces, if any, of my work might someday serve, as Thoreau put it, as an embalmed heart.
A relic to be sent into the desolate kingdoms of the future.
I don’t think that’s a question I can answer.
I would like to think so, but I know that it might be a long shot. And if so, it would most likely be as an obscure relic. And whether any of the paintings I consider untouchable– the two shown here and several others– become these obscure relics is probably even a longer shot.
It’s not for me to say. I have not control or sway on those desolate kingdoms that make up the future. Hell, I have little sway here and now.
But I continue my walk through this life, putting my heart out here, alive and beating. Whether it finds its way into the future as a relic tucked away in some dusty closet or as another bit of trash in some dank landfill is irrelevant.
When I finally end my walk, let them do what they may with my heart.
When that time comes, I will have no longer use for it. It will have served me well and if someone finds a use for it, so be it.
Here’s a song that I played with the painting several years ago. I always think of this song as an accompaniment to this painting. This is Shoot Out the Lights from Richard and Linda Thompson.
If I seem to mislead you It’s just my craziness comin’ through But when it comes down to just two Ah, I ain’t no crazier than you
‘Cause you know that I mean what I say So don’t go, and never take me the wrong way You know you can’t go on gettin’ your own way ‘Cause if you do, it’s gonna get you someday
–Dave Mason, Only You Know and I Know (1970)
This past week, I failed to mention this past week the death of musician Dave Mason last Sunday at the age of 79. It’s not a name familiar to most folks born after 1980 unless they are really into music. And many born well before that year might not know his name but will no doubt be familiar with his work.
He has been referred to as the Forrest Gump or Zelig of rock and roll, always on the fringes of rock greatness and sometimes in its spotlight.
He was one of the founding members of Traffic and wrote one of their biggest hits, Feeling Alright, which was also a huge hit for Joe Cocker. He had a good run with solo career in the 1970’s that yielded 3 gold albums.His song Only You Know and I Know became a big hit and a staple of early FM radio for Delaney and Bonnie in the early 70’s.
Mason contributed 12-string acoustic guitar on the legendary Jimi Hendrix version of All Along the Watchtower, as well as backing vocals on Crosstown Traffic. He also played the Shehnai, a South Asian double reed instrument, and bass drum on StreetFighting Man from the Rolling Stones. He was in the earliest incarnation of Derek and the Dominoes, played on the George Harrison album All Things Must Pass, was a member of Fleetwood Mac in the 90’s, recorded with Michael Jackson, and sang backup on the hit song Listen to What the Man Says from Paul McCartney.
I am sure I am missing a lot here. He was just one of those guys who showed up in a lot of interesting places at the right time.
I listened to his albums quite a bit in the 70’s and 80’s. Some of his songs are among my favorites, including Let It Flow, We Just Disagree, Feelin’ Alright, and Only You Know and I Know, which I am sharing today for this week’s Sunday Morning Music.
I finished up the small painting at the top a day or so before hearing of Mason’s death. After listening to Only You Know and I Know again for the first time in quite some time, the title seemed to fit the painting for me.
Maybe that first verse at the top is custom made for this piece? Maybe.
I might be on-the-rooftop-yellin’ crazy but I ain’t no crazier than you.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.
-W.C. Fields
As I’ve been going through older work here in the studio lately, I began to think about the time and effort I spent in creating these paintings. The work probably represents thousands of hours spent painting, probably a couple of years of my labor, maybe more. I am not willing to do the precise calculations this morning.
Taking them all in, the question comes to mind: Do these pieces represent some form of failure?
The pessimistic part of me wants to say yes but examining each of them reveals a different answer. I would never consider most of the work failures in any way. They are alive and vibrant with speak their own voice. They simply haven’t found a way to escape from me. And for those paintings with evident flaws, their failure is a temporary condition that can be remedied with a bit more care and consideration on my part. A heightening of color here and there, a small addition that better balances the composition, or a change of frame or varnish for those that have been poorly presented.
Relatively minor things Few, if any, are irreparably flawed. Most just need a bit more time and attention.
And for those that can’t be brought alive, I salute them for their sacrifice. Their failure and the lessons learned from them may have provided what was needed for the success of another piece at some later date.
This all brings to mind the post below on failure that first ran back in 2011 and was shared again in 2021.
[From 2011}
In response to yesterday’s post concerning a very large blank canvas that is waiting patiently for me, I received several very interesting questions from my friend, Tom Seltz, concerning the role that failure and the fear of failure play in my work. He posed a number of great questions, some pragmatic and some esoteric, that I’ll try to address.
On the pragmatic side, he asked if there is a financial risk when I take on large projects like the 4 1/2′ by 7′ canvas of which I wrote. Shown here, this went on to become what I consider a signature piece, The Internal Landscape. Actually, it’s not something I think about much because every piece, even the smallest, has a certain cost in producing it that, after these many years, I don’t stop to consider. But a project such as this is costlier as a larger canvas is more expensive right from the beginning simply due to the sheer size of it. The canvas is heavier and more expensive and more of it is used. I use a lot more gesso and paint. The framing is much more expensive and the logistics of shipping and transporting become more involved and costly. It’s larger size and corresponding price means the audience of potential buyers is much more limited which means it might take more time to find, if it ever does. Which means more time trucking it around to galleries or storing it.
And while these cost of materials and handling represent the financial risk, the largest cost outlay comes in the time spent on such a project. It takes longer to prepare such a large canvas, longer to paint and, if it works out, longer to finish and frame. This is time not spent on other projects. Time spent is by far the biggest risk in facing such a project and that is something I have to take into consideration before embarking on large projects.
He also asked whether I can reuse the materials if I don’t like what I’ve painted. Sure, for the most part. Especially canvasses. Actually, the piece shown here on the right was once such a piece. There’s a failure lingering still beneath its present surface.
I had a concept in my head that floated around for months and I finally started putting it down on this 30″ square canvas. I spent probably a day and a half worth of time and got quite far into it before I realized that it was a flawed concept, that I was down a path that was way off the route I had envisioned. It was dull, shapeless, and lifeless, even at an early stage.
It was crap and I knew that there was no hope for it. I immediately painted it over, mainly to keep me from wasting even more time by trying to resuscitate it, something I often attempt. The piece shown here emerged, happily for me.
Tom also asked if I ever “crashed and burned” on a piece or if the worst sort of failure was that a piece was simply mediocre. Well, I guess the last few paragraphs say a bit about the “crashed and burned” aspect, although that is a rarer event than one might suspect. After decades of painting, a piece doesn’t get too far along in the process before I recognize its apparent flaws in design or execution and begin the process of correcting them.
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. The beauty of painting is that it’s results are always subjective. There is almost never total failure.
It’s not like skydiving and when your parachute doesn’t open you die. At least, that hasn’t been my experience thus far.
I’ve fallen on my face many times but I’m still here.
Mediocrity is a different story. That is the one thing I probably fear most for my work and would consider a piece a failure if I judged it to be mediocre. I have any number of examples I could show you in the nooks and crannies of my studio. I’m not sharing those today. Even flawed and mediocre, these pieces have a purpose for me, and many have remaining promise. The purpose is in the lessons learned from painting them. I usually glean some information from each painting, even something tiny but useful for the future. Each is a rehearsal in a way. But most times, the mediocre pieces teach me what I don’t want to repeat in the future. A wrong line or form here. A flatness of color there or just simple dullness everywhere.
But, being art, there are few total failures, and many of these somewhat mediocre pieces sit unfinished because there are still stirs of promise in them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come to what I felt was a dead end for a painting, feeling that it was dull and lifeless, and set it aside. Months and months might pass and one day I might pick it up and suddenly see something new in it. A new way to move in it that brings it new life. These paintings often bring the greatest satisfaction when they leave the gallery with a new owner.
Sometimes failure is simply a momentary perception that requires a new perspective.
Sometimes you need to fail in order to succeed later.
Okay, that’s it for now. I’m sure I have more to say about failure, but it will have to wait until a later date. I’ve got work waiting for me that doesn’t know the meaning of the word failure and I don’t want to take the risk that it might learn it.
Tom, thanks again for the great questions. I’m always eager for good questions so keep it up!
Now here’s I Don’t Mind Failing from the quirky folksinger Malvina Reynolds. It’s from around 1965 and was written after hearing a sermon called The Fine Art of Failing. Lot of great lines in this one:
I don’t mind failing in this world, I don’t mind failing in this world, Somebody else’s definition Isn’t going to measure my soul’s condition, I don’t mind failing in this world.
Give a listen and if you fail today, don’t worry about it. You’re in good company.
In my little town I grew up believing God keeps his eye on us all And he used to lean upon me As I pledged allegiance to the wall
— Paul Simon, My Little Town
This is a little piece from back in November of 1995. There was a lot going on at that point of that year. I had started showing my work at the West End Gallery by then while still working as a waiter at a pancake house and continuing to build our home, which we hoped to soon occupy. My mom was also in the last week or two of her life, a thousand miles away.
It was a busy and fraught time.
I don’t how much any of that came into play for this little painting at the time. I just don’t remember much about working on it. I do remember not thinking much of it when it was done. It felt more like an exercise in color and form more than anything. For the some time, I wouldn’t give it much consideration when I went through my old work. I didn’t even bother scanning it when I was documenting much of the other small pieces from that time. It just seemed insignificant.
But I did title it, scrawling My Little Town along with the date on the bottom of the piece of watercolor paper on which it was painted. That alone makes me think that it had something in it that clicked with some part of me that I might not have recognized at that time.
It seems as though that was the case. Over the years I increasingly began to stop and look at this small painting when I shuffled through the old stuff. It had a completeness that spoke to me and differentiated it from other old work that seemed to be missing this critical element.
It also made me think about what it was saying to me as well as what was meant by that title. I was pretty sure it didn’t mean anyplace I recognized as my home in this physical world. At that time, I felt somewhat disconnected from calling anyplace home. I felt rootless, having not yet discovered the ties our family had to this place. It felt like there was a hole in my existence, one that had me seeking some place I would know as home. This search for home was a theme in my work for quite a few years.
I now see this painting as being about the hometown that was forming in my imagination. The same place that later spawned the Red Tree and the Red Roofs. If I couldn’t feel an attachment to any place then, I could still create such a place in my mind.
And that is how I see this piece now, as being emblematic of the imagination’s power to satisfy a basic need. It tells me that wherever I am, my hometown is there in my head. As a result, it has gone from having me see it as a mere exercise into a favorite little piece.
Of course, the title was derived from the Simon and Garfunkel song of the same name which I am sharing below. I am also sharing a video from back in 2010 that deals with this same idea of home. It is titled Finding Homeand was put together at the request of gallery in Tulsa, Oklahoma that was showing my work at the time. It’s kind of rudimentary compared to what can be done these days and the resolution seems poorer than I remember. I watched it for the first time in many years this morning and was interested in seeing the studio (and myself) then as compared to now. The work shown in it is all well remembered. The wall behind me as I was working at my painting table, the one that contained a few pieces of my work, is now a pair of windows. I was heavier then, as well. Things change.
Okay. Enough. I have to get to work while I still have a bit of energy. I have been fatigue’s bitch these last few days. I bet you weren’t expecting that phrase. Oh, well, what are you gonna do? Now, git…
You got to ride lonesome You got to try to find the road You got to cry a river And follow it all the way home Alone
— Beck, Ride Lonesome (2026)
The painting at the top, Room to Breathe, has long been a favorite of mine. When it was painted in 2010, it seemed different than the work I was doing at the time, more like a throwback to my earlier work. It had that feel, painted as it was with the transparent inks that marked my early work. It also had that same airy solitariness with the Red Tree out and away from the other trees beneath a wide and deep sky.
But more than these other similarities, it had a simplicity that I was craving at the time. My early work was simple by design, meant to cut away the distraction of detail, allowing the few basic forms to hopefully dance and harmonize with one another. More than that, it allowed space for the viewer’s own feelings.
Room to Breathe felt like it was very much cut from the same cloth.
It is well traveled, having made the rounds of the galleries around the country through the years. Every piece does not immediately find a home and sometimes those pieces that I consider true gems are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, having a painting return to you is not uncommon. In fact, it’s a regular and expected thing for any artist, something taken it in stride.
But with some pieces, there is a sense of hurt attached to them when they return. Every piece I paint has an emotional investment, carrying with it some part of me. But some pieces seem to carry a bit more of me with them. Their return always feels like it is not only the painting that is being rejected. It feels like it is a personal rejection as well.
I know that this is not the case. But that feeling still lingers even after I have rationalized the why’s and how’s of it. I sometimes think it is like seeing something in your child that is not evident to everyone else and how deeply you feel at even the most minor of rejections they experience.
It is a disappointment that comes when others are somehow blind to the qualities that you love in your progeny.
I suppose that is how I feel about this painting. And maybe it also represents my own moments of rejection or exclusion, those times when I found myself not part of the in-crowd or even in the inner core of my smaller group of friends.
Like the Red Tree standing apart from the group of trees.
I have found that standing apart is not a bad thing. There is, as the title plainly states, room to breathe. Clear air and unobstructed views.
Room to think and grow in all directions.
I am still debating whether I will include this painting in my June show at the Principle Gallery. I am not sure I want to subject this child of mine– or myself– to yet another potential rejection.
But I tell myself that one of the lessons of this life is that though you may face disappointment and rejection, you have to keep getting up and going out to meet it head-on.
Who knows– it might be your lucky day.
Here’s a new song from Beck that initially sparked this entry. It’s called Ride Lonesome. Its chorus shown at the top pretty much sums up what I have tried to say here.
Now, get out of here and go back to the other trees. I want to be alone…
We are an exceptional model of the human race. We no longer know how to produce food. We no longer can heal ourselves. We no longer raise our young. We have forgotten the names of the stars, fail to notice the phases of the moon. We do not know the plants and they no longer protect us. We tell ourselves we are the most powerful specimens of our kind who have ever lived. But when the lights are off we are helpless. We cannot move without traffic signals. We must attend classes in order to learn by rote numbered steps toward love or how to breast-feed our baby. We justify anything, anything at all by the need to maintain our way of life. And then we go to the doctor and tell the professionals we have no life. We have a simple test for making decisions: our way of life, which we cleverly call our standard of living, must not change except to grow yet more grand. We have a simple reality we live with each and every day: our way of life is killing us.
— Charles Bowden(1995), Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America
I had never heard of journalist Charles Bowden, who died in 2014 at age 69. But I came across a number of passages from his 1995 book, Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America, that really jumped out at me with their blunt and sometimes harsh observations of our American way of life. The bit above stood out immediately for me. It was something I have been thinking for some time, that we are becoming less and less capable and more and more dependent on others for so many aspects of our lives.
With it comes an ever-increasing need for more of everything. A greediness has seemingly been planted in our psyche. As Bowden wrote, the only change we will willingly accept is to grow more grand.
I say this with hesitance, but it’s hard to not agree with how ends this passage: our way of life is killing us.
Maybe Bowden’s is a dark vision. I don’t know. But what I have read does not feel out of step with my own limited observations and the thoughts I have about what we have become. And I include myself mainly in that we. I often think of ancestors, particularly my great-grandfather, at such times. I have researched some of their histories, seeing how they lived in their times, and I wonder how they would think of what we have become and how they themselves might fare in these times.
My great-grandfather, Gilbert Perry, was born in 1855 at the northern end of the Adirondacks, near the Canadian border. His Canadian-born father was a farmer, as most people were in that time and place. In 1872, at age 17, Gilbert was emancipated as an adult (a notice appeared in the local newspaper proclaiming this fact) and set out into the woods with a crew of men he had enlisted to harvest trees. They set out with nothing more than double-bit axes, crosscuts saws, and a team of horses.
That first foray into the woods with his small crew turned into a way of life for Gilbert. Over the next forty years his small crew grew and at one point, as one of the pioneers of the Adirondack lumber surge that fed the building boom that was taking place in this nation, he employed over 350 men and had over 50 teams of horses.
This was all at a time when everything was done by hand and brute force or with the assistance of a horse. There were no chainsaws, tractors, or trucks. No electrical power, only kerosene lamps or candles at night. No smartphones guide you via GPS, to call home with, or to check the radar weather reports. No doomscrolling nor blogs from fools like me.
Don’t get me wrong here. I am not saying that I would trade this time for that time. No way. I am too much a product of this time, too used to the ease of modern life. I have experienced that way of doing things to a small degree and am grateful for the experience, I don’t want to repeat it at this point in my life. I am too damn tired.
When I started building my house, much of it was built before the electrical lines were ran. Many of the boards were cut with a handsaw. Thousands of nails were driven by the swing of a hammer. No nail guns.
I now have all sorts of specialized tools to do things that I once did by hand, as well as all sorts of gadgets that usually do one limited task and sometimes not all that well.
Every time I see a TV ad for some new ridiculous gadget that does tasks that are still easily done by hand, I think of my great-grandfather. I didn’t know him (he died in 1936 at age 81) but can imagine him scoffing at the fools that think they need to pay hard earned money for this foolish gadget to do something he could do in mere seconds with his hands and mind.
While I say I wouldn’t want to go back, I do think there is something lost with us now. It’s a loss of self-dependence and the belief that we can do things with our hands and minds. We don’t have to be tethered to machinery and technology.
I see this in myself. I have got to the point where I often forget that I can do things or can figure things out. Every so often I am forced to get past that mental block. Something will happen and I find myself forced do things with my own hands and mind if things are to be set right.
So, I just do it. I find that it is invigorating, even liberating, to rediscover abilities that have faded beneath the weight of technology. I feel more confident afterwards, more able. It reminds me of another passage from Bowden’s book:
There will be no first hundred days for this future, there will be no five-year plans. There will be no program. Imagine the problem is that we cannot imagine a future where we possess less but are more. Imagine the problem is a future that terrifies us because we lose our machines but gain our feet and pounding hearts. Then what is to be done?”
The part that jumped out at me was imagine a future where we possess less but are more.
I don’t know that we can do that. It is human nature to seek the easy way, the path of least resistance. And this would be anything but that, at least in our minds. And that might be the problem. We have the ability but no longer have the will.
That brings to mind another passage from Blood Orchid:
Imagine the problem is not physical. Imagine the problem has never been physical, that it is not biodiversity, it is not the ozone layer, it is not the greenhouse effect, the whales, the old-growth forest, the loss of jobs, the crack in the ghetto, the abortions, the tongue in the mouth, the diseases stalking everywhere as love goes on unconcerned. Imagine the problem is not some syndrome of our society that can be solved by commissions or laws or a redistribution of what we call wealth. Imagine that it goes deeper, right to the core of what we call our civilization and that no one outside of ourselves can effect real change, that our civilization, our governments are sick and that we are mentally ill and spiritually dead and that all our issues and crises are symptoms of this deeper sickness. Imagine the problem is not physical and no amount of driving, no amount of road will deal with the problem. Imagine that the problem is not that we are powerless or that we are victims but that we have lost the fire and belief and courage to act. We hear whispers of the future but we slap our hands against our ears, we catch glimpses but turn our faces swiftly aside.
Those last two sentences are brutally honest. The future is so often laid out before us, but we refuse to see it or to act on it. I suppose part of it comes from the helplessness that has been pushed upon us by our dependence on technology.
Yes, we often feel incapable and helpless. Been there, done that. But we must remember that we are still capable of self-dependence. Even greatness. Our ancestors did it and we are no less than they were, despite everything we see and are told.
We are cut from the same cloth.
Okay, enough for today. Maybe too much. Probably not enough, actually, since there are no answers or solutions in this.
But that might be the point, that the solution comes from each of us.
We are capable. We are not helpless.
Or hopeless.
Here’s one of my favorite songs, one I have shared a number of times. This is Helplessfrom Neil Young. I love this performance from The Last Waltz accompanied by The Band with an unseen Joni Mitchell providing backing vocals from backstage.
Redtree Times 