Redtree Times

Between feeling ill over the past week or so and the ongoing dumpster fire known as the Trump transition, I felt like I needed to do something different, maybe share one of my favorite stories about a couple of feral cats who made their way to us a number of years back.

 We get a lot of strays here.  Our two housecats, Zsa Zsa and Lucy-Furr, and, Hobie, my studio assistant, all just showed up. Actually, every cat who has been with us came to us this way. In fact, there is a stray under our garden shed at this moment who has been our guest for the past couple of months but is still very skittish.  Perhaps someday he/she (we’re still not sure) will be a studio companion for Hobie.

I came across a group of photos from a few years back that brought back very bittersweet memories. The photos were of a pair of feral cats that took up residence around our place along with a three legged raccoon that was in the vicinity for a short time. The cats tolerated the raccoon’s presence and they never seemed too upset when he helped himself to the food we put out for them.

The cats were an interesting pair. We called the tiger one Partner and the other Ben although we always called him simply Black & White. Partner and Ben were the Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin characters from the movie Paint Your Wagon. The two cats had started coming to our place in the woods a few years before and always came separately. Ben was super skittish and would never let you get close enough to touch him but hung around and came to recognize that there were times when food was available. Partner was more affable and approachable but he only came once in a great while, at which point Ben would often attack him and chase him away, off into the woods.

This went on for a year or so and for the longest time we seldom saw Partner. Then one year, as a very bitter winter began to close in, Partner came back and made a stand. Instead of running away he held his ground against Ben. It was a horrible thing. For a day or so, they were in what seemed to be non-stop combat outside our house. Under our house. Maybe on our house, I don’t know. There was thumping and screeching and all sorts of awful noise. We would try to intervene but they would run out of sight and pause for the time we out there then resume immediately after we went back inside.

The next morning when I put out some food for them, they both emerged together. They were a mess with bloody cuts and scrapes on both but still wouldn’t let us get too near.  Yet they were together now with not a hint of malice between them. From that time on they were inseparable. They spent that very,very cold winter sleeping together in a crude catbed I had built for them, one on top of the other. When they would walk through the yard or up our walkway, they would walk in step with their shoulders shoved  together as though they were joined at the shoulder. As spring and summer came, they would lazily sleep on our walkway, often spooning as they laid together with their legs wrapped around each other or would sleep facing one another, their paws lightly touching. When our female cat, Tinker, was outside, Partner would make attempts to be friendly but Ben wanted no part of her and, in an obviously jealous act, would aggressively push himself between the two. It was an amazing transformation from their previous animosity to this sweet friendship.

It was a short lived life together however.  They both became obviously ill that next winter and they passed away that season, both disappearing with days of one another. We’ve always regretted not being able to do more for them but through this time they never let us get too close to them, always being extremely wary of any attempts to corral them. So when I see these photos I am torn between the sheer sadness of their hard fought existence and the absolute joy and comfort they had found in their love for one another. A rare thing indeed…

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Yesterday, I wrote about a painting that I considered a failure and said that I would replay an earlier post in which I addressed the subject of failing in my painting.  This post from about 6 years back came from a friend’s question.  If you ever have a question that you would like me to address in a post, definitely get in touch with me. I am always open to answer any questions you might pose to me.

In response to yesterday’s post concerning a very large blank canvas that is waiting patiently for me, I received several very interesting questions from my friend, Tom Seltz, concerning the role that failure and the fear of failure plays in my work.  He posed a number of great questions, some pragmatic and some esoteric, that I’ll try to address.

On the pragmatic side, he asked if there is a financial risk when I take on large projects like the  4 1/2′ by 7′ canvas of which I wrote.  Actually, it’s not something I think about much because every piece, even the smallest,  has a certain cost in producing it that, after these many years, I don’t stop to consider.  But a project such as this is costlier as a larger canvas is more expensive right from the beginning simply due to the sheer size of it.  The canvas is heavier and more expensive and there is more used.  I use a lot more gesso and paint.  And while the cost of materials is a larger cost the biggest financial risk comes in the time spent on such a project.  It takes longer to prepare such a large canvas, longer to paint and, if it works out, longer to finish and frame.  This is time not spent on other projects.  Wasted time is by far the biggest risk in facing such a project and that is something I have to take into consideration before embarking on large projects.

He also asked whether I can reuse the materials if I don’t like what I’ve painted.  Sure, for the most part.  Especially canvasses.  Actually, the piece shown here was such a piece.  I had a concept in my head that floated around for months and I finally started putting it down on this 30″ square canvas.  I spent probably a day’s worth of time and got quite far into it before I realized that it was a flawed concept, that I was down a path that was way off the route I had envisioned.  It was dull and lifeless, even at an early stage.  It was crap and I knew that there was no hope for it.  I immediately painted it over, mainly to keep me from wasting even more time by trying to resuscitate it,  and the piece shown here emerged, happily for me.

Tom also asked if I ever “crashed and burned” on a piece or if the worst sort of failure was that a piece was simply mediocre.  Well, I guess the last paragraph says a bit about the “crashed and burned” aspect, although that is a rarer event than one might suspect.  The beauty of painting is that it’s results are always subjective.  There is almost never total failure.  It’s not like sky-diving and if your parachute doesn’t open you die.  At least, that hasn’t been my experience thus far.

Mediocrity is a different story.  That is the one thing I probably fear most for my work and would consider a piece a failure if I judged it to be mediocre.  I have any  number of examples I could show you in the nooks and crannies of my studio but I won’t.  They have a purpose and some have remaining promise.  The purpose is in the lessons learned from painting them.  I usually glean some information from  each painting, even something tiny but useful for the future.  But most times,  the mediocre pieces teach me what I don’t want to repeat in the future.  A wrong line here.  A flatness of color there.  Just simple dullness everywhere.

But, being art, there are few total failures, and many of these somewhat mediocre pieces sit unfinished because there are still stirs of promise in them.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come to what I felt was a dead end for a painting, feeling that it was dull and lifeless, and set it aside.  Months and months might pass and one day I might pick it up and suddenly see something new in it.  A new way to move in it that brings it new life.  These paintings often bring the greatest satisfaction when they leave the gallery with a new owner.  Sometimes failure is simply a momentary perception that requires a new perspective.

Okay, that’s it for now.  I’m sure I have more to say about failure but it will have to wait until a later date.  I’ve got work waiting for me that doesn’t know the meaning of the word failure and I don’t want to risk that it might learn it.

Tom, thanks again for the great questions.  I’m always eager for good questions so keep it up!

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     I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time alone in my studio over the years. Literally, tens and tens of thousands of hours in solitude. It has been time that has allowed me to close myself off in a certain way from the outer world and create the inner world that I show in my work. But occasionally the outer world breaks through and my simple solitude is shaken and I find myself caught between the outer world and my inner creation.  

It’s a frustrating time and it becomes hard to focus in order to find that inner world. It’s been that way recently but I keep pushing for it and know that it will return soon. I am reminded of the post below from a few years ago that deals with being alone.

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What are we when we are alone? Some, when  they are alone, cease to exist.

—Eric Hoffer

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I was recently contacted by author for use of one of my images for inclusion in his upcoming book. It was an old image, one that I still possessed and had used on the this blog, so I began to go through my files to find it. Shuffling through the old work, many from before I began exhibiting publicly, brought a number of surprises.  There were pieces, like this one here on the right,  that had slipped my mind and seeing them rekindled instant recognition and memory, like stumbling upon an old acquaintance who you had not thought of in ages. But there were others that had been lost in my memory and seeing them still only vaguely brought traces of their origin, as though you were again coming across someone who knew you but you couldn’t quite remember them even though there was something familiar in them, something you knew that you once knew.

Looking at these old pieces made me think of  all the time spent alone with these images. The quote  above from Eric Hoffer came to mind. What are we when we are alone? Is that the real you? Or is the real you that person that interacts with all the outside world?  Looking at these pieces, I began to think that the person I was when I was alone had evolved slowly over the years, becoming closer to one entity. What I mean is  that the person I was when I was alone, my inner voice, did not always jibe with my outer voice and over time, especially as I have found a true voice in my work, has come closer and closer to becoming one and the same.

I don’t know if I can explain that with any clarity. It’s a feel thing,  one that instantly comes from holding one of these paintings and still seeing the division that once was in them and in myself.  It is not anything to do with quality or subject or process. It’s just a perceived feeling in the piece, an intangible that maybe only I can sense.  But it’s there and it makes me appreciate the journey and the work that brought these two voices closer together.

My alone time immersed in these pieces has seldom felt lonely and, going back to Hoffer’s quote, never did I feel that I ceased to exist in my oneness. I know people who are like that, that need constant interaction in order to feel alive and vital, but for me it has often felt almost the opposite. That probably is a result of that division of my inner and outer voices that I have been trying to describe. When I was alone I was always comfortable with my inner voice and the work that resulted from it served in the forms of companions.

I definitely exist in my solitude and my work, my constant companion, is my proof.

I am going to stop now. Enough confession for one morning.  I have new companions on the easel to which I must attend.

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