Moonlight Quartet— Part of Eye in the Sky at West End Gallery
Spirit of the midnight dream,
What is now upon thy wing ?
Earth sleeps in the moonlight beam ;
O’er that sleep what wilt thou fling ?
–Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Spirit of Dreams, 1827
This is Moonlight Quartet, one of the paintings that directly refer in content and tone to the theme of my current show, Eye in the Sky, now hanging at the West End Gallery. The moon here casts a calm and watchful eye over the landscape, having a silent conversation with the crows who, in their own way, are eyes in the sky.
Where the moon is the eye of the ethereal, they are the eyes of that which is earthy.
One of the things that attracts me to this piece, a 24″ by 18″ canvas, is the way the tree and the path (or you might see it as a stream which is just fine) echo the rhythm and flow of the bands of color that make up the sky. It’s as though they are all originate and are built from the same pattern.
Perhaps the pattern the Eye in the Sky sees as it looks down on it all.
There’s a lot I like about this piece and the others from this show painted in this style. They instantly emit a feeling, one that you don’t have to search for within it. It’s right there. I also greatly enjoy the process of painting these particular works. It’s a very meditative process, one that has me setting down a pattern then constantly going back over it until it reaches its final state.
Like continuously following the path of labyrinth, over and over again. Each time through reveals more and more.
One hopes that this is the same for looking at it, that more is revealed with each new view.
I suppose that is the dream for any artist’s work, right?
Let’s wrap this up this morning with a rendition from Kronos Quartet of a song, Marquee Moon, from the 70’s band Television. Led by Tom Verlaine, Television was what I would call smooth punk, less raw and a little more refined in its musicality and lyricism than some of the punk bands that might come to mind. Kronos, as always, does a great job with this piece.
Redtree Times 
Before I read a word of your text, I saw the flowing bands of color, with the embedded moon, birds, and limbs as a celestial version of another of your familiar themes. I might have titled it something like “Archaelogy of the Sky.”
I like the idea of it being the Archaeology of the Sky. For some reason I had never thought of those bands in the sky as being like the strata in the Archaeology paintings but after your comment, can’t help but see them as such. That’s interesting. Again, thank you, Linda!