Redtree Times

Dance Me to the End of Love— Coming to West End Gallery

Oh, let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

— Leonard Cohen, Dance Me to the End of Love (1984)

This week has been a rush of trying to finish up framing and other details for my new work for my upcoming solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that I will deliver at the end of next week. The show itself, The Jubilee Dance, opens the following Friday, October 16. You would probably be surprised at the amount of work that goes into getting paintings ready for a decent sized show. I’ve done 70+ solo shows over the decades, so I often don’t even realize how much actual effort it takes. I just do it.

However, the preparation for this show seems much more difficult than in past years, even in those years when I was rushing right up to the moment I had to begin loading work for delivery. The difference this year comes, of course, from some physical difficulties. I’ve talked about the fatigue from my cancer treatment here that has plagued me in recent months. That certainly has played a part in getting ready for this show.

But worse than that is pain in my ribs that sprung up in the past week. It is in the area where I received radiation. The pain and the limits imposed on my range of motion has made everything harder to accomplish, not to mention that it makes it hard to comfortably sleep for any appreciable amount of time, which only adds to the already present fatigue. Thankfully, large doses of Advil through the day help enough that I can still work at a decent pace. We think it might be a broken rib from the thinning of the bone from both radiation and the effect of my medication. Still waiting for authorization from my insurer for a PET scan.

But stuff is getting done. That’s the main thing.

This morning I got into the studio just after 4 AM and began to work on photography and titles for a few still untitled pieces for the show. One of the small but absolutely necessary details. I had just finished editing the image for the painting at the top, a 15″ by 30″ canvas that has been a favorite of mine since it was painted. It hits every mark for me with its rich color and atmosphere and how everything harmonizes. It sings for me.

I was trying to determine what to title it when a favorite Leonard Cohen song came on. The song was Dance Me to the End of Love. I knew immediately that this was the title for this painting. Maybe it’s just my tiredness, but hearing with that image in front of me made me a bit emotional. This no doubt came from a feeling I got from it while it sat untitled in the studio. It felt to me like it represented a certain dusk or ending of something. The end of the road, the end of time, the end of light or color– something in that vein.

The interesting thing is that this sense of an imminent ending was not sad at all. There is a bit of wistfulness, but the painting as a whole feels joyous to me. It is as though the day is ending, there is great contentment and gratitude for the beauty and love that has been bestowed before the darkness closes in.

The joy that comes in the dance of life.

How could I not borrow that song title for this painting?

I most likely have mentioned here in the past how I used to both title and judge my work in the earlier years. It has probably been a while so I’ll describe it again. back then, I would place the painting on my easel and walk away with my back to it. I would try to pretend that it was not my painting, that it was 50 years in the future and I was stumbling upon this painting in a junk shop or a garage sale. With this in my head, I would then turn and take it in with a quick glance. Was there something in this painting that would draw the attention and captivate this future me? Was there any quality in it that would make it seem like a found treasure to that future me? And with that quick glance, what was the first thing that jumped out at me and made an impression? What feeling did it immediately give?

It sounds dopey, I know. But you’d be surprised how effective it was. Well, I think it was effective. Maybe I am just a bit delusional on that front.

Anyway, it seemed to work.

Don’t know why but I don’t use that process anymore. There are probably a lot of reasons for that but I don’t want to get into them this morning. I have too much to do before today’s first dose of Advil wears off.

Here is Leonard Cohen and Dance Me to the End of Love.

PS- The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that opens two weeks from today, Friday, October 16. There is an opening reception at the gallery on October 16 that runs from 5-7 PM. I will be there come hell or high water, so stop in and we can spend a few minutes chatting.

Hope is the thing...- Coming to West End Gallery

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

–Emily Dickinson, Hope is the thing with feathers (1861)

I have had a proclivity for painting snowy landscape as of late. I wrote and spoke recently about the immersion of the process of painting these pieces, how it focuses my attention and distracts me from the world outside my field of vision. That might well explain why I am drawn to painting these paintings lately, but it might be more than that.

I have simply been in a wintry mood in recent weeks. I don’t know that I can describe what I mean by that. Silent and cooly distant? Pensive, maybe even a little melancholy? In survival mode, just trying to get by?

Maybe. I don’t know. It’s just a feeling for me, one of those for which words often come up short for me.

I struggled to find a title for this new painting that is part of my upcoming West End Gallery show. It’s one of the last paintings completed for the show, a small piece, only 6″ by 8″ on canvas.  it was not large in size but seemed to have much to express. Nothing I came up with for its title seemed to capture the feel that I was taking from it.

I finally got to listen to the title track from the new album from Rhiannon Giddens and knew that it was right for this piece. The song is her musical take on the Emily Dickinson poem, Hope is the thing with feathers, written in the opening months of the Civil War. The words from Dickinson and their delicate yet powerful treatment by Rhiannon hit me pretty hard. And though Dickinson’s bird was a songbird and not a crow or raven, I knew it had to be the title for this little piece.

The caw of the crow and the croak of the raven are music to my ears.

Below is a video of the song from Rhiannon Giddens showing collage artist Uzoma Samuel Anyanwu working on the large portrait of her that graces the new album. Watching his progress is fascinating.

Hope is the thing… is included in The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that opens two weeks from tomorrow, Friday, October 16. There is an opening reception at the gallery on October 16 that runs from 5-7 PM.

Hope– there’s that word again– you can make it.

Give and Take— Coming to the West End Gallery

Blessed are those who can give without remembering, and take without forgetting.

–Elizabeth Bibesco, The Fir and the Palm (1924)

Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1948) was one of those deeply interesting people in the background who populated the early 20th century. I had never heard of Elizabeth Bibesco and I believe most people would not know the name. But in the rich political and literary world of the early 20th century, she was always somehow right there in the background, a kind of Zelig-like figure who always seems to appear in old photos jus over the should of the famous person in the shot, prominent but not widely known.

She grew up living at 10 Downing Street as her father, H.H. Asquith, was the British Prime Minister from 1908 until 1916. Her wedding in 1919 to Romanian royal and diplomat Prince Antoine Bibesco was one of the social events of the year in Britain, attended by the royal family and celebs of the day such as George Bernard Shaw. She was a confidante of Marcel Proust when they were in Paris and in England, she was connected with Virginia Woolf and other members of the Bloomsbury Group. She was also well-known in Washington DC society as her husband served for a time as the Romanian ambassador to the US. She published a number of novels and books of poetry during the 20’s and 30’s. She endured World War II in Romania and died there during the final days of the war in Europe from a bout of pneumonia in 1945. She was only 48.

Like I said, one of those interesting lives, the type that burns brightly for too short a time then fades into the mists of history.

For his post, I am focusing on her aphorism at the top. It very much lines up with what I consider my own belief, that we must be generous with others without keeping score or expecting something in return and that when we do have to take, we do so with great gratitude.

The world works best when there is such a form of give and take, at least in my opinion.

The new painting at the top is titled Give and Take. The blowing tree that I sometimes employ in my work has a number of different meanings for me. Sometimes, it represents resistance and defiance. Sometimes it represents how we are affected by this world and how we attempt to contribute to it. A symbol of giving our all.

Here, I see it as symbol of the balance achieved between our gratitude for all we receive from the natural world and our willingness and need to give of ourselves to others. It’s been on my fireplace for several months now and I am always glimpsing at it and listening to what it has to say to me. It speaks loudly and clearly. I am going to miss it when it heads to the West End Gallery at the end of next week as part of my upcoming solo exhibit there which opens on October 16, two weeks from this  coming Friday.

Here’s a song that deals a different sort of give and take.  It’s deals with what happens when the balance between the necessary give and take of our society goes haywire, when there is too much taking and not enough giving. It shows up in the ever-expanding imbalance of wealth and power between the haves and the have-nots. The balance between those who attempt to hoard everything for themselves and the rest of us, many who struggle mightily just to get by in what is often referred to as the richest country in the world.

There is no shame in the shameless.

This song is from Poor Man’s Poison and is titled Give and Take.

Of course it is.

Night Falls– Coming to the West End Gallery

“That’s the place to get to—nowhere. One wants to wander away from the world’s somewheres, into our own nowhere.”

–D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love (1920)

Our own nowhere, as Lawrence put it, is the basis for much– well, almost all– of my work. Years ago, I gave my nowheres the title of Internal Landscapes. They’re not meant to represent any one place, any of the world’s somewheres.

They are where they are, existing only on their surface and in my mind and that of the viewer.

Actually, they often remind some folks of real places, not so much in the reality of those places but in the remembered feel. I have written and spoken about how many people have said that the paintings remind them of home. This always intrigues me because so many of these people are from a wide and diverse range of homelands.

I am pretty sure it is not the representation of a particular landscape or climate that brings on this feeling of home for them. I think it’s more of a level of comfort that they find in the work, something that establishes a distinct emotional connection reminiscent of their concept of home.

I don’t know why I try to explain such a thing. It’s almost always a fruitless effort.

I should just stay silent here in my nowhere, far removed from the world’s somewheres.

If the paintings want to talk, they are free to do so. That’s on them.

This painting, Night Falls, is one of those nowheres, one I am always pleased to come back to. It satisfies me on many levels which is all I can ask of any piece. It is included in The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that opens on October 16.

I am in the midst of getting everything, including this painting, prepped for the show.  I feel very good about this show and think it will look great on the walls of the West End Gallery. It’s going to be a race to the finish as I have been experiencing some physical glitches in the last couple of days that are slowing me down a bit. But, one way or another, it will get done.

For now, I am reluctantly back in the world of somewheres as I prepare my nowheres for the show.

Here’s a song whose title fits this painting very well. It’s Far From Any Road from The Handsome Family.

There’s nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.

–Carson McCullers, The Sojourner (1950)

Or an unfinished painting.

I was going through old work early this morning trying to find something for a Look Back post for the blog. I found a lot of things that had somehow evaded my attention for many years. I could have well used any of them, but it was this canvas shown above that caught my attention most. It’s not nearly so old as the pieces I would normally show in a Look Back entry but there was something about its unfinished state and the stark whiteness of the unpainted portion that intrigued me.

I don’t remember exactly when it was started. I would guess about 15 or 16 years ago. I also am not positive why my interest in it went astray, leaving it as it is. I suppose I just lost enthusiasm or felt that it was not going to go where I thought it should go.

No doubt it was from an idea of contrivance, those concepts that seem perfect in our minds but lose their spontaneity and organic feel as the painting progresses. These pieces can sometime be rescued and brought back to life.

I obviously didn’t feel like rescuing this one at the time or any other time since. Not that I didn’t think about it. It sat here in the studio, stacked with some other unfinished things on a stone wall behind where I now sit, for many years. I looked at it quite often and thought many times that I should go back into it.

But I never did. Probably never will. For reason, however I would paint the remainder now would probably stick out like a sore thumb. My painting style often changes and varies greatly and is hard for me replicate at a later date.

Another reason for not trying to finish it now is because I have come to see it as somehow complete in its unfinished state. There is a sort of abstract quality to it that I like. There is also something quite appealing to me in looking at the white textured surface in this piece without a layer of paint on it.. The way the gesso was applied at that time is like its own personal timestamp. Like my painting, the texture of the gesso often changes and there are pieces where I can approximately tell from the texture when it was painted. I put this texture as coming from around 2012 to 2015.

You have to take me at my word on that. I could, of course, be talking through my hat. Wouldn’t be the first time.

The line from Carson McCullers seemed to fit this entry pretty well. Human existence and art are inextricably intertwined, and both often reflect our improvisations and decisions to move on in different directions. This sometimes leaves things undone.

Like this painting.

And that’s okay. Maybe the ultimate purpose of this is to serve as a reminder that we are human and subject to the improvisations that life sometimes requires.

I can live with that.

Here’s a newer song from Paul McCartney off his new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane. This is Days We Left Behind.

Seems about right…

A Simple Life– At the Principle Gallery

Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die!

–Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921)

I woke up this morning way too early after a long day yesterday consisting of two long periods of time traveling the highway to and from, interrupted only by a handful of hours spent at the Principle Gallery where I gave my annual Gallery Talk. I woke with our housecat Sweet Babboo spooning up against me with her warm softness and the thoughts and feelings of yesterday in my head. Both filled me with great gratitude and all I could think was to ask myself how I came to be so lucky.

How can someone who lives such a relatively small and unassuming life deserve such warmth, from both our chubby little cat and the lovely group of folks who took time from their busy lives to spend an hour or so with me at the gallery?

I don’t know if it was simply the remainder of the dopamine/adrenaline that surged through me yesterday, but I found myself a bit teary-eyed in bed thinking how fortunate I truly was in this life.

Thinking about early this morning brought me to the lines above from Pirandello’s play. I doubted that I was born a character in anyone’s play, but I wondered if I had over the years become a character in my own life, something created in much the same way as my work. Maybe even in some way created by my own work.

I was the work and the work was me, if that makes any goddamn sense. Like I said, I under slept after a long day and may be functioning in a bit of a fog this morning.

I think what I am trying to say is that yesterday was vastly reassuring to me, that it made me aware that though I will someday die, my character in the form of my work will live on. As an artist– and a human– what more can I ask?

Like the paintings that were given away yesterday, I will have fulfilled my purpose.

This may not be completely clear, but I just want to thank each and every person who made an effort to come to the gallery yesterday, some from a great distance, for making me feel like such a lucky man. My words cannot express my depth of feeling.

And extreme gratitude and love to Michele, Taylor, Clint, Owen, and Brady at the gallery for making it all possible, again and again, with such warmth and friendship.

You made me feel like the luckiest guy in the world, kind of like Lou Gehrig. Wait, bad example. But you get the meaning, I am sure.

Here’s this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s a fitting song from 1997 from the Verve, Lucky Man.

Unlonely Crossing

On the Moon’s Whisper

Going to be brief this morning. I’m on the road, headed to Alexandria for my annual Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery so I’ll save my words for the talk which begins at 1 PM. In case you haven’t been following along, the talk lasts about an hour, consisting of some real info, some new paintings such as the two above, some wisecracks, some good Q&A, and some other fun stuff that will be familiar to those who have attended my talks in the past.

It all ends with a drawing for one of my paintings.

Both the talk and the drawing are free and open to all.

So, get there any way you can! Walking, biking, kayaking, roller-skates, sailboat, train or plane– it doesn’t matter. Just get there and you got a chance to win painting!

I’m writing this last night because we ride at dawn. Actually, a little before dawn. I have to git now because I need the rest for tomorrow. Here’s a song that sums up how I feel right now. This is Jackson Browne’s Running on Empty.

Bring on the Light– Coming to Principle Gallery Saturday

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

— Mary Oliver, Mysteries, Yes (2009)

I just started the final day of preparations for tomorrow’s Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery. I feel a bit beaten up this morning but am looking forward to finishing up. There’s always a big sense of relief after all the prep work is done and the paintings are packed and readied for the trip.

I am sharing a couple of images of new paintings that will be coming to Principle Gallery with me tomorrow. Much like the subject of yesterday’s post, both deal with the mysteries of this world and life in general. I thought the Mary Oliver poem above was a good fit.

For instance, there are the lines:

How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.

I very much see that in the painting at the top, Bring on the Light. We are rooted in this earth, bound to by gravity, yet are always reaching upward, aspiring to know and be more, inspired by the rising of the moon and sun.

Wait ‘Til Next Year

Then there is that opening line from the poem:

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

I can see that very much applying to my paintings with multiple moons, such as the one shown here. Mystery is at the heart of those paintings. We live in a world of mystery and unanswerable questions. Yet there are some who feel the need to create answers where there are none. I have to confess to having done that on more than one occasion, much to my shame. I am not a fan of this in myself or others. That can be summed up with another line:

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

I try now to accept and even revel in the mystery. The eight moons in this painting may well baffle and frustrate some who want and even need answers. For me, they are just as they are meant to be– the mystery that brings light, and maybe even hope, into our darkness.

The title of this painting, by the way, is Wait ‘Til Next Year. For any baseball fan– or fan of any team in any sport, for that matter– that phrase is not unfamiliar. Most years end in disappointment yet the fact that next year hangs out there like of these moons creates a sense of hope and anticipation, even though we know that next year may well offer the same sense of despair as this year.

Mysteriously, we still hope.

I guess that applies to life as well.

There is no mystery what tomorrow brings for me. I will be giving my annual Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery tomorrow, Saturday, September 26. It begins at 1 PM and ends with a free drawing for a favorite painting of mine. The drawing(s?) is the highlight, of course, but there is a bunch of other stuff that comes along with the talk, most of it fun and some of it thought-provoking. Some thoughtlessly-provoking, as well. I hope you can take a short break to come chat and maybe ask me some questions that I will attempt to answer. And maybe win a painting. The talk and the drawing are free and open to everyone.

Here’s a song from U2 to round out the triad today. This is an acoustic/ rehearsal version of their song Mysterious Ways.

Revelation of the Moons– Coming to the Principle Gallery

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

–H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

I take great pleasure in painting these multiple moon paintings, yet I struggle to fully understand them, let alone explain them. And that makes me somewhat happy because I don’t think we are meant to understand everything nor should we attempt to explain everything.

Things sometimes are what they and we should honor the mystery.

Though we want to know the answers to everything, perhaps having all knowledge would change our lives in adverse ways that we could not possibly foresee. Maybe, like Lovecraft wrote, there is mercy in our ignorance. If all the truths of the infinite universe were suddenly revealed to us, we might then immediately recognize our own insignificance. This sudden knowledge that we are neither as high nor mighty as we envision might be too big a comedown for creatures who have long convinced themselves they are the apex of all lifeforms.

Knowing that we are little more than dung beetles in the eyes of the universe might cause us to question all we thought we knew. The very meaning of life might change or even be extinguished for us.

How we would react to such revelations is unknowable. Maybe it would result in madness or a new Dark Age as Lovecraft predicted.

But then again, maybe it would go the other way. Maybe we would then see that that the leaders of faith who now connive and manipulate our fears and expectations possessed no more insight or power than the rest of us dung beetles. They just have a bit more dung in them than most of us. Maybe this would lead to an age where cooperation and community ruled the day.

Who knows what dung beetles will do in such a situation?

I just realized how misanthropic this sounds. It is not meant to be. Okay, maybe a little. Let me bring it back to the context of this painting, Revelation of the Moons. What I see here– and this is just my own personal reading of it and nothing more– is that the person on the roof in their search for the ultimate answers is suddenly faced with a night of multiple moons, something that is both remarkable and frightening. These moons silently communicate to this person and give no response to the questions posed. Instead. they simply tell this person to honor the wonder and mystery of this place in which they live.

Live a simple and good life that harms no others.

And get off the roof before you fall.

That is the revelation of the moons, as I see it.

Of course, I am just a dung beetle, so what the hell do I know?

This dung beetle will be giving a Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA this Saturday, September 26, beginning at 1 PM. This painting will be part of a select group of new work I will be bringing along with a painting of mine that will be given away in a drawing at the end of the talk. And some other stuff, too.

Could be some good dung beetle-type fun so I hope you can make it.

Here’s a favorite song, Be Thankful For What You Got, from William Devaughn that I have shared here a bunch of times before.

Maybe that is the actual Revelation of the Moons? Maybe. Who knows?

k

Praise the Moment– At the Principle Gallery Saturday!

A thinking man’s greatest happiness is to have fathomed what can be fathomed and to revere in silence what cannot be fathomed.

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections (1833)

Getting things around for my Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery that takes place this Saturday, September 26, beginning at 1 PM. As I mentioned in previous posts, I am bringing a select group of new work to the gallery. My week has been occupied thus far with varnishing and framing the work, along with other detail work that must be done.

This part of the process, as necessary as it is, always disrupts my painting flow. And at this time, this disruption is eating at me more than usual. In the past few weeks, I have written several times about how my time spent painting has been a tremendous source of relief from the effects of my treatment, especially the sometime overwhelming fatigue that plagues me. It has all seemed to fade away when I am at work at the easel.

This not being able to paint hit me hard yesterday. I slogged through the last half of my day like I was dragging battleship chains and an anchor behind me. Just dead tired, both physically and mentally.

Even so, there were moments in the day that momentarily seemed to ease the weight of those chains. For example, working with this new painting shown here, Praise the Moment, and seeing it fully presented in its frame at last. This good sized piece, 30″ by 15″ on canvas, has lived in the corner of my eye since it came off the easel a several weeks ago. I am constantly stealing glances at this painting, gladdened and soothed by its richness of color, light, and mood.

I could go on and on trying to explain what it says to me and how it moves me but I believe that would be a fruitless effort. Sometimes, a meaningful piece of art is much like the maxim at the top from Goethe: You understand what is plainly meant to be understood, and you silently appreciate, even revere, that which is beyond your understanding.

This is one of those pieces for me. Trying to explain what there is in it that moves me would be a fool’s errand, one that might even distract from its inherent and intangible strength.

It demands my reverent silence.

Praise the Moment will be at the Principle Gallery Saturday. The Gallery Talk is free and open to all as always. It begins at 1 PM and concludes with a drawing for one(?) of my paintings. If you have attended one of my Gallery Talks in the past, you know there are always some other surprises as well. Be forewarned however that this is an event that truly works best with your participation in the form 0f questions and comments. But know that I will do my damnedest to make it work so that we all leave happy.

Hard to believe this is about my 22nd or 23rd Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery. Where does the time go? Here’s a favorite song that speaks to that unanswerable question and seems to fit the tone of this painting for me, especially the lyrics shown here:

Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving
Ah, but then you know it’s time for them to go
But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

–Who Knows Where the Time Goes, Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention (1969)