Redtree Times

Three Musicians– Pablo Picasso

For those who know how to read, I have painted my autobiography. 

–-Pablo Picasso

I have been trying as of late to find a way out a deep funk in my work. Between working on a couple of maintenance projects around my home and the studio and a swiss-cheese mind that has been wandering and distracted in recent months, my work has been somewhat dormant, much to my dismay. 

This happens every so often and it generally leads me back to a reexamination of my previous work from a wide span of time, from the earliest days up to the near present time. I am trying to find the same sort of inner pattern or track that spawned that earlier work, something that might fire up my synapse now once more when I examine it a bit closer.

In doing so, I am sometimes reminded of the Picasso quote above that has been bouncing around in my head for many years now. Looking at the work spread across the years, I wonder how people will read it in the future, what it will tell them about myself.

Will my work truly serve as my autobiography?

That is, of course, if they read it at all. That’s a big if.

Nobody really knows if one’s autobiography– that being their life’s work– will be read or relevant in the future. But I guess you just try to keep forging ahead, carrying the hope that if someone in the future does happen across your work that they will be able to fully take in that autobiography, to experience the sensations and feelings you tried to capture in your life.

Now back to the search…

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“Standing Proud“–At the Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA

A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, ‘Today I’m going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.’

― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

How do we continue to persist? That’s a question I ask myself more and more as I age, as the aches and pains and breakdowns of the body mount up. And even beyond the physical, I find myself asking that same question of myself, creatively and intellectually.

How does one endure?

I can’t say for sure. I guess you do what you can do when you can do it and hope for the best.

Maybe that’s the answer. That’s pretty much what Tolstoy wrote above said in describing the French retreat from Moscow in War and Peace. They were trying to get back to their native land as soon as possible but it was still a matter of just doing the same thing as always–doing what they could do and hoping for the best each day.

That pretty much works most of the time and maybe that explain one’s endurance in any way. Just keep at it.

Or maybe you take the Charles Bukowski route as in the video reading of his poem The Secret of My Endurance below from Tom O’Bedlam. I can’t say I am the biggest fan of Bukowski but sometimes he hits one out of the park or, at least, makes me think or laugh.

This one makes me laugh. Now, where I do I find a ten-foot square cage?

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Souls Adrift– At the West End Gallery

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

― Epicurus (341-270 BC)

The word desire is derived from the Latin de sidere— from the stars. Our desire is a search for a guiding star, a purpose, to follow.

Can you say what you really desire, what star guides your life?

How many of us even give that question a moment’s thought? From my experience. limited as it is, I would say the answer is that many folks think about it in terms of material things and physical experiences, things outside of themselves. Or they avoid asking that question of themselves altogether.

Many just drift along, either without a guiding star of their own or, not caring to ponder the thought, following the stars of others.

The stars each of us follow will eventually take us to our chosen desires so think about before just hopping into any old boat: What do you really want?

Or perhaps the question should be: What sort of person do you want to be?

I have to admit that there have been times in my life where I have lost sight of the star I have chosen to follow. But even then, I only wanted to follow my own chosen star, even if I had to flounder around a bit in the dark in order to locate it once more. I figured that wherever it led me, it would be enough because it was ultimately my star, my choice.

Don’t know what purpose this little post serves but it felt like it needed to be said this morning, if only for myself.

If you’re following your own star, you’ll know what I mean…

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Winter Park -1994

silience
n. the kind of unnoticed excellence that carries on around you every day, unremarkably—the hidden talents of friends and coworkers, the fleeting solos of subway buskers, the slapdash eloquence of anonymous users, the unseen portfolios of aspiring artists—which would be renowned as masterpieces if only they’d been appraised by the cartel of popular taste, who assume that brilliance is a rare and precious quality, accidentally overlooking buried jewels that may not be flawless but are still somehow perfect.

–The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

I came across the word above. silience, while browsing through a site I’ve mentioned here a number of times in the past, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It reminded me of the many bits of serendipity that brought me to the life and career I have been so fortunate to have and how lucky I have been in encountering people who didn’t just walk by without noticing my work.

It makes me feel grateful, indeed. It also makes me feel somewhat guilty for my good fortune when I know with absolute certainty that there are equally talented people out there whose work and abilities has gone unnoticed. I often see or hear the work of folks who have yet to find an audience and wonder how this could be. I find myself rooting for them, wanting them to continue to do whatever they do so that their work might someday find its way into a situation that will shine a light on it.

It also makes me somewhat guilty for the time that I have wasted, for the bits of hubris I have displayed at times when mistaking the serendipity I have encountered for some sort of entitlement.

Its a needed reminder that any notice my future work receives must be earned anew and that I must take notice of and encourage the talents of others.

On the The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows site, I noticed there is an actual book coming out in November from the person behind the whole shebang, John Koenig. Looks like something I will look into. But while there I also noticed that they have a YouTube video channel that features visual representations of the definitions contained in the dictionary. Quite well done and effective.

Here’s the video for silience:

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Tim Snyder’s On Tyranny, Illustrated by Nora Krug

I have a little book in a couple of spots around my studio, one stained from multiple coffee spills. It’s On Tyranny, from historian Tim Snyder, first published in 2017. 

It’s a book that I have given copies away to a number of people and one that I often pick up to read just a few of its short pages when I am need of some affirmation that there are people out there who are paying attention and seeing the same patterns and behaviors observed in the past taking place now. You wouldn’t think that would be comforting but in a time when previously unacceptable acts of corruption and malignance have become normalized and all too commonplace, it is good to know that there are folks out there sounding the alarm.

Evil in the form of tyranny and fascism doesn’t happen in fell swoops. It is an insidious growth, often overlooked until it has fully taken hold. As the late chronicler of authoritarianism Hannah Arendt put in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil:

Good can be radical; evil can never be radical, it can only be extreme, for it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension yet–and this is its horror–it can spread like a fungus over the surface of the earth and lay waste the entire world. Evil comes from a failure to think. It defies thought for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with evil and examine the premises and principles from which it originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is the banality of evil.

Snyder’s book lays out the warning signs of authoritarianism in a way that is easily digested and applied to current events. It has been a huge success and went through many printings in the past 4 years.

Today, October 5, is the publication date for a new edition of the book in collaboration with acclaimed illustrator Nora Krug. The graphics add a layer of depth to the already engaging narrative.

I thought I would share a few of the pages here this morning, just to give you a taste of how the imagery interacts with the words.

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In a shadowy place something white flew up. It was a heron, and it went away over the dark treetops. William Wallace followed it with his eyes and Brucie clapped his hands, but Virgil gave a sigh, as if he knew that when you go looking for what is lost, everything is a sign.

–Eudora Welty, The Wide Net 

When I came out of the house this morning to make the walk through the woods to my studio it was still dark with just the faintest light of morning beginning to brighten the sky. It was Sunday morning quiet, no roar from cars on the distant road nor sounds of any sort of human activity. The sound of a distant rooster harkening the morning broke the silence.

It was a weird crow, more like an extended screech mashed together with a normal crow. It was unlike any crow I had heard in the many years in the the early morning light before. It made me stop on our walkway to listen, to make sure that it was actually a rooster and not some omen of doom.

Because it sure sounded like one. It was like this rooster was adding a panicked warning to his normal wake-up call, like he sensed something strange was about to take place.

At that moment, as I stood there in the darkness of the woods, the black silhouettes of the trees and brush took on the tone of a dark German Expressionist film and I found myself wondering if there was some sort of omen in that strange crow, some warning I should heed.

It set off an anxiety in me that was already poised and ready to pounce. But as I walked along the path in the darkness as that odd crowing continued to echo a thought came to mind. It pretty much lined up with the passage at the top from the Eudora Welty story.

It came to me that when you’re always looking for something, especially something so deeply hidden that you’re sure it can never be found, everything becomes a clue or a warning. It leaves you wandering in this semi-darkness filed with ominous shadows and fantasized fears.

You can’t live in that place.

That all went through my mind in a flash and before I was even halfway across the dark trail, I was chuckling at the crowing and the ominous fears it had raised. If it was an omen, if something awful comes to be on this day, then I will be humbled. But if enduring the childhood fears of creatures under the bed and in darkened closets and scary attics have taught me anything, it is that what we often fear was never there to begin with.

Sometimes it’s good to be reminded of how easily baseless fears often grow within ourselves and how easily we accept ideas that based on this.

Ah, the primal fear of a crowing cock breaking the silence and darkness of a Sunday morning. It explains a lot.

Now let’s have some music, okay?

This morning I am going with a version of a Jesse Colin Young/ Youngbloods song, Darkness Darkness, from 1969 performed by Robert Plant. The Youngblood’s original version is great and there are also many good performances of this song from a wide variety of artists out there but I prefer the Robert Plant version a bit more. See what you think…

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Maurice Prendergast– Along the Shore

I was looking at the work of a favorite artist, Maurice Prendergast, and realized that I hadn’t shown any of his work here for awhile. I did a quick check and discovered that I hadn’t featured his work here since, coincidentally, this very date back in 2010. Thought it might be time to revisit his work.

There is something in the work of Prendergast ( 1858-1924) that really satisfies something in me. But more than that, I always come away feeling inspired and chomping to get t my own work. It’s like his work sets certain gears inside me in motion. That’s the way it is for many of my favorite artists– they satisfy and motivate.

And I needed just that this morning.

Here’s a short video slideshow of some of his works set to a little Mozart.

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October– From Les Tres Riches Heures by the Limbourg Brothers, circa 1415

October enters the picture.

I was going to write something this morning about the fact that my dad died on this date last year and link it to how the mythology of families is diminished and lost whenever an older family member dies. Their stories, their triumphs, and their regrets often go with them to the grave.

Part of that comes from the fact that we often downplay our own lives and experiences, thinking that they were not much different than those of anyone else. Another part is that other family members are too busy living their own lives to listen or ask or can’t see the relevance to their own existence.

I know that was true with myself. I sorely regret not asking more questions about the lives of my parents and grandparents. None were celebrities or lived big lives that would ever fill books. But all had lives worth exploring.

For example, my grandfather was a professional wrestler and vaudeville stage manager long before he married my grandmother, who was raised amidst the lumber camps of the Adirondacks that her father operated. I am sure both had incredibly interesting stories to tell about the experiences and people they met along the way. But they weren’t storytellers and their children didn’t seem to care nor did they share much of what they did hear.

And now all of their children– my last uncle died a few months ago from covid-19 — are gone as well. Their parents’ stories and their own now mostly lost except for a few stories retained by the next generation. Which is my generation and there’s not much left to tell.

I certainly wish I had asked more questions and listened more deeply when those folks were around. Once they’re gone you realize how little you really knew of them or their lives. Does anyone know what their parents or grandparents might say if asked if they could describe the best day of their lives or their childhoods? We’re probably more likely to know what their worst days would have been since tragedy makes deeper and wider marks on most families.

Don’t know where this is going or where it will end. I already wrote much more than intended. I guess, to sum up, I just wish I had paid more attention when some of these people were around.

There are so many questions now and no way to get the answers.

And it’s October. Both in this calendar year and in my life. The days get shorter and cooler and as leaves fall and foliage dies back, the light changes and you see the world outside with a different perspective.

Sigh…

Here’s an old U2 song to mark the day. It’s October from the album of the same name that was released in this month in 1981. Forty years. I was going to put an exclamation point on that last sentence but the realization of how much time has passed sapped all my energy.

October…

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