Redtree Times

First Light— Now at the Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA

Some day I shall sing to thee in the sunrise of some other world, “I have seen thee before in the light of the earth, in the love of man.”

-Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds,  291

Trying to stay quiet this morning so I don’t have a lot a lot to say here at the moment. Just wanted to share another new small painting, First Light, that is at the Principle Gallery for their Small Works show. Working in tones of gray is something I often turn to in order to cleanse the palate, though I guess I could use the word palette since we’re talking about removing color. I always enjoy doing this work as it makes me focus more on tone than color. This often helps me in the aftermath.

These recent small graytones– sounds like an old a cappella group–include small burst of color, mainly red-tinged suns that really stand out from the grays and blacks. That contrast makes these pieces pop for me. I sometimes think that my attraction to this use of grays and color goes back to the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy opens the door after the tornado had passed and there is that first burst of color and light of Munchkinland contrasted against the sepia toned Kansas life in which she existed. That scene still thrills me.

The lines at the top were from a short book published n 1913 from the great Nobel Prize winning poet Rabindranath Tagore called Stray Birds. It is comprised of 326 short one- or two-line poems. Really more like aphorisms and random observations than poems, though they are expressed with poetry and grace. Very engaging and thought provoking.

Here’s a song about the first light of sunrise. It’s a version of the Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun performed by the late Richie Havens. Havens gave a well-known performance of the song at Woodstock that you most likely know. This is a later version that takes the song even further from the original while still maintaining the beauty and meaning of its form. Good stuff.