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Archive for June, 2011

The Wonder of Now

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on June 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I call this new painting, an 18″ by 25″ piece on paper, Worlds of Wonder.  It’s a piece filled with color and rhythm and an optimistic outlook.  When I say optimistic here, it’s a viewpoint based on focusing on the wonders that surround us everyday, things that we have failed to notice by either dwelling too much on nostalgia for the past or fear and pessimism for the future.  Basically, living in the now and seeing it for the miracle that it is.

We often view the past by filtering out all the unpleasant aspects.  I have used the example here before of the current Russians who have come to view the era of Joseph Stalin as some sort of golden age in their country’s history despite the death of millions of Russians  killed by the man and his policies.  Many, many aspects of their lives are infinitely better in the present day yet there is still a nostalgia for a tyranny of the past where all the  negative memories from that time have basically pushed to the far recesses of the mind.

And while we take away the negatives as we look back, we tend to add them when looking forward to the future.  We fill our minds with countless possibilities for the future, most of them nightmarishly based on our greatest fears.  The future is a boogeyman for many of us.

But ultimately the future will probably not be as bad as we fear and the past was probably not as wonderful as we remember.  We learn from the past, plan for the  future and live in the now. 

And that’s what I see in this painting.  The crops are planted for the future.  The road brings us from the past to this point.  And the tree under the golden sky represents us taking it all in at the present time.  Balance in the world, balance in time. 

 Now is the time to make the present as good as we will remember it in the future.

This painting is, of course, part of my new show, Now and Then, that opens Friday at the  Principle Gallery in lovely Old Town Alexandria.

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Mission

Posted in Biographical, Influences, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity.

——Viktor Frankl

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The words of Viktor Frankl, the WW II concentration camp survivor who went on to greater fame as a psychotherapist and author, seemed to ring true for this square painting after I finished it.  I saw the Red Tree here as one that finally saw its uniqueness in the world, sensing in the moment that with this individuality there came a mission that must be carried out.

A reason for being.

I think that’s something we have all desired in our lives.  I know it was something I have longed for throughout my life and often found lacking at earlier stages.  I remember reading Frankl’s book, Man’s Search For Meaning, at a point when I felt adrift in the world.  I read how the inmates of the concentration camp who survived often had  a reason that they consciously grasped in order to continue their struggle to live.  It could be something as simple as seeing the ones they loved again or finishing a task they had set for themself. Anything to give them a sense of future.  Those who lost their faith in a future lost their will to live and usually perished.

 At the time when I read this, I understood the words but didn’t fully comprehend the concept.  I felt little meaning in my life and didn’t see one near at hand.  It wasn’t until years later when I finally found what I do now that I began to understand Frankl’s words.

We are all unique beings.  We all have unique missions.  The trick is in recognizing our individuality and trusting that it will carry us forward into a future.

I’ve kept this short.  There are many things that I could say here but the idea of finding one’s mission, ones meaning, is the thought that I see in this piece.  This paintings is titled The Moment’s Mission and is 11″ by 11″ on paper.  It is part of the Principle Gallery show that opens Friday.

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Ratio Decidendi

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on June 6, 2011| 6 Comments »

This is one of the larger paintings,a canvas at 20″ by 60″ in size, from my show Now and Then which opens Friday at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria,VA.  The title of this piece is Ratio Decidendi, which is a legal term that translates to “rationale for the decision.”  I’m no legal nor Latin scholar but this basically indicates the deciding factor that the Court uses as a basis for its ruling, the whole precept behind the rationale for its decision.  For me, that more simply translates to the reason behind ones views and actions.

I may be twisting the true meaning of the term here but it seems to me that all of our actions and reactions are based on our  rationale of our own perspective and beliefs.  All argument stems from the distance between what we believe to be true and what other see as true.  Everyone believes that their viewpoint is the correct one and they act accordingly.

I see the action of this painting, the blowing of the red tree, as a purer, more natural translation of the term.  All actions in nature are basically based on truth.  The wind doesn’t deceive.  The rain and snow don’t cloak themselves in half-truths.  Rivers don’t rationalize.

So, in this piece, the wind blows and the tree sways.  The wind can only do what it does and the tree can only react in one way.  They are what they are and that is the truth.

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Ode to the Dying City

Posted in Current Events, Favorite Things, Video, tagged , , , , on June 4, 2011| 1 Comment »

I saw a neat story on the evening news about one city’s response to being listed by Newsweek as one of America’s top ten dying cities.  The people of Grand Rapids, Michigan got together to create  a video promoting their fair city and created quite a stir with a terrific piece of film.  It’s one continuous 9 minute shot rolling through the city of Grand Rapids with over 5000 of the residents participating in different scenarios as they lipsync to a live version of  Don McLean’s American Pie.  There’s a little bit of everything here, from football players and firetrucks to fiery explosions and helicopters.  All accompanied by hundreds of guitar toting residents, all strumming along. 

This struck me first because I love continuous, uncut shots in movies.  Think of Henry Hill’s entrance into the nightclub in Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas or the amazing scene from the Dunkirk of WW II in Atonement.  These are incredibly intricate shots requiring a vast choreography in order to preserve the continuity of the scene.  It can take months of planning for a relatively short shot.  With this in mind, the Grand Rapids film is a pretty remarkable video,  given the fact that all of its performers were amateurs who completed the whole thing in about 3 1/2 hours.

But it also hit me because I have lived in and near a small dying city for my entire life.  We, too, were once part of that band of industry heavy cities that spanned the northeast and midwest.  Cities that saw their factories close or relocate, causing huge portions of the population to flee to seemingly greener pastures.  My city’s population is about half the size it was at its peak over 50 years and there are no signs of it ever recovering that loss.  It has left a huge hole in the area that goes beyond the sheer loss of people.  There is a loss of momentum, a loss of vibrancy and a loss of confidence.  The remaining folks start picking at the things that are lacking and forget the things about their home in which they take pride.  The entire area ends up with a feeling of general malaise. 

So to see the people of Grand Rapids exhibit their pride in their own battered hometown was a wonderful thing to see.  I think there’s lesson here somewhere.  Maybe it’s that making lemonade when all you have are lemons thing.  Sounds simple but we all too often forget to try to make the best of what we have, instead lamenting what we don’t have.  So kudos to you, Grand Rapids.  Your lemonade is tasty!

 

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The Weak In Between

Posted in Biographical, Recent Paintings, tagged on June 3, 2011| 5 Comments »

Well, the show for this year’s Principle Gallery show is delivered.  Everything went smoothly yesterday and I was home by late afternoon.  The only thing for me to do now is wait for the opening next Friday.  I know that this is something I’ve written about here before, this time in the interval between delivery and the actual show. 

It’s always filled with a lot of mixed feelings.  There is relief that the work is done, that I have completed a task.  But that’s usually countered by the fact that the opening is still ahead, that there is still some work to be done. Now, it is relatively pleasant work, standing around and talking about paintings.  It certainly beats the hell out of some of the things I’ve done as work in the past.  But it is work.  A required task.

The time is also filled with creeping doubts about whether the show will be received well.  There is an almost schizophrenic swing between feelings of complete satisfaction and excitement in the work I’ve done and feelings filled with dread that I’m seeing things in the work that others won’t, that the work is too directed to my own sensibilities and won’t translate to others. 

This usually leads to a questioning of why I do what I do and why anyone would be even casually interested.  I mean, I smear paint on canvas and paper in my house in the woods.  Is there any real importance in this?  I’m not saving lives, not actively helping or serving people, not building truly useful objects.  I can think of an endless list of things people do  that might actually be of more importance in the overall scheme of things, from researchers looking for bits of data that might lead to cures for deadly diseases all the way through to the person who fills my popcorn bucket at the movie theatre.

But despite this, it remains important to me and this makes me care about the work I do.  It has a purpose for me, at the very least, and if someone else finds something in it that makes it important for them as well– well, that’s simply a bonus.  A little extra gravy,  if you will. 

So, as you can see, I have the ability to make what should be a perfectly pleasant week into a neurotic nightmare.  It’s just an occupational hazard and, while it sounds somewhat tortured, it has just become commomplace in my life.  And that’s okay.  It’s what I do.

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The piece at the top is also a new painting for the Principle show.  Called Connecting Light, it’s an 11″ by 11″ image on paper.

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The Ship Song

Posted in Video, tagged , on June 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

On the road today, delivering the group of work for next week’s opening, June 10,  of my show at the Principle Gallery.  It’s always a relaxed drive, knowing that the work is done and now it goes out into the world.  Free running like the image shown here.

Continuing the nautical theme, which I also used in yesterday’s post, here’s a tune from the unique Nick Cave.  It’s The Ship Song.  Enjoy your day!

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Empowered

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on June 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This new painting, another from the Principle Gallery show, reminds me in many ways of the piece shown in yesterday’s post.  This 10″ by 20″  painting, titled Empowered, feels like a core example of my work over the past decade or so. 

While yesterday’s painting, Night of Wonder,  had the elements that were staples of my early work, this piece shows the evolution of the last several years. It still has the icon of the Red Tree as well as the addition of the Red Roofs that began appearing around 2002.  The clouds in the sky have started making sporadic appearances over the past years as well.  Night of Wonder was also painted in the more liquid reductive method, one where paint is liberally applied then pulled off to reach the desired color and tone,  that marked almost all of my early work whereas Empowered  is an additive piece with layers of paint building up to the final surface.

But I think this piece also speaks well to the core of what I hope to say with my work, or at least what I think I want to say with it.  I sometimes think that what I am trying to express is still beyond me and my conscious intellect.  But what I do see in the work and wish to build upon is the idea of empowerment and self-reliance.  The idea of the individual making full use of whatever capabilities they possess and finding their own place in this world is probably the main expression in much of my work that I hope comes across to the viewer.

  I know from personal experience how it is to feel out of place and uncertain of my own abilities, how it feels to be living a life that doesn’t feel intended for you.  To feel as a sailor lost and rudderless in a hostile sea, with no idea where safe  landfall may be.  I want my work to counter that feeling, to create a safe haven in sight so that those of us still afloat see that there is possibility in themselves.

I don’t know.  That may be asking too much from paint smeared on paper or canvas.  But I can try and that effort is the important thing.

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