Redtree Times

Garden of Delight– At the Principle Gallery Show

The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.

― Ezra Pound

This year’s Principle Gallery show has opened and hangs until July 3. As it is with every show, there is a sense of finality in delivering the work to the gallery.

An ending, if you will.

Of course, that is just the ending of its creation, the end of my time, thought and effort spent in bringing it to bear. I have put all I can into each piece and my time with them soon comes to a close.

But in that time with them, I have pulled discoveries, lessons, and emotional connections from this work. Their leaving creates new beginnings for me, new avenues to explore.

But it is not an ending at all for the work itself. Their entry into the world through the gallery is a new beginning with whoever becomes their custodian. A new conversation will begin between the work and that person. It is the beginning of what I, as an artist, hope is a long and meaningful relationship between the two. 

You never fully know why a person chooses a piece of your work. It may be a mere decorative choice or to set a tone in a certain space. But your deepest hope is that it has personal meaning and connection with that person, that it transcends just being something neat or pleasant on the wall. You want it to be a portal to thought and feeling.

I know that’s my thought as I begin a new piece, as I am about to do in just a few minutes. I want my ending with the work to become a new beginning for someone else.

You can take a virtual tour of my show by clicking here.

The Forever Bond— At the Principle Gallery

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I kept looking for something to kick this post off, some quote or blurb that would set the tone, but I couldn’t find anything that captures the mix of feelings of accomplishment, pride, fear, and anxious smallness that comes with the opening of any show I have ever done. Oh, I can find words to describe any of those things separately but that weird mix of conflicting and opposite emotions isn’t easy to find.

Well, let’s just start by saying that my annual solo exhibit of new work opens today at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA. This exhibit, Depths and Light, is my 23rd consecutive show in this fabulous gallery, going back to the first show, Redtree, in 2000.

There is an opening reception from 6-8:30 PM which marks the formal opening of the show. Unfortunately, I am unable to attend this year. Next year, come hell or high water. I promise.

I have strong feelings about this show. This is where the feeling of accomplishment and pride I mentioned earlier comes into play. In the months leading up to this day, I lived with the work for many hours each day in the studio and the totality of it together always brought me a great sense of fulfillment. It all felt full and complete.

I sensed this during the process of painting the works for this show. Each piece seemed to demand additional depth and layers that went beyond what I had employed in the past. As a result, each piece took much longer than in the past, requiring much more effort and often left me feeling debilitated at the end of each.

This actually felt good, as though I were investing even more of myself in the work, if that were possible. It felt like I was using all my built-up experience and ability to its fullest potential. That’s all you can ask for as an artist, so the exertion turned into a form of exhilaration. I believe this shows itself in the work.

I hope so.

I am not going to go into the smallness and fears that I mentioned in the first paragraph. There’s plenty of time to discuss those things in the future. Today, I want to focus on the better part of the day, that the work gets to show itself apart from me and that it gets to take on a life of its own.

All I can hope for as an artist.

I hope you can get into the gallery to see the show. For those of you who aren’t able to visit the gallery, you can take a virtual walk-through the exhibit by clicking here. It’s easily navigated and you can get the titles and info for each painting by putting your cursor on the blue and white circle next to each painting. It gives you a great sense of the space and the work.

A little tidbit on the space: The building, Gilpin House, is a historic site that was originally the residence of George Gilpin who was a relative, friend and business partner to George Washington. So, there’s a good chance that old George might have walked these same floor boards or warmed his hands in front of that very fireplace. There probably wasn’t a Red Tree hanging over it then.

Again, you can take a virtual walk-through by clicking here.

Or you can browse the exhibit catalog by clicking here.

Reinforced – Part of the Principle Gallery Exhibit

The Long View- At the Principle Gallery

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Say Hallelujah– At the Principle Gallery Show, June 2022

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

— Benjamin Franklin

Say Hallelujah is a new 18″ by 24″ painting on aluminum panel that is included in my annual solo exhibit at the Principle Gallery that opens tomorrow, Friday, June 3. There is an opening reception that runs from 6-8:30 PM which, unfortunately, I will not be able to attend. But this year’s exhibit is well worth seeing in person without me being there as I feel it’s one of my strongest shows yet.

It was a group of work which excited and engaged me fully here in the studio. I hated to see it leave this space.

Say Hallelujah is a good example from this show with its deep colors, bright blossoming sky and the relationship between the Red Tree and the sun rising on the distant horizon. It a piece with strength and conviction that, as a painting, stands boldly on its own yet links seamlessly to the other work in the show.

It’s a piece that expresses the simple gratitude in just existing as one is, set apart from greed or envy and rejoicing in the beauty of the world around us.

That’s message that definitely fills a need these days. Makes me want to say “hallelujah.”

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In the High Country– At the Principle Gallery Exhibit

—And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

–Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth

This painting is called In the High Country and is 24″ by 18″ on aluminum panel. It is part of my annual show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria which opens Friday, June 3.

I have special affection for this piece. I suppose that’s because it reminds me somewhat of the hilltop plateau where I spent some of my teen years. Though I only spent perhaps five or six years there before leaving home, it deeply affected me.

It was a place that forever made me think of myself as a hill person, someone at home pushed up closer to the sky, high among the trees and fields. Someone who finds themself out of sorts in places where hills and mountains are nowhere to be seen and is instantly soothed with the first sight of a hillside in the distance.

My hilltop was forever windy and you could look across the tops of the shorter chains of hills that ran parallel to it, gathering a view that probably extended for thirty or forty miles.

It was an elemental place, one of silence and distance. It served as a teacher, a sort of hilltop yogi that whose wisdom was gained by merely being still and silent in its presence. It was the kind of place that still makes me stir when I read the words of Wordsworth in the excerpt from his poem above:

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being

It felt more like a person than a place, if that makes any sense. I guess that shouldn’t be a big surprise since I have often seen the landscape around me in human rather than geological terms. I often see human forms in hilltops and trees and rock formations. It’s a big part of my work, actually.

But this observation about my early hilltop home came to me when I was recently looking at this painting and suddenly saw it as a portrait. Actually, for some strange reason, it reminded me of two specific paintings, one being Diego Velazquez‘ 1650 portrait of Pope Innocent X and Francis Bacon‘s 1953 distorted take on it.

But that observation aside, this made me think how this location was more human than place in my mind, one that felt like a personal relationship with private conversations and kept secrets.

I suppose that is not unusual for any place that one holds deeply as home. But that’s what I see in this piece and why it speaks a little deeper to me.

The show is now hung at the Principle Gallery, ready for viewing ahead of its opening on Friday, June 3. The exhibit catalog is now available online by clicking here.

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