Redtree Times

Memorial Day should be a day for putting flowers on graves and planting trees. Also, for destroying the weapons of death that endanger us more than they protect us, that waste our resources and threaten our children and grandchildren.

–Howard Zinn, Whom Will We Honor Memorial Day?, The Boston Globe, June 2, 1976

Memorial Day weekend. I’m no historical anthropologist so I can’t be completely certain when I say that I don’t believe there is any one group of people on this planet who have not been touched by war in some significant way, especially since the advent of the World Wars.

The history of this world has been written in the bloody ink of war.

A few years back, when I began doing genealogy for the families of my wife and myself, I was surprised at the many, many generations in each line who had taken part in the wars of their times, putting their lives aside to give so much of themselves– in some cases, their very lives– out of a sense of service for causes that often might have been mere abstractions to them.

In fact, we have both have ancestors who have fought and died in every war and conflict waged on and by this nation since the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock. I have a 7th great grandfather from the 1600’s, Benjamin Church, considered the founder of the Army Rangers, who led his Ranger unit in King Phillip’s War and other early wars of the mid 1600’s. There are direct ancestors who fought on both sides of the conflict during the American Revolution. There are ancestors who were prisoners of war at Andersonville and a number of others who are buried throughout the American south, from Louisiana to Georgia to Virginia, as a result of the Civil War.

Part of me is proud that these people have answered the call to be a small part in something bigger. But another part of me is simply sad to think that they were called on to give so much in order to satisfy or deny the baser motives of those in power. War has usually been about greed and acquisition, nationalistic pride or ethnic and religious hatred– in each instance proposed with the greatest conviction and certainty by the leaders of each side of the cause.

And on Memorial Day, we remember the people who actually fulfilled the pleas of these leaders, be they right or wrong. These citizens did what they were asked and what they felt was necessary in their time and place. And I have nothing but respect for that.

For today’s image, I chose the daguerreotype of the Civil War soldier at the top because there was something in him that seemed to show the sacrifice of war. Maybe it’s the steely stare of his eyes. Or maybe it was his belt that is cinched into what looks to be a ridiculously tiny diameter, showing how emaciated he appears to be. I’m not exactly sure but there is something in him that seems contemporary, less dated. He could be the guy behind you in line at the convenient store, except without the gun and with a lot more tats.

For today’s Sunday musical selection, I have chosen the song Ben McCulloch from Steve Earle.  It tells the story of two brothers who enlist in the Confederate Army in the Civil War and discover the hard realities of war as they serve under General McCulloch, who was a real person who died in battle in 1862. The chorus probably echoes the sentiments of many soldiers through time for their commanding officers who foolhardily place them in situations where they face overwhelming odds.

The post above originally ran in 2015. With an unhinged commander-in-chief currently trying to push through a defense budget of about a 1.5 trillion dollars–which is such an absurdly high number that it loses all meaning for most folks– I think the song here has pertinence. How many people– soldiers and civilians alike– have died from the megalomania of those we entrust to lead them?

Let us honor and remember our fallen today but let us work towards ensuring that future wars provide fewer graves here and abroad. We can blame our political and military leaders but it ultimately comes down to us to manifest change. I think this is summed up beautifully in one of the scenes from a favorite movie, The Americanization of Emily. Charlie Madison, a WWII American officer stationed in Britain, has an exchange with the mother of Emily, his British romantic partner. The mother still grieves her husband and sons who both died in the two World Wars.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles E. Madison: I don’t trust people who make bitter reflections about war, Mrs. Barham. It’s always the general with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a hell it is. It’s always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parades.

Emily Barham: That was unkind, Charlie, and very rude.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles E. Madison: We shall never end wars, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on the ministers and generals, or warmongering imperialists, or all the other banal bogeys. It’s the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers. The rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widow’s weeds like nuns, Mrs. Barham, and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices.

So, this holiday weekend while we honor the fallen, let us also recognize the incredible waste that comes from war and vow to work towards a more peaceful future where those who would die in war will instead be allowed to strive to reach potentials that would otherwise be lost.

In Harmony— At West End Gallery

Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.

― John Cage, 1957 lecture Experimental Music

Running on fumes and late as well this morning so this will be short and sweet– hopefully. You never know about such things.

I came the quote above from the late and influential avant-garde composer John Cage from a 1957 address at the national convention of the Music Teachers National Association. I liked his thought here, that we should not be so focused on finding order in the chaos that swirls around this world. The nature of this earth is just as it is and needs no improvements. What we see as a problem in nature, is our problem.  We are the ones needing improvement.

In our quest to tame or alter the chaos of nature, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that the order we seek is already in place. It is the harmony that comes from our awareness of our place in this unfathomable swirl that carries us along. Straining to understand or change this keeps us from seeing the richness of our place in the swirling chaos.

Relaxing and going with the unalterable flow allows us to better see and feel the beauty and excellence of this world and our lives.

That’s it except for a piece of music from John Cage. I can’t say that I always understand all of Cage’s work. Some of it evades me completely. That is probably my own shortcoming as there have been times in the past when I listened to his music when I was still fighting against the chaos whereas his music requires you to go with the flow and find the harmony and stillness within the chaos. I thought his 1948 composition, In a Landscape, was fitting since I attempt to reveal the harmonies in the landscape. This is a lovely piece that pays homage to composer Erik Satie, best known for his Gymnopédies which I have shared here a number of times as well as using them for the inspiration for a number of early paintings. This just seems like a perfect accompaniment– quiet and meditative– for the dark, cool, and rainy May morning here in my part of the world.

Edge of Doubt– Coming to Principle Gallery, June 2026

There is always
that edge of doubt.
Trust it.
That’s where
the new things come from. If
you can’t live with it,
get out because,
when it’s gone
you’re on automatic,
repeating something
you’ve learned.
Let your prayer be:
save me from that tempting
certainty that
leads me back
from the edge,
that dark edge where
the first light breaks.

— Albert Huffstickler, Edge of Doubt, published in Journal for Anthroposophy (Fall, 1994)

I came across the poems of Albert Huffstickler (1927-2002) recently. I had never heard the name before but the first two poems I encountered felt like they were directed at me. Just felt right which is, I guess, the best judgement you can give any creative work. The poem above, Edge of Doubt, served as an answer to a problem I was having in naming the new painting at the top.

Once I read this poem, I knew that its title would work perfectly for this painting as well.

For me, I see this painting as being about the uncertainty of our existence and the uncertainty each new day brings. The contrast of the certainty of the sun rising each day set against the uncertainties and doubts that come with each new day is a tantalizing thought.

We seek the same certainty as that of the sunrise, thinking it will erase all our doubts and make life much easier to endure. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

But the taste of that sort of certainty soon becomes bland and boring in our mouths. We want a bit of variety from which to choose. We don’t want to eat the same thing day after day at the same time at the same table. That is like prison inmate’s existence whose every day is filled with the certainty of where they will be at any given time, how they will behave, and what they will wear, eat, see, and, to a degree, think.

That’s not a certainty I think anyone craves though I will add that I have known several ex-cons who said that the certainty of each day in prison became an attractive thing for them. Every day’s decisions were planned for them and getting the necessities of life required no thought or effort on their part. Freedom out in the real world, on the other hand, required much more effort and thought. More chances to make bad decisions or fail.

And that goes to the heart of the quandary faced by any artist. They need that doubt and uncertainty that provides an opportunity to probe, perhaps to grow and perhaps to fail. It can sometimes be difficult. Stressful and gut wrenching. But without it, life is little more than a prison.

As odd as it sounds to say, doubt and uncertainty amount to freedom for the artist.

The mind is forced to work in survival mode, at a higher level necessary for real creation to occur.

Give me the freedom to always work toward that dark edge just beyond the fields of my doubts and uncertainties. That is my place in this world.

As always, I’m not sure if this makes any sense to anyone. As always, it is off the cuff so it may cut the corners here and there on its logic, which may be spotty in places and subject to argument. I never really know how anything I write– or paint, for that matter– will appear to others.

And that’s okay with me. It reflects the uncertainty I’m talking about.

Here’s a song from the Avett Brothers called Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise. I had heard it several times before without really paying attention its lyrics. I was surprised at how well it fits in with this post. Maybe not perfectly but what is perfect anyway?

That is reserved for those who live in absolute certainties and without doubts– not this guy.

Edge of Doubt is 12″ by 36″ on canvas and is included in my upcoming solo show, Flow, at the Principle Gallery, which opens Friday, June 12.

She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.

–William Wordsworth, Three Years She Grew (1799)

Had my first sighting of a fawn for this spring yesterday. First saw it with its mom early in the afternoon as I was on the path in the woods to the studio. They were walking away from me headed towards the nearby creek and the pond just beyond that. I couldn’t tell much from the glimpse through the trees but mom turned and watched, interested and aware of me but not alarmed. Calm.

A couple of hours later I headed back the other way and as I emerged from the path on to our driveway, I saw the two of them again just below me, only a very short distance from the spot in the woods where I had spotted them earlier. I could see them better now in the opening. Mom still was not too concerned about my presence, directing most of her attention to her baby. From the stiff legged gait on those new gangly legs and the manner in which mom was continuing to lick its fur clean, I believe that the fawn had come into this world not too long before I had spied them earlier.

It was most likely its first look at its new home and the mother who would guide it through the perils of being a little creature in an often harsh world.

Welcome, little one.

There is something energizing in seeing the first spawns of springs. Though we fret about the hardships and dangers they face– the coyotes and other predators along with the cars on the road beyond our driveway, to name a couple– the sight of seeing them bound around the property as they discover the speed and agility in their legs always makes me smile.

That is real joy.

By the way Mom easily accepted my presence, I would guess she herself was once such a fawn in these same woods. I most likely smiled at her first bounds as a fawn. Most likely watched her sleeping on the lawn just outside the windows of my studio. She seems like such an old hand at this, I probably have even watched her nurse other fawns in prior years. Unless there is some very distinct marking, it’s hard to tell one deer from year to year. But I am pretty sure this mom and her mom and moms for years before them, most likely made these woods their home.

It’s not a bad place to dwell. Plenty to eat. It’s lush green in the spring and into the summer since we don’t mow as much as we once did. Plue there is water throughout the year. Even when it gets extremely dry as it sometimes has in recent years, there are small springs a short way up the hill that run year-round and create puddles in the dry creek bed. And it is relatively safe. During hunting season our small family of deer often find sanctuary around the studio and in the pines between my studio and our neighbors, a spot that is never hunted. The deer know this and, I think, appreciate it.

New life, in the form of the first fawn, is here.

Soon we will be seeing baby raccoons scurrying around and climbing all over everything. We have already seen the first baby bear cubs. Well, we saw their eyes up in the trees behind our house a few nights ago as their large mom sat on the edge of our lawn between those eyes and our house, glaring at the house for the longest time and emitting a few growly grunts. We let her be, even though she was there to rip down the suet cakes we have out for the birds and tip over the bird bath. Maybe tip over the garbage can.

It’s okay, that’s their job.

Welcome to this place, little ones. It can be a harsh world sometimes but there’s nothing better. Looking forward to seeing you around.

O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

–Moses, Exodus

Feeling like an empty shell this morning. Extremely tired. Therefore, I am going to keep it simple. I was going to do a Look Back post on the early painting shown here but I don’t want to get into the whole thing. Hey, my blog, my rules.

For some reason this piece that I call Moses (I Supposes) jumped out at me this morning. I have no idea why. though it’s long been a favorite, painted quickly back in 1994. I don’t think I even knew why or what I was painting when I painted it. Just doodling and this is what came out. I find the clumsy, bathmat sized hands kind of charming here, an opinion I am probably alone in thinking. Kind of goes with Moses’ self-evaluation above.

But it works for me this morning, especially with the biblical passage above. Man, I am right there with Moses at the moment–slow of speech and tongue. Feeling like I am only part way through my own 40 years in the wilderness this morning.

Maybe this second cup of coffee will take care of that? Somebody probably should have suggested that to Moses.

Anyway, let’s end this whole fiasco with a favorite scene and song from the film Singin’ in the Rain. This is Moses Supposes with Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor. Lot of energy there. Hoping it’s contagious.

You don’t have to be a genius to see that this was the inspiration for this painting’s title. That sounds kind of as though I was insulting your intelligence, but it’s not meant that way at all.

Well, I don’t think it was meant that way. But I am very tired and a little edgy from wandering in the desert, so who knows?

Let yourself out. There’s a whole desert out there waiting for you. If you see a guy with a big white beard and platter sized hands out there, tell him I said ‘Hey.”

Zsa Zsa 2020

Farewell, my dearest sister, fare thee well:
The elements be kind to thee, and make
Thy spirits all of comfort! Fare thee well.

–William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

We knew something was wrong on Sunday evening. Zsa Zsa was not next to me when I woke up on the couch that evening. We were couch buddies, a habit formed over many years. Whenever I sat down on the couch, no matter the time of day, she would make a beeline to come curl up next to me. I was as hooked on this practice as she was. Her low grinding purr of contentment was mine as well.

She came to us about 17 years ago as a very young stray cat, one that followed us on our walks, running from tree to tree for cover. It was a pretty effective strategy. We sensed that something was there and sometimes caught tiny glimpses of a shadowy critter but was never quite sure. As is the habit of stray cats once they have vetted you for civility and kindness over a period of time, she made herself known. Over the following months, she would come to us and let us pet her outdoors.

Trying her to come inside was a different proposition altogether. We tried unsuccessfully a number of times as the winter approached. She had that feral skittishness especially about being placed in any form of confinement. And to her a house, though she knew nothing about how one worked, was a big cage. But Christmas Eve that year was bitterly cold and we worried about this little cat, who was then probably only eight or nine months. She was at our back door late that evening and I opened it for her. She wanted companionship but was not going to come through that door under any circumstance. I laid down across the threshold of the door, the frigid air filling the house, and put my head down. She approached and pushed her head against mine. I extended an arm and she let me pet her back while softly headbutting me.

I tried moving further into the house but that a was big no go for her. I moved back to where I was straddling inside and outside and we resumed our prior arrangement. This went on for a few minutes and at a certain point I felt that she could easily be swept into the warmth of the house if I were to make a grab.  I lurched, grabbing her and pulling her tightly to my head, trying to quickly pull her in.

Bad move. I had her but she kicked off from me in trying to get herself free. Blood ran down my face and hands. But she was inside.

I won’t go into her long transition into becoming solely a housecat which occurred a few years later.  For the last fourteen years or so, our home was her home. We were her family and she was ours. She was forever skittish, hiding when strangers were in the house. She also had little tolerance or warmth for our other cats.  That was reserved for us. And she gave it freely, with almost what I sensed to be a form of loving gratitude for pulling her in on that Christmas Eve so many years ago.

She was old now and had ailments, of course. She had gone to Cornell Veterinary several years ago for thyroid problems that threatened her life. Without the radioactive pellets that were inserted, she had little time left. The treatment gave her about five more years and she made the most of it, soaking up a constant stream of affection from us both.

But yesterday morning, sensing that something wrong after her absence on the prior evening, I noticed that her eye was almost closed and there was swelling underneath it. Cheri called our vet and took her in immediately. She called me a bit later in the morning. She was bleeding into her eye, and they had done ultrasounds and x-rays. Cancer had spread throughout her body.

Fucking cancer.

She came home for the last time yesterday in a small cardboard coffin.

I buried her, crying all the time, in the woods next to another loved cat, Tinker, putting a cairn of large stones over her grave. She’s at home among the trees she once knew so well.

I wasn’t going to write this today. To be honest, I was exhausted this morning after yesterday’s emotions and the physical effects of losing and burying Zsa Zsa. My walk to the studio was more akin to the movement of a slug than that of a human. There is probably a slime trail through the woods. But I have promised myself that I would write every day for a year– almost halfway there– and besides, my Zsa Zsa, like all living beings, deserved to have a bit of her story told.

There’s more that could be wrote about this simple, little cat. I am grateful that she came into our lives. For today, I am content in just remembering all the love she gave to us.

As is the case with all love, we are better for it.

Thank you, Zsazie. Good travels, my sweet baby. Fare thee well.

Here’s a song that just came on as I was finishing this. Made me bawl like a baby. This is Bonnie Raitt and John Prine singing his Angel From Montgomery.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1995)

You can’t judge a book by its cover.

— George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860)

I’m about a month out from the opening of my 27th annual solo show at the Principle Gallery, which opens on Friday, June 12th. I deliver the show to the gallery in two weeks so I am deep in prepping and framing the paintings for this show. It has been a sometimes grueling process this year as the effects of the fatigue from my treatment and back pain brought on by standing on a concrete floor to build and stain my frames have slowed my pace considerably. Everything is done in short spurts of activity followed by a period of resting. Hard to get a great rhythm going.

The only benefit of this that I can see is that trying to get through this has kept me from worrying about the details of the opening at the Principle Gallery. I used to have pretty high anxiety about the openings, about how I would come off to others in appearance and manner. That train has pretty much left the station in recent times. There are much bigger things to occupy my mind these days than whether I am wearing the “right” clothes or if I might come off as a little crazy to people there.

I have learned that it doesn’t really matter. Some will judge you and many will not, no matter how much effort you put into blending in. So, I don’t give much thought or effort to appearance these days. Right now, I am wearing a dirty, paint splattered flannel shirt along with what I call old man work pants, the kind of khaki chinos that I remember my great-uncle Otto wearing. The ones I wear are well worn with a large horizontal rip across the right knee that includes a long vertical tear that goes halfway down the front of my calf. I might just wear these to the opening.

Thinking about this brought back a story I told here back in 2009, not long after I began writing this blog. I was prepping for what was then my tenth show at the Principle Gallery. I have told this story a couple of times at Gallery Talks but can’t find any mention of it here after that 2009 post.

In it I recounted an episode from an opening I attended there in 1998. In my early days at the Principle Gallery, I was included in a group of five artists called the Finger Lakes School. It included Tom Buechner, Marty Poole, Tom Gardner, Rudy Gyr, and me.  With Marty Poole’s recent death, only Tom and I remain from that group that was named for the lovely region in which we live.

I was kind of the oddball in the group as the others were all more traditional representational painters with much longer careers than mine. I was just glad to be included on equal footing with this group of esteemed artists.

We did two shows as the Finger Lakes School at the gallery before I broke off and began my solo shows there in 2000. There is one moment from our first show that stands out for me. There was a great turnout for the show and the gallery was crowded as several of us from the group mingled, answering questions and such.

I had a small break in conversation and stepped back to take it all in. I then heard a female voice from behind me ask her companion where we were from, where the Finger Lakes were. Her friend answered that the Finger Lakes region was in western New York. He explained that it was a mainly rural area with a lot of wineries and farms.

“Well, you know, they do look like farmers,” she replied.

I think I might have done a spit take on hearing that. Maybe not but I chuckled pretty hard at that moment. Over the years I often think back to that lady’s comment and still sometimes laugh. Maybe we shouldn’t have all worn our overalls and John Deere caps that night. Or maybe it was the piece of straw I kept in my mouth.

It just reminds me how we often judge others by that initial glimpse and how we often end up being wrong. If people judge me to be a farmer, I’m okay with that. Though I am more comfortable in calling myself an artist than I once did, I still generally think of myself as workingman. To be honest, I am always a little suspect when someone has the deliberate look of being an artist, like they are trying too hard to play the role.

So, if you can make it to the opening, don’t look for someone who looks like an artist. I’ll be the uncomfortable guy there who looks like a farmer.

That brings me to this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It is You Can’t Judge a Book, that was originally written by blues great Willie Dixon and made popular by Bo Diddley.  My favorite version is from Long John Baldry, one of the pioneers of the British blues/rock movement in the early 60’s and a guy who had real panache. Both Rod Stewart and Elton John, both mentioned in this song, started their careers with Baldry’s band. My brother introduced to me to his music in the early 70’s and I have enjoyed it ever since.

Plain good stuff. Now git– I need to get out in the fields. Got to get those crops in.

The Sky Is Always the Sky (1995) – Coming to Principle Gallery, June

One of the few things I know about writing is this: Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Don’t hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The very impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful; it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

–Annie Dillard, A Writer in the World (1989)

It seems to me that most everything Annie Dillard writes about the act of writing has some application to all the other arts. I read so much from her that could pertain to painting. At least, in the way I paint. Every artist has their own way of working.

This particular passage didn’t really apply to my painting. I seldom hold back anything when I am working, never withhold something for some later and hopefully better painting. I view whatever I am working on at the moment to be the only thing that matters. It is the most important thing to me then and receives every potentiality I can offer it. I think that is why I generally don’t do studies in my work. What might start out as study usually turns into a full-bloomed painting.

What caught my eye and mind in this passage was sparked by my recent excavation of older work to fill out my upcoming solo show, Flow, at the Principle Gallery in June. Pulling out these older pieces, I had long held assumptions on so many that I felt were untouchable, pieces I could not possibly give up. 

But this time it felt different. Maybe it was the reminder of the impermanence of this life that I took from my recent health issues. I don’t know. But much like Annie Dillard wrote, I found myself feeling as though I was hoarding them. For what reason or purpose, I do not know. 

Her last two sentences struck a chord with me: Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

What good were these pieces serving for me now? I do like going through them periodically and having them reignite memories of how they came about or how they were painted or how I felt when they were done and how I feel about them now. But I do the same thing with images of paintings that left the studio long ago. I didn’t need to have these in my grasp to do that.

And if I were to die tomorrow, what then becomes of these works?  What assurance do I have that their voices, small as they may be, are heard in the future beyond me?

Will these be the ashes found in my safe?

I don’t know. Maybe.

The thought of that irks me. After all, the reason I began painting was to communicate, to give expression and air to some inner voice that I felt needed to be heard. To live and speak in the open air is the ultimate purpose for every piece I have ever painted. They were not meant to dwell in the stale air of boxes, folders, or shelves in the small back bedrooms of my studio.

And they are not meant for me since they are already of me and will always be so. They are meant to be sent out into the world, like little space probes sent into distant galaxies with the hope of making contact and letting the voice of my planet be heard and not forgotten.

They are not meant to be ashes.

So, as I prepare for my show, I look at each piece with a different eye than in the past.  And the thought from Annie Dillard echoing in my mind that what I do is not for me to hoard but should be given freely and abundantly so that it might live and speak long after I have ceased to be.

That being said, I’ve decided to include the small painting at the top, The Sky Is Always the Sky from 1995, in the Principle Gallery show. A few years back, I wrote about this painting, saying: I stumbled across it the other day and it thrilled me, much as it did when I first painted almost 28 years ago. I see things in it that I would struggle in recreating. The colors, the sedimentation of the pigments, and even the organic feel of the linework would be much different.

I went on to mention that I had no reason to give for why it had never been shown. And I have no reason now that it shouldn’t be seen and heard. 

It is not meant to be ashes.

Okay, here’s a song about ashes that has absolutely no bearing to what I have written. But it does have ashes in it. This is an impromptu acoustic cover from Glen Hansard in what appears to be a hotel room of Ashes to Ashes, the David Bowie song from way back in 1980.

Wow, time flies. Speaking of time, my 27th annual solo show, Flow, opens in less than four weeks, on Friday, June 12, at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA. That might seem like a long time, but I have much still to do while working with reduced energy levels.

So, get the hell out of here and let me get to work, okay?