Redtree Times

Railroad Ave (1994)

The sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw, the streets were wet and sloppy. The smoke hung sluggishly above the chimney-tops as if it lacked the courage to rise, and the rain came slowly and doggedly down, as if it had not even the spirit to pour.

–Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (1837)

It’s been really interesting, even enlightening, going through my earliest work. I can see points where the work turned and took the next step. Can see the development of my process and my use of color. Can see failed attempts at contrived ideas. Can see pieces that surprised me then a me then and now, some making me chuckle and some that simply make me nod in remembrance.

But the overriding thought I have lately when looking through them is how ridiculously prolific I was then. There are literally several hundred these small pieces dating from 1994 alone. When you consider that I was working a full-time job while also finishing up construction on our home — which is a misnomer since it is still a work-in-progress– it means that I was painting several pieces a day. I look at this production today and am amazed. I am actually tired just considering it now, let alone trying to repeat it. I must have had the energy of a desperate squirrel that had been fed a lot of amphetamines.

Of course, many of those pieces from that time were total crap and should have had a match set to them long ago. Why I hold on to them is a mystery. But they somehow linger.

Rail Station (1994)

This one that I like a lot from that era. It was from a short time when I attempted working from photo references, something I never do now. This is called Railroad Ave, depicting a short bit of a street that ran along the railroad tracks as they cut through downtown Elmira. It was once a rough and tumble, bustling area filled with bars when the railroads still ran and stopped at the station just up the street. Here’s an image, a sketch, of that building that I did around this an area around the same time. Though I explored what I could of the closed station many times, it never sparked my imagination, as least in a visual way.

The area of Railroad Ave depicted at the top were just south of the station. It was now in disrepair with boarded up windows and a grimy feel that echoed Dickens’ streets as described above. It felt dirty and a bit dangerous but held an air of stories waiting to be told from its past, which seemed to be caught in its current state of being like a bug in amber.

That the probably the attraction for me when I was in junior high school and haunted this area and the blocks around it. After school, I spent many hours walking the streets, playing pinball at the bus termina or at Newberry’s, a now defunct five-and-dime, where I also honed my shoplifting skills. I am not proud to admit that, but it was part of that time for me.

That area felt like human life to a thirteen-year-old kid who lived in the country. There was a hustle and bustle to it that sometimes bordered on danger, which made it irresistible. I moved through it surreptitiously like rat, seldom drawing attention though occasionally I would draw the attention of someone on the street. I remember vividly being approached by an older guy in front of the bus station.

“Hey, Slim! I only need fifteen cents to get a pint. Can you help me out?”

I did. It was worth it just for the memory of his words in that place in that time.

The thing that strikes me about Railroad Ave is how I was obviously seeking to capture the type of feeling evoked by an Edward Hopper painting, hoping it would have that same moody and somewhat alienated atmosphere so evident in his work. It has that mood, for me at least. I don’t know if it’s the painting or the memories. It doesn’t matter.

I also like the signature, done in pencil. I hadn’t yet adapted the GC in my name. That would come several months later when I discovered in an early internet search at the library, which was only a block or so from the site of this painting, that there were a couple of other artists already going by Gary Myers. Glad I found that info then.

Okay, I have to run. Spent far too much time on this already.

Here’s a song that is about the lure of the railroad for some desperate folks seeking to escape their situation and themselves. Probably many who found their way down Railroad Ave here and in streets just like it around the country. This is BW Railroad Blues from the late singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt.

Light and Wisdom (2018)

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

A large portion of my painting year thus far has been devoted to looking back at earlier work, caused, as I have explained too many times before, by my recent health issues. Though it has been mentally difficult in not being able to create and release the new work I know is in there, it has been deeply satisfying to explore once more the paths I have trod before.

Much of the work remains somewhat fresh in my mind but the revisit seems to deepen my appreciation for it, as though I have gained added perspective with the time that has passed.

Some of this work has slipped from my mind and surprises me as though it were new to me. This fills me with gladness.

And there are a few pieces like the one shown above, Light and Wisdom, that never left my mind, always seem to be near the surface. Not sure why except that it checks so many boxes for me. Rich and dark colors. A rhythm in the landscape. Great depth into the picture plane. A unity of all its elements. And most especially, an underlying personal meaning that seems to whisper in my ear whenever I look at it.

It feels like the me I hope to be. It reminds me that I am on a path and there is still some distance to go before I reach that desired end. But it also reminds me that I have already come a long way and have been changed by that journey.

That the desired end is something accumulated along the way, not a pot of gold waiting for me at the path’s end. That’s something not recognized when you take your first steps on the path.

This painting and so many others that I have reexamined recently from past years bring that point home to me. They were hints that I was indeed on the right path and had already been somehow transformed.

Light and wisdom had been accumulated…

This painting, Light and Wisdom, oddly enough for all its personal meaning to me, had only a brief time out in the public before it came back to me. Maybe that was the way it was intended. I don’t know.

It is going out in the world once more as part of my showcase, A Seedling Returns, as part of the Big Gems exhibit at the Gmeiner Art & Cultural Center in Wellsboro, PA. This exhibit is first of its kind collaboration between the West End Gallery and the Gmeiner. The exhibit opens Saturday, July 18 with the official Opening Reception taking place on the following Saturday, July 25 from 2-4 PM.

Here’s this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s from one of my favorites, Rhiannon Giddens, and is fittingly titled I’m On My Way.

J.C. Leyendecker 4th of July Saturday Evening Post cover 1930

If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.

–Thumper, repeating the lesson taught to him by his father in Bambi (1942)

Well, it’s the Fourth of July here in the United States of America. Our 250th, which should be cause for celebration among all the people of this country. It’s been a rocky road at times but for our fragile experiment in democracy to have somehow stumbled this far should have us all cheering.

Yet, I am not feeling very celebratory this year. No flag flying as it normally does on this day at our home. No plans to watch high school bands march by in parades. No Sousa marches or Irving Berlin’s God Bless America. No plans to watch fireworks of any sort, though that is not new for this year. Not a fan of fireworks display anymore for a number of reasons, the most notables being my aversion to the sound and seeing how they disturb our pets and the wildlife around us.

The point is that the 4th this year feels unlike any of the others in my increasingly long life. And not in a good way.

I don’t feel like the proud citizen of a mighty, benevolent, and just nation. More like a disturbed captive or hostage, victim of a home invasion.

That’s severe, I know. Probably inappropriate on this day. But it is how I honestly feel. And I believe I am not alone in feeling this way.

I could easily go on a rant listing the awfulness that has been unleashed on the American citizenry in recent years, but I am going to adhere to Thumper’s Rule as noted above and stop here.

Today, instead of focusing on the What-We-Have-Become, I choose to remember fondly the What-We-Were-Meant-To-Be.

I still hold tightly on to that ideal and don’t believe I will ever accept the What-We-Have-Become.

Here’s an unusual choice for a song on this 250th Fourth of July. It’s When the Roses Bloom Again from Billy Bragg and Wilco off the third of their Mermaid Avenue albums. It’s a reimagining of a song written in 1901 by Will Cobb, I’ll Be With You When the Roses Bloom Again, that describes the story of a soldier headed off to battle who promises his sweetheart he will return to her when the flowers return. He is mortally wounded in battle, and his last request is to be buried by the riverside where they first said goodbye.

For some reason this seems to fit this day. Perhaps a melancholy desire to return to the What-Might-Have-Been.

I don’t know. I would normally tell you to git at this point. But to be honest, I am glad to have had your company this morning. Thank you.

I chose the image at the top because, with that profile, the hair and the red and gold of his garb, it reminds me of someone. Just can’t figure out who…

The Internal Landscape (2012)

There is a place called ‘heaven’ where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued. We may laugh together yet.

–J. R. R. Tolkien, letter to his son, Michael, June 1941

The other day I wrote an entry here, The Paintings We Don’t Paint, that was primarily about artists receiving unsolicited advice from others. I guess it applies to everyone, actually. It is not the sole province of artists. There is always someone out there ready with a You should do this or a Why don’t you do that.

But after hitting the publish button, I felt there was so much more that could be said about the paintings we don’t paint.

I think most artists leave this world with undone paintings still rolling around their mind somewhere. After all, every painting is almost always the prelude to the next. Teh finished piece sparks rhythms and flows and concepts that the artist visualizes being carried to the next or at least some painting in the future. I can’t tell you how many times I have finished (well, finished it to that point) a painting and am itching to immediately start the next with the momentum and tingling senses still fresh in my mind.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out. Time, obligations, and the general details of life sometimes get in the way. There is often a lapse– much more so now than I was younger and working off of a fresh, supercharged battery– before I get to the next piece. I still carry the momentum and thoughts from the last painting but they are not sharply poking at me to, demanding that I move ahead. No, they are more like gentle nudges now.

More like a suggestion than a command. And in that short space between suggestion and command, the painting that might have been is often unrealized.

An unsown seed.

Oh, it is replaced eventually by another painting, maybe even one that creates an even greater rhythm and flow to carry to the next after it. But that other seed is still there waiting to be nurtured so that it might become what it is meant to be.

Every artist has these seeds resting in the nooks and crannies of their mind, most that will go with them to their grave.

Then there are those paintings that remain unpainted not because of a lack of desire or the details of life getting in the way. These are the paintings that an artist holds in their most secret of dreams but do not have the courage or willpower to take on.

I have a few of those rolling around in there somewhere. I keep promising myself that one day I will muster up the courage to take a crack at one of two of them. But promises to yourself ate the easiest to break, the easiest to rationalize away. But as of now, I still hold that promise for those undone paintings.

I’ll give you an example. I’ve always wanted to paint on a grand scale, to make very large pieces. I have done a couple bigger pieces, such as the painting shown at the top. Titled The Internal Landscape, it was the titular centerpiece of my 2012 solo exhibit at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown. It is 54″ by 84″ on canvas.  I am looking at it right now as it fills a small wall in my painting space. I look at it quite a bit, actually. I often feel like I am seeing the folds and creases of my brain in the rolls and rhythms of its field and hills.

It is definitely a place where I live. Home.

I take a degree of pride in that piece. It became what I hoped it would when I first stood in front of its black surface, not knowing exactly where it would go or even what it would eventually come to be. It presented a large challenge. But I am proud to have stood in front of that large canvas without a preconceived idea and to have created a world unto itself using only my limited skills and mind. When I am filled with uncertainty and lacking in confidence, I often turn to this painting for reinforcement.

There are other equally large or larger such pieces in my mind. Undone paintings that remain so because I don’t have the courage or committed willpower to follow through on my promise to myself.

Part of my rationale for not doing these grand pieces is one of practicality. They are hard to move around and difficult to store.  They are not easy to find homes for as they take up a lot more space and have a higher price tag. Their large size would limit their visibility in the galleries that show my work. I have no idea where I would show them or if any venue would even be interested. Not to mention the investment of time, materials, energy, both physical and mental, required to create these works.

Another part of my rationale is just plain old doubt and fear of failure. They are a powerful dual for artists, or anyone else for that matter, to overcome.  It often takes sheer ego to do so. I obviously have an ego. I am writing this thinking that it will be read or that it will somehow make a difference. That in itself takes more ego than I would like to admit having. And even with a larger than desired ego, it is often not enough against one’s own fears and doubts.

So, those epic paintings reside only in my mind.

For now. I still believe I can and will create them.

My promise to myself, for what it’s worth. So far it remains unbroken.

Here’s song about just that. It is Promises, Promises from the dynamic duo of singer Dionne Warwick and the songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. No fear or doubt here.

I don’t have the energy to say Git so just do it on your own, okay?

Trio: Waiting For the Fire (2002)

When a child is born its sense-organs are brought in contact with the outer world.

The waves of sound, heat, and light beat upon its feeble body, its sensitive nerve-fibres quiver, the muscles contract and relax in obedience: a gasp, a breath, and in this act a marvelous little engine, of inconceivable delicacy and complexity of construction, unlike any on earth, is hitched to the wheel-work of the Universe.

–Nikolai Tesla, Man’s Greatest Achievement, in New York American, July 6, 1930

When I was born those waves of sound, heat, and light beat upon its feeble body and might very well have made my sensitive nerve-fibres quiver, as old Nikolai describes. Many decades later, however, my nerve-fibres aren’t quivering quite so much at the waves of heat we’re being hit with in recent times.

It’s more like those nerve-fibres are wilting. Never been a fan of the grim heat and humidity of our summers. Even less so now as the heat comes at us in seemingly ever-increasing waves.

Plus, the hormone therapy I am undergoing doesn’t seem to help either. I always enjoy a good hot flash. How’s a little more sweat going to hurt anything?

Nobody told me that the wheel-work of the universe would be so damn hot.

So, for the next few days, my plans are simple: Keep a low profile, keep things simple, avoid the sun, stay hydrated, and sweat profusely.

Actually, that could be any day of the year for me.

I am adhering to the keep it simple part of my plan here today. Here’s a song with a swampy feel. It’s from Robbie Robertson, the late songwriter/guitarist of The Band. This song, Somewhere Down the Crazy River, is from his self-titled 1987 album. I have played this album and this song many times over the many years since it came out and it never disappoints.

I’d tell you to get out but, meh, I don’t have the energy in this heat.

The Omnipresence- Before and After

I see the spectacle of morning from the hilltop over against my house, from daybreak to sunrise, with emotions which an angel might share. The long slender bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations; the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)

The Omnipresence from 2024 was one of those paintings that really rang the bell for me. The sky in it really drew me in as did the winding river. I figured that the reason it never found a home was simply because it was, at 36″ by 24″, a somewhat larger painting. The size and the corresponding higher price made it less viable for some folks.

But when it came back to me in May, I began to really examine it. It still clicked all my boxes. But seeing it in person made me realize how poorly it was portrayed by my photography of it. The painting I was looking at didn’t seem like the same painting depicted in my in my photo of it. There was a red pall that hovered over the whole thing, especially dulling the brightness of the landscape and the river in the lower half of the painting.

But while I was berating myself for letting such a poor and misleading image go out into the world, I also began to notice that the landscape that ran along each side of the river had a dullness that didn’t match the title which was I originally felt pointed out the brilliance and harmony of all things. Omnipresence means everywhere in everything. It was particularly evident in the empty flower beds which seemed to suck away all brightness from the bottom half of the painting.

I had gone back and forth when I was painting this piece as to whether the flower beds should be filled with color. At the time, I felt that the empty beds were enough on their own as a structural component and complement to the sky, that filling the beds would be too much. Too busy.

Looking at it after it came back into my hands, I realized my mistake in that choice. While I still thought it was a powerful piece as it was in its original form, I could see now that it was begging for more color, more brightness in its bottom half. The Red Tree in the original seemed to me to be trying to escape the drab landscape in which it was bound. It was like looking at a dance where the partners were dancing at different tempos and rhythms.

That was all I could see then. I knew I had to work on that bottom. And my photography of it. I set to work creating colorful flower beds and was immediately rewarded. It felt like an incredible transformation to me as each bed was filled and when I finished them all, I knew I had made the right decision this time.

I then worked on the photography. I don’t know how I had so missed the mark in capturing this piece originally. I would like to blame it on the monitor at the time since I am getting much better results with my newer current model and am finding a lot of my work from past years that have similar imaging shortfalls. But that can’t fully explain it. I simply overlooked something at the time.

I was probably drunk.

I am, of course, kidding.

I was stoned.

Again, kidding.

Whatever the hell was wrong with me at the time, it seemed a moot point after the changes to the painting and its new photo image. You can see it for yourself in the comparative image at the top. There is so much more brightness throughout the painting now and the two dancers, the upper and lower halves of the painting, seem in joyous harmony. And what I am seeing in person comes across much more, as it should, in the photo now.

Like most artists, I don’t like admitting mistakes made with my work. But as it also is with most artists, some pieces reveal themselves in need of something or other after they have left the studio. Many famous artists are notorious for making changes to pieces long after they have left the studio, some going so far as taking work off the walls of collectors to add a touch here and there.

I didn’t have to take it off anyone’s wall but this was definitely the case here. And while I am embarrassed by not seeing my poor choice made in the original, I am thrilled to see it as it is now.

It feels like it now fully lives up to its title.

All I could ask.

Here’s a song that may or may not have anything to do with subject. It’s a longtime favorite from John Lennon, Instant Karma. I think the connection here is that there is good karma in recognizing and rectifying our mistakes.

Now, get out of here before I say something rude and blow all that good karma…

PS- The Omnipresence is available now through the West End Gallery.

Give Me One Reason– At Principle Gallery

We give advice by the bucket but take it by the grain.

–-William R. Alger, A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations (1875)

You should really…

Have you ever thought of trying…

Why don’t you…

There are probably a lot more beginnings to sentences than these three examples that are heard on a regular basis by any person toiling in the creative fields.

People telling you that you should try adding something to your work.

Or take something out.

Or do more or less of something.

Or your work should be more like that of someone else. That’s an all-time favorite.

Or try painting some place they know. That was the first unsolicited advice I received about my work, given to me the first time my work was ever shown publicly.

I remember the unpleasant feeling of my sphincter tightening then and that is still the reaction when I am given similar advice, even when it is given in a friendly and seemingly well-meaning way.

Yeah, I know the sphincter tightening thing is probably a little too graphic but, hey, I’m the one writing this, am I not? You get what you get when you read this, much as you do when you view my work.

It is the way it is because that is who I am.

If you don’t like it, then you have the option of not reading or looking at it. Or you could write your own blog on your chosen subject in a way that better suits you, much as you could get out your own damn brushes and paint your own painting that is more like the one you want to see.

Sorry if that sounds harsher than it’s meant to be.

I did actually reply once to such a suggestion that the person should try painting whatever they wanted me to attempt for themselves. That way they would get the painting that they wanted to see.

That sounds rude but it was said in a polite way that let the person know that I had no intention of taking their advice because the painting they wanted to see was not one that I wanted or needed to see. I immediately knew that it didn’t spark the kind of interest and enthusiasm required. Nobody wants to read the words of someone writing about something of which they have no interest, nor do they want to see a painting of something that holds no interest for the artist. You read or write because of the enthusiasm and emotional investment of the writer or artist.

I have been given many dozens of such well-meaning suggestions over the years. I could put together a large show of all those paintings I will never paint. It doesn’t happen as often now as it did earlier in my career. I think that is because I have been around so long that people now just figure that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. And on those rare occasions when the advice comes, I paste on a smile and say things like that’s interesting, I have to look into that, or maybe I will try that.

I mostly hear these suggestions now from my wife. I used to give the same responses as those above but we’ve been together forever so she knows by now what those terms mean– that I will not be doing whatever she suggested. Now, I just say I don’t think so, it’s not what I do.

More paintings added to my exhibit of non-existent work.

I hope this doesn’t come across as too crotchety. It’s not meant to be.

Well, maybe a little. But it could be worse. One of my favorite stories on an artist receiving unsolicited advice is one I have shared here a few times over the years. Below is as it appeared on the Fenimore Art Museum‘s blog many years ago and concerned the late, great American Folk artist Ralph Fasanella, whose work I have shared here many times.

Ralph Fasanella had trouble painting hands. A lot of trained artists do too, so it is not surprising that a union organizer who turned to drawing suddenly at the age of 40 would struggle with hands early in his career. But he did have something that proved better than years of formal training: he believed that he was an artist and that what he was doing – painting the lives of working people – was a calling that deserved his complete attention and all-consuming passion.

And that made him react when anyone suggested that his paintings weren’t up to snuff. He said that he was painting “felt space,” not real space. His people and the urban settings he placed them in were not realistic in the purest sense of the word, but they sang with spirit and emotion. As Ralph said, “I may paint flat, but I don’t think flat.”

His most memorable quote, and the one that says the most about him, occurred very early in his artistic career, when someone told him that his hands looked like sticks. He ought to study Rembrandt’s hands, they said, in order to get it right.  

His response is priceless: “Fuck you and Rembrandt!  My name is Ralph!”

I probably won’t adopt Ralph’s approach but you can bet his words will be echoing in my head the next time someone says “You should paint like…”

I think the point here is that when you read or view or listen to the works of others, take them for what they are. Even the most well-meaning suggestion carries the implication that their work is somehow lacking.

There’s a lot more that can be said about this subject and I have probably not done a great job thus far. But I have taken up too much of your time already, for you good folks who have read this far.

Maybe I will get to it sometime soon. Or maybe not. Who knows?

Here’s a song that might well be the anthem for most artists, me definitely included. It’s I Don’t Like Being Told What to Do from country singer/songwriter Roger Alan Wade. I had never heard of him or this song before just a few minutes ago. Apparently, his songs, especially the song If You’re Gonna Be Dumb You Gotta Be Tough, appears on most episodes of the TV show Jackass as well all of their movies. Not having seen more a minute or two of the show, I don’t know if that is a ringing endorsement. But I like and understand the idea of this song. That is the only endorsement I can offer.

Now, git before I get really rude.

Solitude and Reverence– At Principle Gallery

You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.

~ Wendell Berry, A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural (1972)

According to Google AI (whose info I trust as much I would a monkey with a hatchet) citing the National Geographic Society as a primary source, historians and anthropologists typically identify a civilization by several core features:

• Urbanization: Densely populated settlements and cities acting as centers of trade and religion.
• Social Hierarchy: The division of labor, distinct social classes, and a ruling elite.
• Complex Institutions: Organized governments and formal religious systems.
• System of Record Keeping: Written languages or standardized numerical and symbolic systems (such as the Incan quipu).
• Advanced Technology: Infrastructure, monumental architecture, and innovations that extend control over the environment.

Now bear in mind that I am just mulling this over this morning and probably can’t and won’t offer a full-throated defense of whatever the hell I might say here on dull-witted Monday morning. It just seems to me, after a quick read of the definition of civilization they offer, that the same core features, as they describe them, could be applied to a prison.

Is that the ultimate definition of civilization–a highly controlled environment where the individual is reduced to a number and an assigned cell and job?

I don’t know but it sure sounds like it could be hidden somewhere there in the details of how civilization is presented to us.

The quote at the top from the great essayist/poet Wendell Berry was written in 1968 as a journal entry during a return drive to his Kentucky home after an extended stay in California. Here is that whole short journal entry:

The relief of mountains and deserts after the over-populated, overmechanized regions. The oppression of driving mile after mile under a veil of poison. Now it is only in the wild places that man can sense the rarity of being a man. In the crowded places he is more and more closed in by the feeling that he is ordinary–and that he is, on the average, expendable.

You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.

That little bit says so much about how civilization, in many ways, moves us away from our humanity and the individuality that comes with it.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy many of the perks of civilization. I am writing this on a computer and sending it out on the interweb tubes– that’s what it’s called, right? I sometimes enjoy the anonymity that comes in a crowded city.

But it doesn’t take long for that feeling of being a blank, nameless face to realize that it is also the same feeling, as Berry put it, of being ordinary and expendable. It is counter to what I believe as the individuality that defines our humanity. To me, civilization, using the definition above, seems more intent on controlling than expanding humanity and its spirit.

I have tried, without knowing, to adhere to Berry’s admonition that we best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it. I think it is the responsibility of artists of all sorts– through our writings, our music, our dance, our poetry, and so on– to remind others that while we are part of civilization, we are first and foremost humans.

Individuals with feelings, emotions, and dreams for which civilization often gives little comfort or aid as that offered by art.

Art frees us from civilization. And prisons of all kinds.

I really wasn’t planning on an anti-civilization post this morning. Actually, had no idea what I would write when I sat down. But I had that line at the top in my files for some time and, though it nagged at me a little, wasn’t sure what to do with it.

Now I know, for better or worse.

Take it for what it’s worth from an unshaven, unbathed, groggy, half-witted older guy sitting in the woods on a Monday morning in June. If you feel like arguing the points made, do it with yourself.

I am civilization today and I ain’t listening.

Here’s a song that might well sum up the rest of the day.

Chasing the Elusive— Now at West End Gallery

Don’t swallow bleach
Out on Sandymount beach,
I’m not sure I’d reach you in time my boy.
Please don’t bungee jump
Or ignore a strange lump
And a gasoline pump’s not a toy.

— Lisa Hannigan, Safe Travels, (Don’t Die)

Wasn’t sure what I wanted to write this morning. Actually, I seldom know what I am going to write when I head across to the studio in the early morning dark. But since it was Sunday, I felt compelled to at least share a song, as I normally do. While browsing some tunes, most of which I already knew and had probably shared here in the past, I came across one that I hadn’t heard before. It was from a favorite of mine, Irish singer/songwriter Lisa Hannigan, and had an intriguing title, Safe Travels, (Don’t Die).

I began listening to it as I read along with the lyrics. I liked the song’s sound immediately and the lyrics about the things to avoid in one’s travels made me chuckle. But one line sealed the deal for me: And a gasoline pump’s not a toy.

It immediately took me back to my trip home two weeks ago after my Principle Gallery show in Alexandria. I was traveling with my neighbor and good friend, Bob, who had taken it upon himself to make sure I made it there and back safely. He had seen firsthand how fatigued I was in the weeks before the show and how my mind and judgement were not operating at full speed, possibly making me a danger to myself or anyone else on the road.

The day after the opening we headed home, up route 15 along the Susquehanna River. Stopping for fuel, Bob trusted me to gas up the van at a Sheetz convenience store and went in to use the restroom. I was absolutely beat at that time when I began pumping the gas. After a bit, the gas pump handle clicked, letting me know that it was full. I tried to squeeze in a bit more and as I did so, I zoned out. I found myself staring out into the distance. It was kind of nice until the smell of gas broke my peaceful interlude in another dimension. I looked down and realized my left foot was resting in a huge puddle of gas, well over a half inch deep. There was probably about a half-gallon of gas on the ground.

I quickly finished up and headed into the Sheetz to let them know they needed to do whatever they did for spills and to try to wash the gas off my shoes. As I stood at the sink in the Men’s Room frantically washing and rinsing the bottom and side of my shoe, a couple of guys in trucker caps stood looking quizzically at me from the urinals. I didn’t even try to explain.

I thought I had done a pretty decent job, and we headed up the road. But it didn’t take long to realize that the smell of gas from my shoes was filling the cab. Bob said he couldn’t take this for another three hours, that we would have to stop somewhere and try to clean them better. We were along the river at that point and there aren’t a lot of rest stops or even great places to pull off so it took a while. We finally came across a small rest stop tucked in a small space between the busy road the Susquehanna. It had a great view of some rapids and there were a number of local Amish folks there, some fishing, some eating at the picnic tables, and some doing whatever it is that Amish or any other folks, for that matter, do at a Rest Area.

Bob, for some unknown reason, fortuitously had both Method cleanser and lacquer thinner in his van. He told me to hand him my shoe and set to cleaning it as I zoned out once more watching the river water tumble by. I noticed some of the Amish giving Bob the same quizzical look that I received in the Sheetz men’s room and I began to see the absurdity of my very large friend cleaning my shoe as I sat there shoeless, staring at the river. I wondered what those folks were thinking then began to laugh.

The cleaning did work and we safely made our way home, odor free.

Okay, it’s not a great story. But nobody got hurt or died and, for today’s song with that line a gasoline pump’s not a toy, that’s enough for me.

Now get out of here and, for Pete’s sake, travel safe and don’t die.

In Rhapsody– Available through West End Gallery

But I believe above all that I wanted to build the palace of my memory, because my memory is my only homeland.

— Anselm Kiefer

I don’t usually like to share quotes from other artists without also highlighting their work. However, since I have shared this quote from artist Anselm Kiefer as well as other posts featuring his work, I thought I would just focus on this quote and its meaning for me. It might best describe how I feel about what I do.

I do view my work in many ways as the palace of my memory, a visual storehouse of my recollections of life’s sensations. It is a place where I can compile and tell the stories of my memory, sometimes embellishing and maybe even aggrandizing them. A palace need not be plain and dull as our reality sometimes is.

And much as Kiefer wrote, my memory in the form of my work is my only homeland. It is the only place where I feel totally at home. It is a land that is responsive to my needs as well as being loyal and true to me. And me to it.

I think it was this sense of being and acceptance that I found in my work that first attracted me to art. It wasn’t a desire to make pretty things or emulate others because I possessed that talent. I didn’t. There is another quote from Kiefer that I have shared before that sums up pretty well my own attraction to painting:

As an artist you have to find something that deeply interests you. It’s not enough to make art that is about art, to look at Matisse and Picasso and say, how can I paint like them? You have to be obsessed by something that can’t come out in any other way, then the other things – the skill and technique – will follow.

I desperately needed an outlet to release the landscape of my memories, to create a place where I could erect my own palace. Painting provided that in ways I couldn’t find in other ways of expression. And, as Kiefer says, the skill and technique followed. Well, I like to think that it did.

I don’t know why I am writing this this morning. I think some of it has to do with the amount of time I have spent in looking at older work while prepping for my current solo show at the Principle Gallery and my October show at the West End Gallery. Revisiting that older work is like looking at images of my palace being constructed. You might say the first building blocks being put in place. At the time, I didn’t know that but now that the structure is pretty much in place, I can see their importance in the construction that came after them. Each was a vital building block.

Without them, the palace would not have come to fruition. And though it might appear humble when compared to the palaces of others, I find that don’t really care. It is my palace and like the work it reflects, it is not meant to be like any other palace.

And that is that.

I struggled to find a song but settled on this one, Will You Miss Me When I Burn, from singer/songwriter Will Oldham who has recorded this under the psudonym Bonnie “Prince” Billy as well as Palace and Palace Brothers. I went for the Palace connection. Oldham wrote and recorded one of my favorite songs, I See a Darkness, that Johnny Cash covered in his last true incarnation as the artist he was. The darkness of that song is also present in this one selected for today, but it seems to match up with the painting.

That is to say that it fits well my palace.

Now be gone with you or the Palace Guard shall be summoned…