Redtree Times

October Sky, 2015

Human lives… are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence… into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual’s life… Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of great distress.

–Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I was reading an article this morning about the role serendipity plays in shaping our lives and our perceptions of it. How we shape our being by the meaning we find in coincidences and the parallels we recognize in art– those books, music, and films we take in– and our own lives. I can certainly point to such instances in my own life. This somehow reminded me of the painting above and the blog entry below from a few years back. The blog post featured little close-up chunks of the painting and that reminded me in a way of how we put together the composition that is our life. Little bits that by themselves often go by unnoticed but ultimately interweave and coalesce into something more than themselves.

Felt like it was good morning to replay this post, especially given that the title of the painting is a timely one, October Sky.

I was looking for something to play this morning and put on this album, Blues Twilight, from jazz trumpet player Richard Boulger. I’ve played a couple of tracks from this album here over the years.

While the title track was playing, I went over to over to a painting that hangs in my studio, the one shown above. It’s an experiment titled October Sky from a few years back that is a real favorite of mine. I showed it for only a short time before deciding that I wanted it hanging in the studio. I never really worked any further in the direction this piece was taking me. Part of that decision to not go further was purely selfish, wanting to keep something solely for myself, something that wasn’t subject to other people’s opinions.

A strictly personal piece. A part of the prism that doesn’t show.

I look at it every day but generally it is from a distance, taking it in as a whole. But his morning, while the album’s title track played I went and really looked hard at it, up close so that every bump and smear was obvious. And I liked what I was seeing, so much so that I grabbed my phone and began snapping little up-close chunks of it.

It all very much felt like the music, like captured phrases or verses. Each had their own nuance, color and texture and they somehow blended into a harmonic coherence that made the piece feel complete.

It’s funny but sometimes when I am working hard and in a groove that takes over from conscious thought, I almost forget about those things that I myself like in my work because I don’t have to think about them in the process of creating the work. Looking at this painting this close made me appreciate the painting even more, made me think about it in a different way than the manner in which I now used to seeing it.

Guess it’s a good thing to stop every now and then and look at what you’ve done, up close and personal.

Here’s Blues Twilight from Richard Boulger. Enjoy the music and take a look at the snips below the song, if you so wish.