Redtree Times

Botanica Hereditas– Soon at the Principle Gallery, Alexandria VA

I had an inheritance from my father,
It was the moon and the sun.
And though I roam all over the world,
The spending of it’s never done.

― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

The new painting above is 16″ by 12″ on aluminum panel and is part of a small group of similar pieces that I am calling the Botanica series. Each of these paintings in this series are simply constructed with sections of stems or trunks or vines rising up through the picture plane and bisecting a shaft of light that fades into color at both sides.

The plants themself are imagined. I didn’t want to rely on faithfully replicating nature, as magnificent as it is in its original form. This is mainly because I am not a botanist and, outside of but a few, have never been able to hold the details and names of most plants and trees for very long in my mind. I have to be constantly retold, year after year, the name of this or that plant. So, any resemblance in these created organisms to reality is coincidental, not intended in any way.

There’s a sort of liberation in this. Not having to compete with what is real allows the viewer to see what is before them without the prejudice of knowledge, to judge it on its own merits.

Hey, that sounds pretty good. I’ll think I’ll keep that line for use in the future since it applies to much of my other work as well.

This particular piece is titled Botanica Hereditas— Botanical Inheritance. I saw the dead tree trunk here as what is left behind for future generations, a structure on which they can build on and rise. Here that inheritance is literally a structure that supports the subsequent growth. The thicker vine uses the structure merely as guide and rises much on its own while the thinner vine clings closer to the inherited trunk, needing its support in order to continue moving upward.

It is all set against a backdrop of chaotic and slashing colors, symbolizing the peril and chaos against which all life is set. We spend much of our existence in seeking order out of this chaos and often find it first and sometimes solely in the supportive structures provided by family.

Our inheritance.

Botanica Hereditas is part of my 23rd annual solo exhibit at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, this year titled Depths and Light, which opens Friday, June 3, 2022.

Read Full Post »

Rest Stop – At the West End Gallery

And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting. But don’t give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time, and the day will come when, instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of your best workers–perhaps the most intelligent of all the ones that are building your life.

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Ah, it’s that time of my painting year, the time of doubt. It arrived yesterday afternoon.

I had finished a new painting and was pleased with the results.

Very pleased.

I was excited and eager to throw myself into the next piece immediately, armed with all that enthusiasm and energy that I had built up over the months. This self-propelling momentum is a driving force in prepping for my annual shows, something I seek throughout the year but seldom find.

But somewhere in between finishing the last stroke on that new painting and standing before the next blank surface placed on my easel, self-doubt smashed me over the head like an ugly giant with a fifty-pound sledgehammer.

I suddenly began to wonder if I was totally wrong about my judgement of my new work, that the excitement and confidence I was getting it from it was misguided. Was I somehow blinded to the glaring flaws that others might immediately see in the work? Was I the tone-deaf guy who sings loudly and confidently in public?

If you’ve read this blog for any time, you probably recognize this. It happens every year, especially at this time of the year in the weeks and months leading up to my shows when I doubt whether I my work is good enough or that I have done enough.

I know by now, after decades of going through this feeling, that all I can do is wait it out and to simply work through these periods of doubt.

It’s like dealing with a very specific and narrow band of depression.

It sometimes leaves as quickly as it comes and sometimes lingers a bit longer, always nagging and heckling me from the back of my mind.

And the more excited I am about the current work, the more intense the doubt. The fervor of this current makes me think I could be on the right track with my current work.

Either that or I am very wrong in my estimation of it and the giant of doubt was right all along.

At the moment, I want to believe in the work and not in the doubt. And that little bit of belief — and the immersion into the next painting– might be enough to get me through.

Always has in the past. No reason to believe it won’t this time as well. Makes me grateful for having gone through this before.

I wonder how many talented people have fallen before the sledgehammer of doubt and given up much too early on their own abilities?

I imagine it is a high number. Why wouldn’t it be? Why would anyone want to go through the churning stomachs, the headaches, the self-loathing and the many other nasty little tics that arise out of such doubt?

I don’t have a specific answer for this except that it is all I know and that the end result is worth the trauma that comes with such bouts of doubt. And like Rilke points out above, recognizing then overcoming doubt can become a valuable tool in judging and building one’s work and life.

As a result, I have come to see this doubt, as inconvenient and uncomfortable as it is, as a necessary and somewhat beneficial evil. Its current reappearance was expected and perhaps right on time.

Hoping it does what I need it to do. And hoping that those other folks who go through these times of doubt early on can see that this doubt can morph into some form beneficial self-criticism if they initially fight through it.

It’s worth the fight.

I didn’t want to show one of the new paintings for this post for fear that someone might think that particular piece somehow made my doubt arise. Instead, I am showing a piece from a few years back that remains a fave. Rest Stop has yet to find a home but that doesn’t not give me a bit of doubt about its appeal to me.

Read Full Post »

The transformation of the world is brought about by the transformation of oneself, because the self is the product and a part of the total process of human existence. To transform oneself, self-knowledge is essential; without knowing what you are, there is no basis for right thought, and without knowing yourself there cannot be transformation. One must know oneself as one is, not as on wishes to be, which is merely an ideal and therefore fictitious, unreal; it is only that which is that can be transformed, not that which you wish to be. To know oneself as one is requires an extraordinary alertness of mind, because what is, is constantly undergoing transformation, change; and to follow it swiftly the mind must not be tethered to any particular dogma or belief, to any particular pattern of action. If you would follow anything, it is no good being tethered. To know yourself, there must be the awareness, the alertness of mind in which there is freedom from all beliefs, from all idealization, because beliefs and ideals only give you a color, perverting true perception. If you want to know what you are, you cannot imagine or have belief in something which you are not. If I am greedy, envious, violent, merely having an ideal of non-violence, of non-greed, is of little value. The understanding of what you are, whatever it be – ugly or beautiful, wicked or mischievous – the understanding of what you are, without distortion, is the beginning of virtue. Virtue is essential, for it gives freedom.

― Jiddu Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

It’s a little longer than the typical quote I use to open a blog entry but I felt the words from philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) matched up well with this new painting as well as lining up with some things I have been thinking lately. Things about our personal transformations in life and our sometimes skewed self-perceptions.

I see the new painting above as being about the transformations between each ascending layer in the landscape. Ideally, the eye takes in the whole of the piece then moves up from layer to layer, rising from the fir treed layer at the bottom up to the Red Tree on a seaside peninsula pushing up toward a warm sky.

When I was done with this piece, I was struck by the layers in this piece. Actually, it was the difference between each layer that struck me. Each felt like it was in place and right, yet each was complete and self-contained yet detached and unique. Each felt like a different time and place to me with its own atmosphere and meaning.

It seemed like I could see myself being in each layer. And moving up to the next layer was a transformation to a different place and time with its own feel.

Maybe it was hopeful biography of my own personal transformation?

Actually, it seemed like a parfait to me, the tasty multi-layered dessert whose name comes from the French word meaning perfect. And there certainly was an idealized sense of a perfect place and time in this painting.

From that thought came the title for this painting, Monde Parfait.

Perfect World.

Of course, we have ample evidence that there is no perfect world. But perhaps this parfait can serve as something to aim for, something that might be achieved if we can recognize then set aside our egos, our envy and our inflated sense of self, along with a host of other negative traits, that have long taken hold in ourselves.

Maybe.

I have doubts but I do know that transformations can occur, that things can change. And so long as we can see and feel and experience beauty, so long as we can imagine a better and more perfect world, there’s hope.

Hope is often a sustaining force.

Monde Parfait is a 36″ by 18″ painting on canvas that will be included in my annual solo exhibit at the Principle Gallery, opening Friday, June 3, 2022.

Read Full Post »

Let’s go, children of the fatherland,

The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny’s
Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
They come right to our arms
To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!

—La Marselllaise, first verse

Big victory for democracy around the world yesterday in the French elections, as President Macron defeated far-right winger and Putin proxy, Marine Le Pen. It was also victory for Ukraine because a Le Pen victory would have no doubt upended the French support — and perhaps the whole of the European Union’s support– of Ukraine in its struggle against the Russian invasion. And that may have opened the floodgates to a new era of fascism/ authoritarianism unlike anything since WW II.

Make no mistake about it, the rise of far-right extremism we are seeing around the world, including here in America, is in a direct line from the fascist movements of that era. These movements may use modern technology and shade their end game with misdirection, disinformation and outright lies but their goals are the same.

And none of those goals bode well for the average person.

So, it was heartening to see Macron’s victory. It made me think of the French national anthem, La Marsellaise, which has its origins in the French Revolution of the 1790’s. It is a song of resisting and overcoming the forces of authoritarianism which is why it was banned at times by the kings and emperors (Napoleon) in later French history before taking its place as the official national anthem after the end of WW II.

For me, it might be the most stirring national anthem in the world, speaking to my own sense of defiance and democracy. The defiance in its words could certainly could apply to the people of Ukraine.

The song is at the center of one of my favorite movie scenes, from 1942’s Casablanca. In this scene, the occupying Nazi entourage at Rick’s Cafe are singing the German anthem boisterously.  The French resistance fighter Victor Laszlo furiously rushes to the house band to have them play the French anthem La Marseillaise in response. The club’s patrons respond with a unity that drowns out the German voices with even Yvonne, the bar girl who has flirted with collaboration with the Nazis, shouting out Vive la France! 

This clip has the whole of the scene. It always moves me.

Read Full Post »

Dona Nobis Pacem– Coming to the Principle Gallery, June

Praise be to God I’m not good,
And have the natural egotism of flowers
And rivers following their bed
Preoccupied without knowing it
Only with blooming and flowing.
This is the only mission in the World,
This—to exist clearly,
And to know how to do it without thinking about it.

― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

Time for some Sunday morning music and while getting it around, I came across the lines above from  Alberto Caiero, a poet of which I had never heard. It turns out that he is the creation of the Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) who I have talked about here before.

Pessoa, who died from cirrhosis at a relatively young age, is considered one of the giants of Portuguese literature and poetry. One of the more interesting aspects of his work is that he assumed and wrote under many different names. But these were not simply pseudonyms, were not just different names. No, they were mostly different personas as well. He termed them as heteronyms. In fact there is a list of over 80 of these heteronyms that he employed over his relatively short life.

Each had a distinct voice. Caiero was one of Pessoa’s voices. Described as being born in Lisbon in 1889,  having blond hair and blue eyes, and being the author of bucolic poems about sheep and shepherds. I believe Pessoa had him dying from tuberculosis in 1915, one year after Pessoa had written about 30 Caiero poems in a mad rush for the book The Keeper of Sheep.

I thought the lines above from Caiero described the sort of metaphysical peacefulness that many people seek– to simply be, without having to think about it, without fears or worries. Just to exist, alive and in peace.

I think that is what a lot of my work is about– finding that place or feeling or time that allows us to be in a state of peace, even if only for the moment. I know that the new work for my June show at the Principle Gallery is focused on finding these small bits of momentary tranquility.

An example is at the top, a new 12″ by 24″ canvas that I am calling Dona Nobis Pacem which translates as Give Us Peace. I am using a chaotic sky in this piece, and several others in this show, to represent the turbulence and uncertainty that threatens our peacefulness. The rising sun and its light represent a contrasting counterpoint, with certainty in its movements and providing light and heat and energy for us.

For this week’s musical selection, I am going with contemporary Max Richter and his take on Dona Nobis Pacem, which is from the Agnus Dei, the liturgical texts sung or said performed during the Catholic communion rites. This version of Richter’s Dona Nobis Pacem 2 is performed by Canadian violinist Angele Dubeau and La Pieta.

Read Full Post »

Archaeology: The Golden Age Beyond

I am convinced that the stratigraphic method will in the future enable archaeology to throw far more light on the history of American culture than it has done in the past.

–Edward Sapir (1884-1939), American Anthropologist

Whenever I drive past a landfill, one of those new looming hills that rise weirdly from the surrounding landscape, I wonder if they will be considered treasure troves in some distant future. Will the inhabitants of the Earth in ten or a hundred thousand years from now dig into them and stare in wonder at some of what they uncover in those vast heaps?

Of course, that’s supposing that there will still be an Earth or inhabitants with the same sort of curiosity that drives archaeologists and anthropologists in our time. Perhaps someone will be here but not give a damn about the prior residents. Or maybe those landfills will be under new towering mountains or at the bottom of a deep, dark ocean.

Who knows? Or should I say, for that matter, who cares? 

This brings me to a what I want to be a quick post this morning. The break from the blog in the past several days has worked out well for me, workwise. Getting a lot of what I consider very good work done. I thought I would share some images from my Archaeology series which was perhaps the most popular of the various limited series of paintings that have emerged over the years. I am also rerunning a segment from an early blog post that outlines how the work came about back in 2008.

From 2008:

This is a piece titled Archaeology: Under the Same Sun which is part of my Archaeology series of paintings that was new for this year. It came about early in January when I was struggling to find the direction in which my work was headed.  By that I mean, I am always trying to find ways to expand the scope of my work, to create something new in the work that will excite me in the studio and, by extension, viewers in the galleries.

I really felt lost this year as I began preparations for my June show. My work felt uninspired and every day was a battle to create anything that seemed alive. I needed something that would light a fire under me, something that would excite me in the work.

 I reverted to a exercise that my 5th grade art teacher, John Baglini, in Chemung, NY taught me back in what must be 1969. Mr. Baglini was pretty cool, especially to a 5th grader. He drove a late 50’s Porsche, wore big bellbottoms, drew comic books and always had really neat projects for the class. For example, since it was the year of the moon landing, we made a huge papier-mache lunar landscape.  

Another project had him passing out large sheets of paper and pens and ink. He would have us start at the bottom (or wherever you wanted to start) and totally fill the paper. He told us to draw a junkyard, to fill the sheet with items that we knew, to stack them from bottom to top and top to bottom.

It was a great exercise that made me think of how one item related to the next and how small detail contributed to the whole image. It has been something I have used for nearly forty years, often filling the margins of the newspapers with doodles and little objects.

Early Archaeology Sketch

So, when I felt blocked this time, I pulled out some large sheets of paper and a Sharpie and started doodling at the bottom. I did this for several days and eventually the pieces went from masses of objects to a smaller group of objects that grew seamlessly upward into a landscape.

It all merged together so well that I began to wonder why I hadn’t painted in this fashion before. It made such sense. It allowed me to paint my trademark landscapes but to add a new dimension. From a distance one can tell it’s my work but upon closer inspection one finds a new level of detail that reveals something new with each subsequent look. It also allowed me to paint detail in a free flowing, stream-of-consciousness manner, one object leading to the next.

There was also the opportunity to create a new vocabulary with the repetition of objects within the context of my paintings. There are a number of objects that make appearances in all or most of the paintings of this series.  Peace symbols, shoes, bottles, the letter “G”, etc.

And periodically, a nod to my own work as it, like most of what we have around us, finds its way to the future in some sort of landfill that some archaeologist might uncover in a distant future.

Archaeology: A New Wind Rises

Archaeology: Formed in the Past

Archaeology: New Day

Archaeology: Legacy

Archaeology: Peace Comes

Read Full Post »

Still not ready to resume writing. The painting is going really well, and I am hesitant to change the rhythm right now. But I will soon start showing new work from my Principle Gallery show that opens in early  June. Until then here’s a replay of a blog entry from back in 2012.

Above the Babble, 2000

There are times when ideas for a piece come from seeing something once or twice and taking what you remember of it and using that in your work.

For example, a number of years ago I remember driving through the Poconos on the way to NYC. As I drove down a hill, I glimpsed to my right a group of trees, maybe an orchard. It was early morning and the sun was low behind them, casting long individual shadows in the damp, long grass. The whole scene was taken in in the blink of an eye.

I call that the 60-MPH view. Actually, it’s closer to 75 MPH but who’s really keeping track?

From this split-second glance I returned to the studio a few days later and took the elements of that scene that remained in memory and created several versions of that scene. They were vibrant and alive. It was as the speed of the glimpse took away interfering details and distilled the remaining elements into something stronger.

The painting above, Above the Babble, is another kind of this taking in quickly and using the elements from memory. My sister had a small print that has hung for many years in her home. I always would notice the print when I visited but didn’t spend much time in front of it. One day in the studio a number of years ago– I believe it was back in 2000– the composition of that piece, as I remembered it, came to mind. This was the result along with several subsequent versions over the years. None of them really look like the print in any specific detail but for me they echo the rhythm and feel of the inspiring print.

I try to use this viewing process when I look at other artists’ works as well, taking in the work quickly then trying to remember what I saw. This forces the strengths, as I see them, forward and they remain in my memory. This allows me to find things in work that is very unlike mine that I ultimately use in my own work. A form of synthesis, I suppose….

Read Full Post »

Climb Ever Higher– At the West End Gallery, Corning, NY

It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and think of the rainbows in ’em,” said Captain Jim. “When I ponder on them seeds I don’t find it nowise hard to believe that we’ve got souls that’ll live in other worlds. You couldn’t hardly believe there was life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone colour and scent, if you hadn’t seen the miracle, could you?

― L.M. Montgomery, Anne’s House of Dreams (Anne of Green Gables #5)

A few thoughts on this Easter Sunday.

Not off my break from this blog quite yet. The break has proven to be beneficial as I have been very productive in the past several days in this time. Feel like I have made a quantum leap ahead in readying my work for the upcoming shows. My anxieties have eased up a bit on this front and I find myself in a good painting groove at this moment. So, maybe the break was a good idea.

As I mentioned earlier, my friend, Brian Pappalardo, has went through a medical ordeal over much of the last year, spending 10 1/2 months in hospitals including over 2 months intubated and on a respirator. He has had to undergo much physical therapy in order to regain his speech, use of hands and arms and walking.

With the help of a great staff at Cayuga Medical Center, he has worked hard, and it has paid off, as hard work often does. On Friday, he finally went home. On a holiday weekend based on a resurrection, perhaps the timing was fitting.

But he still has a lot of very hard work ahead of him with hopes of being out of his wheelchair for good at some future time. The first days at home have shown new challenges to be overcome and he is still adjusting to the situation in a non-hospital setting. But I have no doubt he’ll figure it out and persevere.

In the fundraiser we set up to help offset Brian’s amassing medical expenses, almost $12,500 was raised. This will help immensely and takes off a little of the pressure of financial worry for Brian, allowing him to focus on and continue his physical therapy.

I want to extend my warmest thanks to everyone who donated, from Brian’s longtime friends to those who have never met Brian. Your generosity in terms of money and goodwill was inspiring and moving. Thank you.

Okay, here is a song for this Easter Sunday. It’s a gospel song from the Soul Stirrers, best known for being the launching pad for the career of one of my all-time favorites, Sam Cooke. This song is Out on a Hill and features the vocals of Johnnie Taylor, who sounds an awful lot like Cooke, who had recently departed for his solo career when this track was recorded. Taylor also had a celebrated career, most notably for the classic R&B song from 1968, Who’s Making Love.

Give a listen, have a good Sunday, and hopefully I will be back soon. Thanks!

Read Full Post »

If I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it – keep going, keep going come what may.

― Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Reaching Out– Part of the June Principle Gallery Show

Like many of my paintings, this piece, Reaching Out, a canvas measuring 36″ by 18″, is concerned with the Search.

The search for something that we think is missing or that we need.

Love. Friendship. Knowledge. Wisdom. Fame. Fortune. Peace. Acceptance. Truth. God.

Answers to those needs and questions that never rest within us. Those things that define us as who we truly are and what place we occupy in this universe.

I think that this searching will always be with us, that we shall never find all of the answers we seek. I know that I will never find all of the answers that I desire. But finding just a few answers, even if only a glimpse of an answer, satisfies me for a time, giving me a prod to continue scanning the horizon even when I am most content in my life as it is.

So, I maintain my own personal search.

As, I am sure, you do as well.

The post above is from a few years back, concerning the painting above, a favorite of mine called Reaching Out, which is headed to the Principle Gallery for this year’s June show.

I reran this post because I am thinking about taking a short hiatus from the blog, maybe just a few days. Maybe longer. I am feeling a bit stressed about running short on time for show preparations this year and am trying to find ways to make my time in the studio more productive.

You probably would be surprised at the time it takes to write this thing. It seems like it should only take a few minutes to bang out a few paragraphs of my typical blather. But it’s not the actual writing, which still takes me a while because I struggle with putting words together, but the task of just trying to come up with something each day takes a lot of time in scanning websites, doing research, searching music and videos, etc. I spend quite a bit of time this way, maybe too much.

I am not complaining. I like doing it most days and always feel it contributes something to my actual work. But as I have aged, my painting and prep process take more and more time to complete. Some of it is due to my process becoming more and more layered than in past years. As a result, each new piece takes quite a bit longer than in earlier years. I often feel the pressure of finishing work weighing on my mind when I am trying to get past the blog during these times. Even now, I have several tasks running through my mind as I write this.

And that makes it harder to think about the blog and write effectively to my satisfaction. So, maybe a short break is in order. Of course, I might change my mind tomorrow morning. As Walt Whitman said in Song of Myself:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself

We’ll see.

In the original post I included the Richard Thompson song below. It’s a lovely song, so if you have time, give a listen. If not, then I’ll see you down that winding road sometime in the future. Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe not.

Who knows?

Read Full Post »

“We are animals, born from the land with the other species. Since we’ve been living in cities, we’ve become more and more stupid, not smarter. What made us survive all these hundreds of thousands of years is our spirituality; the link to our land.”

– Sebastiao Salgado

This post came about in a weird way this morning. I was up earlier than normal and without much enthusiasm for writing a blog post, took a look at YouTube. I came across a new Jack White song, Fear of the Dawn, which was a loud, driving piece. The video for it was kind of modern expressionistic with a claustrophobic feel. But the part that struck me was that I realized after a few minutes that much of the sound was being produced by a what looked to be a modern theremin.

You know the theremin, that strange electronic device that produced the weird soaring sounds from 1950’s horror movies by the player simply moving their hands near two protruding metal rods. Turns out the device in the Jack White video was a modern theremin, the Moog Theremini. This, in turn, sent me to a video of a theremin musician, Caroline Eyck, playing her version of The Ecstasy of Gold composed by Ennio Morricone for the movie The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

It was sort of mesmerizing and it made me think of the incredible photos from photographer Sebastiao Selgado of workers in the gold mines of Brazil. I went back to a post from several years ago to look at them and decided that they were worth repeating today.

Funny how one thing often leads to another. Here’s the post and photos with the Caroline Eyck video of The Ecstasy of Gold below it.

I featured the photos of the Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado here several years back. Originally an economist, Salgado took up photography in his thirties and embarked on an epic journey to document the great beauty and darkness the of this world, photographing grand vistas and wildlife along with refugees fleeing genocide and workers in the grimmest of conditions. He does so in a wondrous fashion that has a way of connecting us in the present day to all the ages that came before.

This feeling of connection definitely hits me every time I come across his photos of the gold miners in Brazil, taken in 1986 and included in his 2005 book, Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age. I love this title. The work has that archaeological feel, like artifacts that will stand as lasting images of our time here on Earth.

These images feel absolutely biblical to me. It takes away any doubt I may have previously held about how man created the ancient wonders that still stand today. The workers shown may be contemporary miners, but they could just as easily be slaves in the age of the Egyptian pharaohs.

Or lost souls trapped in one of the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno.

If you get a chance, please take a look at some of Salgado’s work. It is amazing imagery and truly human in every sense of the word.

Read Full Post »