Muse, 2009
There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, which enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric… But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art – he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman.
–Plato, Phaedrus
The painting above is from 2009, painted on the insert panel of an old upright piano. The whole thing is about 18″ high by 60″ wide. Outside of a stint at the Fenimore Museum for my 2012 show there, it has never been out of my sight, hanging as it does on the wall of the studio’s main painting space. I can glimpse now and take it in. It’s one of those pieces that I don’t believe I could part with.
I call it Muse mainly for the Red Tree in the painting that has served as the muse and avatar for my time as a painter. It also refers to the piano aspects of the piece which represents for me the inspiration provided by music and other arts. Muse is, after all, right there in music.
As far as the passage above from Plato, he may have been right. There is at least a bit of madness–and maybe much more– that comes with the Muse’s inspiration. There are plenty of days when I consider the irrationality of what I do. It doesn’t make much sense on those days when the Muse seems to have turned her back on me.
But in short time, I let go of the stasis of rationality and there it is again. Like the panel on the wall, I am back in that landscape– in the temple of my Muse.
Where I am home and recognized. Where I belong…
Redtree Times 