Redtree Times

White in the Moon— At the Principle Gallery, June 2023

White in the moon the long road lies,
The moon stands blank above;
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.

Still hangs the hedge without a gust,
Still, still the shadows stay:
My feet upon the moonlit dust
Pursue the ceaseless way.

The world is round, so travellers tell,
And straight though reach the track,
Trudge on, trudge on, ’twill all be well,
The way will guide one back.

But ere the circle homeward hies
Far, far must it remove:
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.

–A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, XXXVI

When I was finishing up this new painting that is headed to the Principle Gallery for my June show, I thought of it only in terms of the color blue. But the more I lived with it, the more I realized that the blue, though it seems to dominate the space, held a secondary position in this piece. The white of the moon and the light it sheds on the middle landscape and road carries the emotional weight, at least to my eyes.

And that subtle change in perception makes a significant difference in how I see this piece now. Seeing it in blue made me think of a somewhat sad, perhaps regretful, recollection of the past whereas when viewed with the white light of the moon, it felt more like a clarified remembrance. It is as though the onlooker here is looking back not with remorse or sorrow but with a new understanding of the past.

Maybe a wistful clarity.

Well, that’s how I see this piece which I am calling White in the Moon, after the lines above from A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad. You might see it differently. You may very well see it bathed in blue with all the feeling and meaning that the color carries. In a way, I hope you do because that indicates you’ve engaged with it in even a fleeting way.

And that is a start.

My annual solo exhibit, this year titled Passages, at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA opens Friday, June 9, 2023.

For this week’s Sunday Morning Music I am going with a theme of white light. There are a couple of classical pieces with male voices written for this particular verse– white in the light the long road lies— but they didn’t move me in any way so I decided to go another route. It’s not necessarily a song that you might normally pair with this painting or the verse of Housman. It’s a version of the old Lou Reed/Velvet Underground song White Light/White Heat which has long been a favorite of mine. This is a version from a casually gathered group (for a film, I believe) called The Bootleggers which consists of Nick Cave (who has been a regular on this blog) and Warren Ellis with the late Mark Lanegan on vocals. It has a bluegrassy feel to it that appeals to me on this fine-looking Sunday morning. Enjoy.