Redtree Times

I am in the last stages of putting the finishing touches on the work for my Principle Gallery show before I deliver it later this week.  It’s always a thrill to see the work move from the raw image into its finished state, like seeing a raw gem put into a proper setting that focuses the light and color.  The piece above is a good example.  I showed it here  back in the first days of April in a fairly finished state but lacking the frame and the gold edge that surrounds each panel.  I really liked it then, liked the interaction of the elements and the way the color popped off the wood panel.

But these finishing touches have really transformed it for me.  Though it is pretty large, measuring in at about 28″ by 52″, it seems larger and demands the eye more than before.  Amazing how how little things can change the whole effect and feel.

Like the show, this piece is called Observers.  I think many many of us are observers, those people never quite in the middle of things, just off to the side as they watch the action take place.  They never have much control over and seldom set the course of anything but note how it proceeds. Some members of this group, artists and writers among them,  notice this as well, along with little details that give their accounts depth and meaning.  Things like how the light was and what the air smelled like at certain moments, the facial expressions and body language of those around them.  Things like patterns and shapes and quality of color in the environment of the moment.

Growing up, I often felt like I was watching things from a distance, never in the center of things.  Oh, I had those moments of being the center of attention.  I was the baby of our family and at times got more attention than I warranted.  But often  I felt like a third party watching things from the outside.  A lot of this came from spending a lot of time in the adult world, kind of a tagalong.

I remember spending several days one spring break when I was maybe 9 years old at my aunt’s house.  My cousin and best friend of the same age was still in school as their spring break was a week later than ours so I didn’t have him for companionship.  While he was in school I would go to work with my uncle who was a water well driller.  I just followed along for several days, not saying much and just watching his world.  I still remember vividly the coldness and thickness of the mud we slogged around in  around the drilling site.  I remember the smell of the cheese and dried blood in an old country store where we stopped to grab some lunch, a rich cheddar stench that blossomed when the proprietor pulled the heavy glass cover off the huge cheese round.  I remember the small glass of soda with the huge ice cubes that I drank at the tavern while I stood next to him at the bar, all the time reading the goofy plaques behind the bar with risque quips and jokes on them.  I can still see the lettering and words of those plaques and my uncle’s face when he asked me what I was smiling about.  I pointed out the one that had something to do with male genitalia and itching (that’s all the info I’m sharing about this although I remember it well) and he chuckled and told me not to read so much.

It wasn’t much fun for those few days but the memory is vivid and there is something there that I hold on to.  I think that is what observers do , hold onto fleeting bits of memory and detail.  And that’s a bit of what I  see in this work.