Redtree Times

Lake Life — Now at the West End Gallery

It is the artist’s business to create sunshine when the sun fails.

–Romain Rolland, The Market-Place  (1908)

One of my favorite parts of writing this blog is that there are often days when I don’t feel like writing anything and don’t have much to say that end up with me finding new people or art or music that was unknown to me before that morning. A bit of unexpected education that falls into my lap.

It’s that way this morning. I had no plans on writing much. Maybe tell people that there are only a few days to see my current show at the West End Gallery before it comes down after this coming Thursday. Maybe show a painting from the show, like Lake Life, shown at the top.

But I thought I’d throw in bit of music, something that seemed to match up with the painting. That came quickly. I immediately found a piece from a jazz trumpeter, Takuya Kuroda, whose work I did not know until this morning. The song, Everybody Loves the Sunshine, really hit me and has been replayed seevral times in the studio this morning. Feels like the perfect song for starting off this Saturday and a good match to go with the tone of Lake Life.

Since that came so easily, I thought I’d throw in a quote and came across the one at the top:

It is the artist’s business to create sunshine when the sun fails.

I don’t know if I completely agree with that in all cases, but I think sometimes this is a true statement. It’s a business of trying to create reaction and feeling. And everybody loves the sunshine. So, often an artist is trying to bring some form of sunshine to others.

That sounds pretty good so I chose to go with that short quote. But I couldn’t quite place the author, Romain Rolland. It sounded familiar but I didn’t really know who he was or any of his work which is a shame. It turns out he was French writer and dramatist who lived from 1866 to 1944. He had a most interesting life and he was friends and frequent correspondent with some of the most influential people of the time– Sigmund Freud, Hemann Hesse, Richard Strauss, Gandhi, and even Joseph Stalin.

Most notably, Rolland won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915 for his 10-volume novel Jean Christophe, from which the short quote here today was taken.

Makes me want to do a little more research. Like I said, I didn’t want to write anything this morning. Maybe just listen to some music, read the news, and drink coffee. But I now unexpectedly have some new music to explore and a new writer to research and, most likely, soon lose in some corner of my memory.

But that’s okay. It’s a sunny pleasant morning and as we know, everybody loves the sunshine.

Enjoy your day.