Redtree Times

At last, small witches, goblins, hags,
And pirates armed with paper bags
Their costumes hinged on safety pins,
Go haunt a night of pumpkin grins.

–John Updike, October, A Child’s Calendar (1965)

Careful out there tonight, kids. It’s Halloween and you never know what you might come across.

Now, get moving and stay off my lawn…

Read Full Post »

Ivan Albright- And Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida

A painting is life and a painting is death . . . the picture is our own legacy left by tomorrow’s dead for tomorrow’s living.

–Ivan Albright

As we near Halloween, I thought I’d share a revised post from many years back about the artist Ivan Albright (1897-1983) whose work sometimes feels like the stuff of nightmares. It often possesses a dark feel that wouldn’t be out of place for All Hallows’ Eve. Take a look for yourself…

The painting at the top, And Into The World  There Came a Soul Called Ida, is the work of the late Ivan Albright. Not a household name by any means, but if you’ve seen his work, you’ll definitely remember it.

Ivan Albright- Self Portrait, 1982

I saw a large retrospective of his work a number of years ago at the Met and was fascinated– and a little uncomfortable and creeped out, to be honest– by his subjects and the darkness and tone of the work. But it was the incredible textures of the paintings that I found amazing. They were very sculptural on the surface, with deep and deep moonscapes of color, layer after layer of paint that seemed to be shoved and mashed on to the surface. It was unlike anything I had seen. It was obviously the product of a huge amount of labor but it wasn’t labored. It felt organic and there was something very beautiful there that transcended the unflattering depictions of the paintings.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1943

Albright was best known for the painting, shown here on the right. It was produced as the title object for The Picture of Dorian Gray, the 1945 film version of Oscar Wilde’s famous novel of a corrupt young man who defies the ravages of time while his portrait reflects the true result of his debauched life. It was the horrifying image revealed to the ever-young Dorian Gray at the end of the film.

I’m still fascinated by his work even though I have to admit I get a queasy feeling when I really take in the whole of his characters, like seeing a car wreck and not being to turn away. They are horrible and beautiful at once. I now also really appreciate the epic efforts that must’ve went into creating these pieces, the hundreds of hours that must have been spent. The patience it must have taken to maintain that vision.

So, check out the work of Ivan Albright. He had great titles, as well. You don’t have to like his work but you should be aware of it…

Ivan Albright- The Farmer’s Kitchen, 1934

Ivan Albright- Hail to the Pure, 1976

Ivan Albright The Wild Bunch (Or Hole In The Wall Gang) 1950-1951

Ivan Albright- Poor Room, 1957-1963

Ivan Albright- The Rustlers, 1962

Ivan Albright- Flesh, 1928

Ivan Albright- And Man Created God in His Own Image, 1930

Read Full Post »

Harlequin– GC Myers, ca 1996

Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite.

–Thomas Carlyle, The Opera (1852)

Not much to say this morning. Just going to share a simple triad of word, image and song. For this week’s selection for Sunday Morning Music, wanted to share a new song, Angel, from the Black Pumas, which is an Austin, TX-based band described as being psychedelic soul.

I don’t know about that, but I’ve liked most everything I’ve heard from them and played their songs here a couple of times before this. The sound and mood of this tune, along with Eric Burton‘s soaring vocals, have a haunting quality. And maybe that is appealing as we trudge towards Halloween. Or maybe because it also brings us near to the infinite, as Carlyle observed above.

I don’t know.

Read Full Post »

GC Myers- The Incantation, ca 1994

Be hole, be dust, be dream, be wind/Be night, be dark, be wish, be mind,/Now slip, now slide, now move unseen,/Above, beneath, betwixt, between

—Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

When I was kid, we lived in a big old farmhouse house in the country. It was kind of a spooky place with a small old cemetery across the road at the edge of the woods. Some of the people buried there were the family of a coach driver killed in an Indian attack in the late 1700’s. The stacked stone chimney of their home still stands across the road from what was our home. I used to play around it quite often by myself back then.

The house had a creepy attic that inspired many nightmares for me. Opening the door to it was like a reverse Wizard of Oz effect. Instead of going from sepia to color as in the film, there you went from color to sepia, everything brown and dusty. There was a bunch of old wooden furniture belonging to our landlord and a ladder that went to the locked Widow’s Watch. Never made it up top there.

There was also a fairly large window that often caught my eye when playing ball in the yard below. Something would catch my eye and I would begin to believe that the silhouette of someone had briefly appeared in that window. I always found myself checking that window when I was out there.

For the last few years we lived there, I was the only one sleeping upstairs after my siblings had left. There was plenty there to keep a12-year old spooked. I would lay in bed and the whole spectrum of kid monsters would run through my head– Frankenstein, Dracula, the Werewolf, the Mummy, zombies and so on.

Oddly enough, I was afraid of ghosts. And I was never really too scared of Frankenstein or the Mummy. I figured I could outrun those guys. I mean, come on! Same with the zombies. Zombies hadn’t evolved in our imaginations yet and were still portrayed as slowly shuffling creatures in search of brains.

The Werewolf and Dracula were a different story. The Wolfman could run so I might be safe in my second story bedroom. But Dracula could transform into a bat and fly. He was what I perceived as my biggest threat at that time.

Little did I know then.

I was still naive enough to not yet understand the monstrous side of man which made my childhood fears based on monsters and the supernatural seem tame in comparison to the horrors we now witness on what seems to be every day.

Oh, the human horror show was still there then. Make no mistake about that. But it was easier to be shielded from it in a world of limited and slower access to information. But if I could, I would gladly trade for the nightmares inspired by monsters and the undead of my youth for the night terrors born of man.

Since we’re nearing Halloween, which is hopefully still a holiday of only kid monsters, here’s a spooky tune from the late great Nina Simone. It’s her version of I Put a Spell on You, written and performed originally by Screaming Jay Hawkins.

Read Full Post »

Jackson Pollock– Convergence, 1952

Painting is a state of being…Painting is self discovery.  Every good painter paints what he is.

–Jackson Pollock

In an article in The Guardian yesterday, there was a review of a current exhibit [July, 2015] at the Tate Liverpool of Jackson Pollock paintings. Writer Jonathan Jones describes Pollock’s work around 1950, in the period when he was briefly liberated from his chronic alcoholism, as being the pinnacle of his career. As he put it: Pollock was painting at this moment like his contemporary Charlie Parker played sax, in curling arabesques of liberating improvisation that magically end up making beautiful sense.

That sentence really lit me up, as did the words of Pollock at the top of the page.

In Pollock’s work I see that beautiful sense of which Jones writes. I see order and rhythm, a logic forming from the seemingly chaotic and incomprehensible.

The textures that make up the surfaces of my own paintings (shown here on the right) are often formed with Pollock’s paintings in mind, curling arabesques in many layers. In fact, one of the themes of my work echoes that same sense of finding order from chaos.

Or that the grace and beauty of the mark belies the chaos that you perceive. Often, that which we perceive as chaos is really part of a rhythm or pattern that we haven’t quite caught up with yet.

To some observers, however, Pollock’s work represented the very chaos that plagued the world then and now. But true to his words, Pollock’s work was indeed a reflection of what he was– a man seeking grace and sense in a chaotic world.

Painting is, as Pollock says, self-discovery and indeed every painter ultimately paints what they are. I know that in the work of painters I personally know I clearly see characteristics of their personality, sometimes of their totality. At least, to the extent that I know them.

I believe that my work also reveals me in this way. It shows everything– strengths and weaknesses, hopes and fears. You might think that a painter would be clever enough to show only those positive attributes of his character, like the answers people give when asked to describe their own personality. Nobody ever openly claims to being not too intelligent or paranoid or easily fooled. There are artists that try present themselves other than as they really are but more often than not it comes off as contrivance.

Real painting, real art, is in total revelation, in showing all the complexities and hidden rhythms of our true self and hoping that others see the order and beauty within it.

This is a blogpost that originally ran in 2015 and again in 2020. It is updated here with a few examples of the underlying textures of my own work. I apologize for including them in a post featuring the work of another artist, but I wanted to show how influence sometimes shows itself.

I’ve also included a video at the bottom that shows the Top 20 Pollock paintings as perceived by whoever assembled this video. Wasn’t sure about the inclusion of the Goo Goo Dolls song in it but it seems to work okay.

Read Full Post »

Shel Silverstein, Masks

A man whose desire is to be something separate from himself, to be a member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a prominent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, invariably succeeds in being what he wants to be. That is his punishment. Those who want a mask have to wear it.

–Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

Wanting to post something seasonal in the rundown to Halloween, I settled on masks as the subject matter. It’s the time of the year when many of us choose what mask they want to wear. It might be a monster or superhero or cartoon character or some other fantasy-based mask.

But the reality is that many of us wear masks most every day. We wear the mask of our jobs, the mask of our religion, our political party, etc. We must be careful of the mask we choose because we become identified with the mask we wear. As Oscar Wilde said: Those who want a mask have to wear it.

It could also be more than one mask. Some wear multiple masks at different times. I have worn many masks in my life, some more comfortably fitting than others. Some just didn’t fit and were tortuous to wear.

Maybe that’s the truth of the matter, that we try on many masks and if we are fortunate, we come at last across a mask that perfectly fits who we are. Or people that allow you to take down the mask and just be exactly who and what you are.

It’s a simple thought but sometimes these things are seemingly so self-evident that they get overlooked. Then we forget that we can choose the mask we wear, if we choose to wear one at all.

This was obviously a guise to share one of my favorite Shel Silverstein poems at the top. Short and sweet. Or not so sweet, actually.

Here’s a video that plays out the story in this short poem. It’s a 2014 video from a high school drama club, the Washington Drama Club. I have no idea where they are from. Maybe somewhere in Iowa? The title page states that the film won an award at the Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival in 2015. Not sure.

But it’s a lovely playing out of Shel’s verse. Worth a few minutes.

Read Full Post »

A Matter of Perspective— Now at the Principle Gallery

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

–Robert Frost, The New York Times (Nov. 7, 1955)

I often write about the parallels between different artistic forms. For example, how the rhythm of music runs through painting. Another is in the quote above from poet Robert Frost, which mirrors how I view the development of my paintings. Creative expression is formed in much the same way across the spectrum of artistic pursuits.

Below is a post from a number of years back that is consistently one of my most popular blogposts. Hardly a day goes by when it doesn’t get at least a handful of views. It is about a well-known essay from Robert Frost that describes in a poetic way how his work emerges and the parallels to painting that I see in it. 

The poet Robert Frost wrote a wonderful preface to the 1939 edition of his collected poems. It was titled The Figure a Poem Makes and it described how he viewed his process of unveiling the true nature of his work. Reading it, I was struck by the similarities between his development of a poem and how I view my process for a painting.

For example, the following paragraph-I have highlighted individual lines that jumped out at me. I probably could have highlighted them all:

It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. No one can really hold that the ecstasy should be static and stand still in one place. It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life–not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion. It has denouement. It has an outcome that though unforeseen was predestined from the first image of the original mood-and indeed from the very mood. It is but a trick poem and no poem at all if the best of it was thought of first and saved for the last. It finds its own name as it goes and discovers the best waiting for it in some final phrase at once wise and sad-the happy-sad blend of the drinking song.

A painting often begins in delight, assuming direction, as Frost put it, with the first line laid down. A certain tone of color, the shape of a form, the way a line bends, the manner in which a brushstroke reveals the paint or in how the contrast of light and dark excites the eye. The delights pull you in and keep you engaged and it is not until you have finished that you are able to understand the sum of these elements, to detect the wisdom, the meaning, behind it all. It is only then that you know what you have uncovered and how it should be named.

The work itself, if left to its own means, knows what it is and will tell you.

Then there is this gem of a paragraph:

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn’t know I knew. I am in a place, in a situation, as if I had materialized from cloud or risen out of the ground. There is a glad recognition of the long lost and the rest follows. Step by step the wonder of unexpected supply keeps growing. The impressions most useful to my purpose seem always those I was unaware of and so made no note of at the time when taken, and the conclusion is come to that like giants we are always hurling experience ahead of us to pave the future with against the day when we may want to strike a line of purpose across it for somewhere. The line will have the more charm for not being mechanically straight. We enjoy the straight crookedness of a good walking stick.

I have often spoke of the need to have my emotions near the surface when I work, to always need to feel excited and surprised by what I am working on. To recognize new things I never knew as being part of me. If I am not moved by the thing I am working on at any given time, how can I expect others to be moved by it? This paragraph speaks clearly to my experience as an artist.

Then there is the final sentences of the essay:

Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting. A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain its having run itself and carried away the poet with it. Read it a hundred times: it will forever keep its freshness as a petal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.

My translation of this, as a painter, is that the work must be free to move and grow of its own volition. It tells you where it wants to go and, if you don’t constrain it and try to push it to a place to which it was not intended, will reveal its truth to you. If you can do that, it remains always fresh, always in the present and always filled the excitement and surprise that it contained in that burst when it was created.

And that, to feel always fresh and in the present, is the goal of all art, be it painting, poetry, music, or dance.

I don’t want to bore you too much. It’s a great essay and is a valuable read for anyone who makes art in any form. You can see the whole book, The Collected Poems of Robert Frost, and read this essay in full by clicking here. The link takes you to one of my favorite sites on the whole interwebs, the Internet Archive, which has a huge library of available books that you can view in book form online. With its great search engine, it is a super reference tool.

Read Full Post »

Maestro— Now at West End Gallery, Corning, NY

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

–T. H. White, The Once and Future King

Not sure what I want to say this morning. Not sure I want to say anything at all. Kind of a glum feeling this morning. I know the feeling well, having felt it countless times over the years. I’ve learned how to deal with it.

One way is pretty well defined in the advice Merlin gave to the young squire Wart (destined to later be King Arthur) in The Once and Future King from T.H. White. The book was written as a series of novels during the early years f World War II and was loosely based on the Sir Thomas Mallory‘s 15th century classic, Le Morte d’Arthur, which gave us the legend of Arthur as we know it. White saw Mallory’s book and his own as ultimately being about the quest to end war. Both books advocate for knowledge and wisdom as the path to this end.

Turns out it also helps take the edge off a dark mood. And maybe it is this same sort of darkness that ultimately drives wars and violence?

And on cue, here’s my constant refrain: I don’t know.

But I find that on these dark mornings, asking such questions and trying to find some sort of answer, or even a hint of one, acts as a kind of antidote to my glumness. It gives me a chance to change my arc of thought. And hopefully that will carry me out of darkness and into a better day.

Thankfully, it often works. Not always. But enough that it is a dependable part of my toolkit, the first tool I reach for on those glum days. It’s probably the reason I have persevered in maintaining this blog for over 15 years now.

It must work– I haven’t started a war in the past 15 years.

That brings us to a song to tie up this triad. It’s a new song from another favorite of mine, Glen Hansard, called Bearing Witness. It is from his new album All That Was East Is West Of Me Now. It might not be a perfect fit today but I love the chorus:

‘Cause it’s not what you’re given
But what you do with it
And it’s not the road less travelled
But how you choose to live

That kind of feels like a summary of my artistic career and maybe my life.

You make the most of what you got, as they say. Whatever it takes to get to the next day.

See? It works. I started this post glum and with nothing to say. I’m not saying that I said a lot here but I do feel better. Now, on to this day.

Read Full Post »

Uncertain Times— At the West End Gallery

The world’s an orphans’ home. Shall we never have peace without sorrow? without pleas of the dying for help that won’t come. O quiet form upon the dust, I cannot look and yet I must.

–Marianne Moore, In Distrust of Merits, 1941

The longer one lives, the more one sees firsthand how easily we fail to heed the lessons of history. We continue to repeat our pasts as though we are on a turning wheel of fate where everything eventually comes around once more. Issues that had been thought to be long settled emerge once more and are battled over again and again. The same hatred, the same ignorance, the same rationalizations and manipulations.

All the same, just in a different time with fresh faces.

And the wheel keeps turning.

I came across a recording of the late Modernist poet Marianne Moore (1887-1972) reading her poem In Distrust of Merits. I found it captivating as I read along to her voice. It seemed to speak to this moment in time, as it has to the many other uncertain times in world history. I have placed the whole poem below the recording below. If you have four or five minutes to spare, I urge you to read along as she reads. I think it’s worth the time.

In Distrust of Merits

Strengthened to live, strengthened to die for
medals and positioned victories?
They’re fighting, fighting, fighting the blind
man who thinks he sees, —
who cannot see that the enslaver is
enslaved; the hater, harmed. O shining O
firm star, O tumultuous
ocean lashed till small things go
as they will, the mountainous
wave makes us who look, know

depth. Lost at sea before they fought! O
star of David, star of Bethlehem,
O black imperial lion
of the Lord — emblem
of a risen world — be joined at last, be
joined. There is hate’s crown beneath which all is
death; there’s love’s without which none
is king; the blessed deeds bless
the halo. As contagion
of sickness makes sickness,

contagion of trust can make trust. They’re
fighting in deserts and caves, one by
one, in battalions and squadrons;
they’re fighting that I
may yet recover from the disease, my
self ; some have it lightly, some will die. ” Man’s
wolf to man? ” And we devour
ourselves? The enemy could not
have made a greater breach in our
defenses. One pilot-

ing a blind man can escape him, but
Job disheartened by false comfort knew,
that nothing is so defeating
as a blind man who
can see. O alive who are dead, who are
proud not to see, O small dust of the earth
that walks so arrogantly,
trust begets power and faith is
an affectionate thing. We
vow, we make this promise

to the fighting — it’s a promise — ” We’ll
never hate black, white, red, yellow, Jew,
Gentile, Untouchable. ” We are
not competent to
make our vows. With set jaw they are fighting,
fighting, fighting, — some we love whom we know,
some we love but know not — that
hearts may feel and not be numb.
It cures me; or am I what
I can’t believe in? Some

in snow, some on crags, some in quicksands,
little by little, much by much, they
are fighting fighting fighting that where
there was death there may
be life. ” When a man is prey to anger,
he is moved by outside things; when he holds
his ground in patience patience
patience, that is action or
beauty, ” the soldier’s defense
and hardest armor for

the fight. The world’s an orphan’s home. Shall
we never have peace without sorrow?
without pleas of the dying for
help that won’t come? O
quiet form upon the dust, I cannot
look and yet I must. If these great patient
dyings — all these agonies
and wound bearings and blood shed —
can teach us how to live, these
dyings were not wasted.

Hate-hardened heart, O heart of iron,
iron is iron till it is rust.
There never was a war that was
not inward; I must
fight till I have conquered in myself what
causes war, but I would not believe it.
I inwardly did nothing,
O Iscariotlike crime!
Beauty is everlasting
and dust is for a time.

–Marianne Moore, 1941

Read Full Post »

The Color of Night- At Principle Gallery, Alexandria VA

“…that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.”

–Ray Bradbury, The October Country

Every so often you come across something from your distant past that has long passed from memory.  It could be a book, a song, a photo or some small insignificant memento, something once cherished but now tucked away in the piling up of time. Coming across such a thing after so many years illuminates how much that thing meant to you. In some cases, being able to look back at the years allows  you to see that it actually influenced your way of thinking and, therefore, your life.

That’s how I felt this morning when I came across the short prologue, shown here at the top, to the 1955 book of short stories from Ray Bradbury, The October Country. I probably read this book last in the late 1970’s at a time when I devoured most of Bradbury’s books. His short stories were all great and interesting reads and Bradbury had a poetic nature to go with his active imagination, one that sometime revealed those feelings of isolation and fear that lingered at the edges of the mundane.

I don’t remember how I reacted when I read the words above forty years ago but reading them now, I felt like he was describing me. Or at least, describing the occupants of the world I depict in my paintings, those folks who, by extension, are built from parts of myself.

They are definitely the autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts.

Lingering in twilight, tucked in dark niches inside, facing away from the sun.

I went through a stack of old paperbacks in a closet and dug out my dog-eared copy of the The October Country. Leafing through it, I saw a few titles in the list of contents that I had circled eons ago. I don’t remember doing this, of course, but I obviously saw something in it that made me do this.

One was titled The Wind and turning the pages to that story I was greeted by a black and white illustration for the story from artist Joe Mugnaini, who often worked on the Bradbury books of that time.

I didn’t recognize or remember it but even so, it had a familiarity that made me smile. My own wind-blown trees often resemble the manner in which Mugnaini shaped this tree.

I found an image of it online and am sharing it here. Maybe it was not only Bradbury’s words that influenced me forty some years back?

The mind works in weird and wonderful ways, eh?

The post above is from four years back. Felt right this morning. It goes well with this week’s Sunday Morning Music selection, which is October Skies from Mumford & Sons.

Good song for the autumn people among us.

Read Full Post »