Mr. Twigley’s eyes glowed behind his spectacles as he thought of all the lovely things he would put in the musical box.
“But you can’t hear trees growing,” protested Michael. “There’s no music for that!”
“Tut!” said Mr. Twigley impatiently. “Of course there is! There’s a music for everything. Didn’t you ever hear the earth spinning? It makes a sound like a humming-top. Buckingham Palace plays ‘Rule Britannia’; the River Thames is a drowsy flute. Dear me, yes! Everything in the world — trees, rocks and stars and human beings — they all have their own true music.”
—P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins Opens the Door
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Think what you will but I love the Mary Poppins stories. It seems like every chapter has a philosophical lesson or message, an urging to see the world in a different way. There is usually a reminder that things are not always what they seem, that what we see and know is only a small part of the whole, that there are worlds and worlds around and beyond us.
Fittingly, it’s very much the theme of my recent work and upcoming show at the West End Gallery. The painting, a 24″ by 12″ canvas, shown at the top is part of that show and is titled Listener (The True Music). I had Mr. Twigley‘s workshop, and that particular snippet from the book above, in mind when I was working on this piece. The idea that everything has its own true music, its own truth, resonates with me.
I don’t exactly know what my own true music might be. There have been songs and sounds that often bring me to tears so my guess is that my true music might reside in the chanter of a bagpipe, in the low vibrations of a cello or in the twang of a guitar string.
Or maybe it’s in the sounds of a lone voice singing Amazing Grace.
Or the voices of a large chorus united in Ode to Joy.
Or maybe it is simply in the sound of the wind as it moves the top of the grasses of the fields and in the leaves of trees.
Sometimes, as I walk through the woods to my studio, the trees moving in the wind rub and seem to make loud squawks and voice-like sounds that make me stop and try to hear what they might be saying.
Maybe that’s my true music.
I am not sure but I will continue listening.
What is your true music?
We here in the States are often woefully ignorant of many of the artists from our neighbors in the other Americas, such as those in Canada and Mexico. Maybe I shouldn’t say “we” because I really can only speak for myself. My knowledge of Mexican artists was pretty much restricted to what I knew of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, both of which I admire very much.
This point was driven home recently by stumbling across the work of Alfredo Ramos Martinez, who lived from 1877 until 1946. He was a painter/muralist who lived and worked in his native Mexico, Paris and California at different points in his life. He is considered to be the Father of Mexican Modernism and much of his work focuses on the portrayal of traditional Mexican people and scenes. He has been described as a painter who was able to capture the melancholy and sorrow of the people and places he painted.
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
I was looking at some older paintings in the studios, my orphans as I call them. But some are not orphans, not without a home. Some are just here because they are my own and have some sort of special meaning for me. Such is the case with the piece above, Endless Time. It’s a piece that I consider a link to my earliest works, a reminder of the inner forces that drove me into the work I now do.
This is the true joy in life: the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
I spent ninety percent of my money on wine, women and song and just wasted the other ten percent.
This is an early Red Tree painting from back in 2001 that is titled Challenger that lives with me now here in the studio. It’s one of a small group of pieces that made the rounds through the galleries over the years yet never found a home. I call them orphans. This particular orphan spent a much longer time in the galleries than most, only coming back to me a couple of years ago. It drew interest a number of times yet never made that final connection.
Just a short entry today for Father’s Day. It probably seems like a questionable choice to select Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone from the mighty Temptations as the song for this Sunday. It’s a song about an absent father and his son who is trying to discover who and what his father truly was. Not deeply sentimental and definitely not warm and fuzzy.
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.
Redtree Times 