The Exile’s Wilderness– Now at the West End Gallery
For the first time in years, he felt the deep sadness of exile, knowing that he was alone here, an outsider, and too alert to the ironies, the niceties, the manners, and indeed, the morals to be able to participate.
― Colm Tóibín, The Master
The painting above, The Exile’s Wilderness, is currently at the West End Gallery as part of my current show there. It was originally painted in early 2020 but without the actual figure that represents the Exile, as seen in the bottom right of the image above. I thought that the painting as it was, sans the Exile figure, was really strong and it quickly became one of my favorite pieces from that period in the early days of the pandemic.
I felt then that the painting didn’t need the figure, that it represented a view seen from the eyes of the exile.
But over the past year or so, as much as I liked this painting without the figure, I began to recognize that it actually needed the Exile in order to provide context. After all, not every person who looks at this will see themselves as an Exile.
So, the Exile entered the picture. And, though I was apprehensive as I proceeded, I was pleased by its effect. It’s contrast to the emptiness of the streets and windows made the figure seem even more alone. More apart. It heightened the overall effect for me.
It completed the circle of feeling that I was seeking in it.
Here’s a poem from Robert Frost, read by Tom O’Bedlam, that fits well with the Exile here. It’s his Acquainted With the Night.
Change is not merely necessary to life – it is life.
–Alvin Toffler
Some stuff going on this morning and not enough time, energy, or willpower to write much. I will say that life changes fast and one must be ready to adapt, to move quickly on to those new paths that are suddenly set before us. That goes for us on the personal as well as the societal level, as famed futurist AlvinToffler pointed out in his book, Future Shock.
Sometimes stuff happens and we simply have to take care of it.
That being said, here’s a longtime favorite from the Rolling Stones for this week’s Sunday morning music.
“Cool and Composed“-Now at the West End Gallery, Corning NY
To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world is almost a palpable movement. To enjoy the epic form of that gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night, and, having first expanded with a sense of difference from the mass of civilized mankind, who are disregardful of all such proceedings at this time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through the stars.
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd
I have expressed my extreme distaste for the month of August here in the past. I am not going to go through the list of experiences that formed my hatred for this time of the year. Let’s just say that it’s a month whose name alone never fails to put a giant, squirming knot in my gut.
And this first week of this year’s August has lived up to its reputation. It’s been a tremendously stressful week for a number of my favorite people in the world, for a variety of reasons all beyond anything I can do in the way of real assistance, outside of offering words of comfort and support.
I wish them all the coolness and composure of the painting at the top. It has that sense of detachment that Hardy describes so beautifully in the passage above. It’s a separateness where our problems in this world seem insignificant and one is able to obtain a stillness that allows us to sense the turnings of this planet as it makes its way through the cosmos. I can see that in this painting. Maybe that is its purpose, to alleviate the stress of times such as this.
Oh, to have that now.
But it’s August. Damnable August.
Here’s a taste of the coolness. I played a song titled River from Leon Bridges last week. This is another song with that title, this one a a favorite from Joni Mitchell that I have played more than once here in the past. It is the antithesis of August for me.
Drudgery is one of the finest touchstones of character there is. Drudgery is work that is very far removed from anything to do with the ideal – the utterly mean grubby things; and when we come in contact with them we know instantly whether or not we are spiritually real.
― Oswald Chambers
I was recently approached by a collector interested in possibly obtaining some of my Exiles paintings that were from around 1995. They were pieces that were in direct response to my mom’s illness and subsequent death at that time. The offer made me think about what these pieces mean to me and what I see in them. I realized that they had become more and more precious to me over the years.
I ran the post below about the painting above several years back, speaking about how I saw this piece. I changed the opening quote which had been one from Thomas Edison. I went instead with the one above from Oswald Chambers. an influential Baptist preacher from around the turn of the 20th century who died in 1917 from appendicitis in Egypt while ministering to the troops there. I felt that there was an element of both drudgery and the spiritual in this piece.
I was going through old blog posts recently and I noticed that I had used the painting above a number of times in my earliest posts. It’s part of my Exilesseries from back in 1995 and is titled Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, borrowed from the title of a group of Depression-era photos of sharecroppers in the American dust bowl shot by photographer Walker Evans.
I never really wrote about this painting except in what I saw as it’s similarity to what I saw in those photos of Depression era workers. I always felt a connection to this piece but thought it was an outer connection, one that simply had to do with my reaction to form and color and not with anything I might see of it in myself.
Maybe that was my hope.
But it is a painting that I find has more meaning for me than I might want to let on. It’s a piece to which I always return, again and again, to study closely. While I sometimes see it as apart from me, more and more as I live with it, part of me feels like I am that man, standing alone in his landscape.
A sometimes self portrait.
It’s not a flattering self portrait. I used to see this figure as sad or regretful, world weary. But that has changed over time. There is some sadness, some regret but more than anything, I now see him as resigned, neither happy or sad. He is in his place with work behind him and much more work to do. It still has a weariness in it, but not from a physical standpoint. It is more a sense of tiredness from working to stay ahead of the world’s constant encroachment, the world’s constant erosion.
But while it appears tired there is also a sense of implied strength and determination to stay on task.
The hand here is important to me, a symbol of the bond of a working mind and working hands. Ideas set in motion and realized.
It’s a painting that means more and more to me as times passes and the world works its erosive qualities on my self and my world, my landscape. Maybe I am that dirt farmer, looking back with pride in his work along with an apprehension that it will someday be carried away like dry soil in the wind.
Here’s a little music for the morning, a song that fits pretty well in tone and substance to the painting above. It’s the immortal Otis Redding with I’ve Got Dreams to Remember.
I had another subject planned for the blog this morning but when I got over here I simply felt too tired to follow through with it. No get up and go at the moment.
One of those days, I guess. I imagine we all have them. At least, I hope it’s not just me.
So for today let’s just go with a coupling of the new painting above, Enduring Bond, that is hanging at the West End Gallery as part of my current solo show there. It’s one of my Baucis and Philemon paintings about which I have written here several times. I am pairing it with Wild Is The Wind, a song that was originally sung by Johnny Mathis in the 1957 film of the same name. I prefer the versions from Nina Simone in 1959 and David Bowie in the 1970’s.
Now I am going to try to find some energy for the day. Here’s the Bowie version of the song. Enjoy.
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of the intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the beauty in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that one life has breathed easier because you lived here. This is to have succeeded.
― Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson
I wasn’t going to write much this morning then came across the passage above supposedly from Ralph Waldo Emerson. It fit well with the little bit bit I was going to write. I didn’t doubt the origin but decided to find out which of Emerson’s writings contained it. Turns out this was another example of someone making an unfounded claim and it gains popularity and becomes accepted as fact.
Sounds like social media today, right? Unfortunately, it’s been going on for awhile now, though usually not with the malicious intent we see associated with such things today.
The faux-Emerson passage at the top began circulating around 1951 from an attribution in a syndicated newspaper column. It basically paraphrased a similar sentiment that was published over 45 years earlier in a 1905 Kansas newspaper, the Emporia Gazette. It was an entry from a Kansas woman, Bessie Stanley, in an essay contest whose aim was to provide an answer to the question: What constitutes success?
Here’s Mrs. Stanley’s answer, which earned her $250 which was a considerable sum in 1905:
He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory a benediction.
I am glad to give the credit for this short essay to Mrs. Stanley. Emerson gets enough credit for the sentiments he actually expressed let alone those he never said or wrote. But I guess it doesn’t really matter who said it. It’s a nice simple blueprint for living.
Live a life that doesn’t harm but instead seeks to help others. Leave this planet better in some way for you having spent your time here.
It’s easy but not always as easy as it should be. Sometimes we head down paths that stray away from that simple goal and we find ourselves in need of recalibration. This sometimes leads to forms of redemption. This is most often associated with a religious reawakening in the individual. For others, redemption comes from changing their way of life out of the desire to live a simpler, uncluttered life free of regrets and guilt. One free from darkness and filled with light.
That leads me to the song I was originally going to share without much fanfare, River, from Leon Bridges. This is a song that is definitely about redemption. While I am not religious, I understand the concept and the idea of anyone changing their lives for the better, regardless of the reason behind it, has an undeniable grace. This song has such a grace.
I am Envy…I cannot read and therefore wish all books burned.
― Christopher Marlowe
This painting, The Fiery Forest, is a real enigma to me. I just can’t quite get a grip on what I am seeing in it, can’t decide if it is filled with positivity or is more foreboding and ominous. It attracts me greatly yet sometimes makes me a bit uneasy.
It just depends on what is on my mind at the time.
I guess anything with fire has that ambiguity. We need fire in some form. It provides warmth and allows us to cook our food and boil out the impurities in our water, just to point out the obvious positives of fire. But it also consumes our homes and forests, leaving devastation and ashes in its wake.
It’s something we need but something to be contained and controlled. We walk a tightrope with the fires that burns in and around us.
Sometimes looking at this painting, I see it as being about those things about which we are passionate. We allow ourselves to wander deeply into the fiery forest of passion as we seek to create something new from it. Yet there is always the possibility that this passion will consume us and leaves us no more than a smoldering piles of ashes.
Today, I see our covid numbers once again jumping much too high with over 100,000 new cases yesterday–over 21,000 in Florida alone– mainly perpetrated by people’s refusal to vaccinate based on a stubborn distrust of science and a denial of facts that don’t align with their beliefs or desires. That leads to one interpretation I see in this painting that comes from our willingness to burn down the forest even as we know how to control it.
I don’t want to continue on a long political rant this morning. Neither of us needs that. I’ll let the words of Christopher Marlowe at the top speak for me this morning
I don’t know. Like I said, this paintings is an enigma, like much that makes up this world, stumping me even as I enjoy looking at it.
Okay, here’s this week’s Sunday morning music. I am going with another Neil Young song, My My Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) which is the acoustic version. The thumping electric version is titled Hey Hey My My. I don’t know how well it aligns with this painting or my cluttered thoughts this morning. I latched ontoout of the blue and into the black and it’s better to burn out than fade away, figuring it was close enough for me.
Redtree Times 