Redtree Times

Seeking Imperfection– 2001

Up too early this morning. In the studio at about 5 AM. Music playing and a song from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss comes on. I’ve played a track from their new album a while back, a remake of an old song whose title, Last Kind Words Blues, I borrowed for a new painting.

This song is another remake called Trouble With My Lover. It was written by the great Allen Toussaint and first recorded in the late 60’s by Betty Harris.

I really like this remake and thought it might pair well with the painting above, a piece from 2001 called Seeking Imperfection, which was also the title of my 2001 Principle Gallery show. 20 years ago! Jeez…

That show and title remain a favorite of mine probably because it best describes my own relationship with perfection. Actually, about finding truth in imperfection.

I have written about this recently and also this, in a post back in 2012:

I’ve always been somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of perfection or the search for it. Perfection is  an endpoint, a finality, and the antithesis of our humanity, at least in how I view it. To seek only it is to deny our imperfect natures. We are flawed and scarred characters in a world that is definitely not perfect except in those rare moments when all of these flaws coalesce into instances of harmony and beauty.

The perfection in imperfection.

That’s kind of what I hope for and sometimes see in my paintings– harmony and beauty despite the inherent imperfections. I can find flaws in any of my paintings but I don’t cringe at the sight of them. Instead, they make me glad because in seeing them I recognize my connection to them, can see the struggle in trying to create these moments of harmony. A pit here, a dot of stray paint  or a rough edge there, a bristle from a brush trapped in the paint– it all speaks to me, saying that it can be whole and harmonious-  beautiful despite the flaws. Perhaps not a bad way to view one’s life.

How this relates to the song is a little fuzzy. Perhaps it is the realization that there is no such thing as perfection in any relationship, that we all live with the flaws and imperfections of our mates. We sometimes even learn to embrace these flaws over time.

I don’t really know. Maybe I’m just spitballing here and wasting too much precious time, both yours and mine. I have things to do, imperfections to find, places to go and people to meet.

Same with you, I’m sure so let’s just listen to the song and enjoy it for what it is.

By the way, the musician I featured yesterday, JD McPherson, is serving as guitarist backing Plant and Krauss for this tour. That’s him in the leather jacket and the yellow Telecaster.