Redtree Times

Imitatio– At the West End Gallery

There is probably no point in my going into your questions now; for what I could say about your tendency to doubt or about your inability to bring your outer and inner lives into harmony or about all the other thing that oppress you – : is just what I have already said: just the wish that you may find in yourself enough patience to endure and enough simplicity to have faith; that you may gain more and more confidence in what is difficult and in your solitude among other people. And as for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.

–Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (1934)

When in doubt, always go to Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. I thought the passage above would go well with the painting at the top and the piece of music at the bottom.

He writes of the young poet’s inability to bring his inner and outer lives into harmony. That’s something I understand, this trying to find a sense of balance between the inner and outer me that meets the criteria needed for survival in both.

I see this in this painting that is part of my soon-to-be-gone show at the West End Gallery. It’s called Imitatio and, for me, it’s about this struggle in a way. It asks questions: Is art a reflection of our inner or outer self? Or is our inner self a reflection of art? How do we find that balance between the art we feel inside and the life we live in the outer world?

Yeah, I know. You’re looking and asking where those questions are in the painting. But, trust me, I see them there in the signs of both a struggle and a celebration.

What you see is on your shoulders.

The song I chose is called The Inside Man. I have no idea about its title’s meaning but for today it refers to the inner part of us. It feels right somehow. It’s a piece I stumbled across awhile back, a piece of dance music from a Croatian DJ/ musician, Funky Destination, that I find myself going back to time and time again. It never fails to grab my attention and stir both my inner and outer self

Finally, a reminder that there are two days– just today and tomorrow– left in this year’s show at the West End Gallery. Hope you can make it in to see Imatatio and the others. Let’s give Rilke the final word here:

And as for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.