Redtree Times

Moon Listening— At West End Gallery

The day was when I did not keep myself in readiness for thee;
and entering my heart unbidden even as one of the common crowd,
unknown to me, my king, thou didst press the signet of eternity upon
many a fleeting moment of my life.
And today when by chance I light upon them and see thy signature,
I find they have lain scattered in the dust mixed with the memory of
joys and sorrows of my trivial days forgotten.
Thou didst not turn in contempt from my childish play among dust,
and the steps that I heard in my playroom
are the same that are echoing from star to star.
Where Shadow Chases Light
This is my delight,
thus to wait and watch at the wayside
where shadow chases light
and the rain comes in the wake of the summer.
Messengers, with tidings from unknown skies,
greet me and speed along the road.
My heart is glad within,
and the breath of the passing breeze is sweet.
From dawn till dusk I sit here before my door,
and I know that of a sudden
the happy moment will arrive when I shall see.
In the meanwhile I smile and I sing all alone.
In the meanwhile the air is filling with the perfume of promise.

—Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali 43, 1916

Don’t have anything to say this morning. Well, anything worth putting down on paper or online. Nothing you want to hear or read.

Thought I’d share a triad of image, word and song anyway.

The song is Idle Moments from the late jazz guitarist/composer Grant Green, who died in 1979 at the age of 44. It’s a sauntering, easy tune that I think links well with the painting and the poem from Rabindranath Tagore, which is also known as Signet of Eternity.

See for yourself. Now let me be, okay?

The Welcome Tree–At the West End Gallery

Between two worlds life hovers like a star,
‘Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.
How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be! The eternal surge
Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar
Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge,
Lash’d from the foam of ages; while the graves
Of Empires heave but like some passing waves.

—Lord Byron, Don Juan

I chose the stanza above from Lord Byron’s Don Juan to kind of describe this painting because it seemed to fit so well what I was seeing in this piece.

When I look at it, the Red Tree seems to be an intermediary between differing worlds– between the solid ground of earth and the airiness of the heavens, between a life in civilization and the wide-open spaces of the fields and hills beyond, between the now and eternity, between the visible and the invisible.

Standing with one foot in either world, it becomes a moment of contemplation on the temporary nature of our existence. Standing there before the suddenly visible and unrelenting power of nature and the universe– the eternal surge of tide and time— the Red Tree recognizes its own smallness and insignificance–How less what we may be!

This idea of insignificant beings living but for a short time may seem like a dreary prospect to some. But I don’t see it that way. If anything, I see this as a celebration of just having the opportunity to bear witness to the grand spectacle of life set before us each day, to have a chance to play a part, albeit small, in the machinations of the universe.

Maybe this is too much for a simple painting such as this to bear. Maybe you will not see it in the same way, only seeing a tree, a lone figure and a house on a mound beneath an ominous sky. That’s fine because in its simplest terms that is what it is.

But even the simplest moments and images can have greater depth and meaning if we only choose to look more closely, to choose to perceive our place in the world in a different manner.

Well. that’s what I think anyway…

As I ready work for my annual solo show at the Principle Gallery in June, which is my 25th there as well as the 25th anniversary of the RedTree, I’ve been thinking about all the roles the RedTree had played in my work over the years. I often describe it as a greeter that invites the viewer into the painting or as a symbol for the individual. There are several other examples, but I like the role described in this post for a different painting, as an intermediary between differing worlds and dimensions, written back in 2016.  The interesting thing is that it might well serves all these different roles at the same time.

Speaking of intermediaries between different dimensions, here’s Yo-Yo Ma playing the Prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major. That’s a mouthful but you will most likely recognize this lovely piece.

He knows all about art, but he doesn’t know what he likes.

–James Thurber

I am fully immersed in work for my June show at the Principle Gallery right now. I need to get to a large piece on the easel that is waiting for its final touches which has me chomping at the bit to get to work this morning. In the name of expediency, I would like to share a post from a few years back about trusting yourself when looking at art. There are a lot of people who won’t go into galleries or museums or even comment on a painting because they think they don’t know anything about art and feel intimidated. That’s a shame because you don’t need to know anything about art except how you react to it. This was a Quote-of-the-Week post from back in 2015 when that was still a thing. Take a look:

This may not technically qualify as a quote but who cares?  The message in this cartoon from the great James Thurber is simply put and true and that’s what I am looking for in a good quote.

And art.

That’s what I like.

In the past I’ve talked about how many people are intimidated by the idea of art, feeling that they don’t know anything about art. This leaves them not trusting their own eyes and their own reactions to any given piece of art. It often keeps them from even looking at art.

And that is a pity because art is mainly about the reaction to and interaction with art. Art is a reactive agent, reaching out and stirring something in the viewer. All the praise for or all the knowledge in the world about a piece of art cannot make you like that piece of work if it doesn’t first strike that chord that raises some sort of emotional response within you.

And I think most of us know within a few moments whether a work of art speaks to us or leaves us cold. The trick comes in recognizing this realization and trusting your own reaction. And feeling okay with that.

I’ll admit that there are many celebrated works of art out there that do absolutely nothing for me. They may have critical praise, historical importance, or great craftsmanship in them, but they simply don’t raise any emotional response within me.

I might be able to appreciate them, to understand why it has the respect or acclaim attached to it. But the bottom line is that I don’t like them, plain and simple. They just don’t speak to me. That doesn’t mean I’m right or wrong.

It just means I know what I like.

And I accept that criteria from anybody, even with my own work. While it would be nice to think that it speaks to everyone, I know this is an impossibility. Nobody’s work does that. I’ve had people tell me that they didn’t like my work– in polite and respectful terms, thankfully– and I can respect their honesty and the fact that they trust their own eyes and their own reaction.

And at least they are looking.

They know what they like. And that’s good enough for me.

GC Myers- Chaos & Light

I believe that the fundamental alternative for man is the choice between “life” and “death”; between creativity and destructive violence; between reality and illusions; between objectivity and intolerance; between brotherhood-independence and dominance-submission.

—Erich Fromm, Credo (1965)

The last couple of posts have dealt with personal creeds or statements of beliefs. I very much admire the work of Erich Fromm, the psychologist/philosopher who lived from 1900 until 1980. The passage above is from his 1965 Credo which was published posthumously. I find it to be a very insightful piece that concerns itself with helping the individual find a place and purpose in this world. You can read the document in whole (or download a PDF) at Erich Fromm Online.

The passage above from Fromm’s Credo seemed very relevant to this moment in history. We have historically, as a species, been in constant conflict between choosing between light and darkness, those polar oppositions that Fromm delineates here. It feels like we have to a point where there is little gray area between the two poles. There is little, if any, middle ground as darkness has distilled into a potent force that can no longer be shrugged off. We, in this nation and abroad, are facing stark choices between light and darkness, or creativity and violence.

Yesterday was a step in the right direction and it feels as though people are finally recognizing the darkness that has threatened to engulf us for too long.

Hopefully, light can overcome the darkness.

I realize this is short on specifics this morning. I just wanted to share Fromm’s words with the hope it will resonate with you as well. His credo ends with this summarizing point:

I believe in the possible realization of a world in which man can be much, even if he has little; a world in which the dominant motivation of existence is not consumption; a world in which “man” is the end, first and last; a world in which man can find the way of giving a purpose to his life as well as the strength to live free and without illusions.

Sounds good to me.

For this Sunday Morning Music, let’s go with a song that I played here a couple of years back. It’s Takuya Kuroda and his rendition of Roy Ayers’ Everybody Loves the Sunshine. This has been a favorite of mine since I stumbled across it a few years back and always sets me back on course when I feel out of rhythm.

And that’s a good thing…

A New Cornucopia– At West End Gallery

By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love — the earth and the wonders thereof — the sea — the sun. All that we mean when we speak of the external world. A want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be (and here I have stopped and waited and waited and it’s no good — there’s only one phrase that will do) a child of the sun. About helping others, about carrying a light and so on, it seems false to say a single word. Let it be at that. A child of the sun.

—Katherine Mansfield, October 14, 1922, The Journal of Katherine Mansfield

I was thinking about yesterday’s post that was concerned with creeds and it reminded me of this passage from the New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield. It was one of the final entries in her personal journal not long before she died in January of 1923 at the age of 34 from tuberculosis.

She had contracted her tuberculosis in 1917 and had seen its effects worsen in the few years that followed. Nearly two years before writing her final journal entries, she had written this in her journal in December of 1920:

The leaves move in the garden, the sky is pale, and I catch myself weeping. It is hard — it is hard to make a good death.

I find it interesting that in her final journal entries, knowing that death was near at hand and could come at any moment, she maintained hopes and desires for the future. Though she wasn’t able to fulfill those hopes and desires here, her words stand as a fine template to follow for those of us remaining here.

To understand ourselves so that we might understand others. To be all we are capable of becoming.

To be a child of the sun.

I am glad to think of such things, to maintain hopes and desires for the future, on a morning like this. There are so many other darker things that could be dwelling in my mind.

Let there be light and sun instead.

Here’s a song from quite a few years in the past, from the late 1970’s. I can’t imagine a lot of people remembering this song but it did get a fair amount of airplay at the time. I had it on a live album from Carnegie Hall with this group, Renaissance. The song is Carpet of the Sun. One of its lines echoes the sentiment of Mansfield:

Part of the world that you live in
You are the part that you’re giving

Makes you wonder what part you’re giving to this world.

Passages: Toward Order — At Principle Gallery

Here’s my creed, against Benjamin’s. This is what I believe:

‘That I am I.’
‘That my soul is a dark forest.’
‘That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.’
‘That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back.’
‘That I must have the courage to let them come and go.’
‘That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.’

There is my creed. He who runs may read. He who prefers to crawl, or to go by gasoline, can call it rot.

—D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, 1923

D.H. Lawrence wrote the above in response to the famous creed below of Benjamin Franklin which was included in Franklin’s autobiography:

You desire to know something of my Religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your Curiosity amiss, and shall endeavour in a few Words to gratify it. Here is my Creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we render to him is doing good to his other Children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its Conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental Principles of all sound Religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever Sect I meet with them.

I kind of lean more toward Lawrence’s creed, though if I had to choose a religious lean it would be much like the deist beliefs of Franklin and several other founding fathers that pledged no homage to a specific sect.

I think the line, ‘That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.’ sealed the deal for me. We all come out int the clearing at some point and others often think they know us based on viewing us there. But that momentary sighting is a sliver of all that we are, one small floating fragment in our kaleidoscope of being.

I also like his belief that gods come and go, in perhaps indistinguishable shapes and forms, into this clearing. I have often thought of people in my past who I never really knew, strangers really, who unwittingly have shaped my life with their words and actions at various critical points in my life. My interaction with these would-be everyday gods seemed innocuous at the time but later seemed to take on greater weight for me. They most likely would never remember the interaction or realize how profoundly their words or actions affected me.

It makes me wonder how many times we all have served as these everyday gods for others. Have we unknowingly affected the lives of others with a small gesture or a kind word at a time when it was greatly needed? Have we given someone hope when their seemed to be none?

Have we stumbled in the forest onto someone else’s clearing just as others have stumbled upon ours?

I don’t know. But the idea of it provides the basis for us treating others with kindness and in a manner in which we would like to be treated.

Isn’t that the basic tenet of most religions?

I guess if we are required to have a creed, this one works for me. Probably have been working by it for a while. At least, hope I have.

But will we ever really know for sure?

RedTree: Continuum— Coming to Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA

In this dark and wounded society, writing can give you the pleasures of the woodpecker, of hollowing out a hole in a tree where you can build your own nest and say, “This is my niche, this is where I live now, this is where I belong.”

–Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

My annual solo exhibit at the Principle Gallery opens on Friday, June 14. This year’s edition will be my 25th such show at this marvelous gallery located in the heart of historic Alexandria, Virginia. The title for my first show was RedTree which marked the beginning of the ubiquitous tree that has been linked to me for the last quarter of a century.

I thought it was only fitting that this year’s anniversary show be called Continuum: The RedTree at 25.

I have been asked innumerable times over the years about the RedTree, about its origins and its meanings. The meaning of it has evolved over the years but its origins still reside in my desire to create my own niche with my work, something that could stand apart on its own without bringing instant comparison to the work of others. Work that would live according to its own rules if there were to be rules at all.

The kind of work where someone could recognize it from across a room and know it was part of my little world.

I realized this early on when I first began painting. Like most beginners, I would try to copy the work of artists I admired then compare them to see how I was progressing. It was a useful exercise and it helped me in many ways, teaching me about composition as well as different materials and techniques.

However, at a certain point I began to see that if I continued in this traditional manner, even if I branched out a bit, my work would always be subject to comparison which was something I wanted to avoid at all cost.

There is a saying, Comparison is the thief of joy, which in several forms has been blindly attributed to Mark Twain, C.S. Lewis, Teddy Roosevelt and others, though its true origins are unknown. Regardless of its origins, it rang true for me.

Nobody who believes they have done their best wants to be compared to someone else. I still dislike it when people try to take me out of my niche and compare my work to others. I also try to avoid comparison when talking with other artists about their work. I figure their work deserves to feel some of the joy that dwells beyond comparison.

I knew that in comparison I would inevitably come up short. I was never the best at anything. I was never the smartest kid in school nor the funniest, fastest, strongest, or the best at whatever category you might choose. There were many who were better at drawing and writing even in the little world I knew.

I was– and remain– average through and through.

However, I knew that, even being so middle of the road in all attributes, that there was something singular in me that deserved expression. I believe that this exists in all of us, if we can just uncover that thing that expresses who and what we are individually, beyond all comparison.

Nobody can be as good a you as you are yourself.

With that belief in mind, I set out to find my own thing.

It turned out to be the RedTree.

There’s a lot I could say about how it has taken on its own life over the decades or how the process that expresses it has changed, evolved, and grown over that same time. It has become a symbol with many meanings for many different people but remains, for me, a symbol for the true expression of our individual self.

The RedTree is the niche I have created, that place where I live now.

Where I belong.

In the High Country– At West End Gallery

Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

Working this morning. Almost wrote something but didn’t want to commit the time needed to make it satisfying enough to share. As difficult as painting sometimes is, writing is a much harder task for me.

So, we’ll leave this morning with a triad of image, word, and song devoted to self-reliance. Love those last sentences in the passage above from Emerson’s Self-Reliance:

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

Words to live by.

Here’s this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s Eddie Vedder with his song, Society, from the Into the Wild soundtrack. This is a live performance with New Zealand musician Liam Finn accompanying Vedder.

Listen and leave, please. As Garbo famously said, I vant to be alone…