Redtree Times

The Attuning– Part of Small Works at Principle Gallery

Hope is a diagnostic human trait, and this simple cortex symptom seems to be a prime factor in our inspection of our universe. For hope implies a change from a present bad condition to a future better one. The slave hopes for freedom, the weary man for rest, the hungry for food. And the feeders of hope, economic and religious, have from these simple strivings of dissatisfaction managed to create a world picture which is very hard to escape. Man grows toward perfection; animals grow toward man; bad grows toward good; and down toward up, until our little mechanism, hope, achieved in ourselves probably to cushion the shock of thought, manages to warp our whole world.

Probably when our species developed the trick of memory and with it the counterbalancing projection called “the future,” this shock-absorber, hope, had to be included in the series, else the species would have destroyed itself in despair. For if ever any man were deeply and unconsciously sure that his future would be no better than his past, he might deeply wish to cease to live.

In saying that hope cushions the shock of experience, that one trait balances the directionalism of another, a teleology is implied, unless one know or feel or think that we are here, and that without this balance, hope, our species in its blind mutation might have joined many, many others in extinction.

–John Steinbeck, Log From the Sea of Cortez

In 1940, John Steinbeck took part in a 6-week scientific marine expedition with his good friend and marine biologist, Ed Ricketts. The purpose was to collect and collect marine specimens from the Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez. The book is a journal of the trip along and much of it is gleaned from Rickett’s trip diaries. Ricketts, who died in a car/train crash in 1948, had a lot of influence on the thinking and philosophy of Steinbeck. Much of it shows up in this book.

I was struck by the passage above, with its representation of our lengthy memory as a mutation of our species. With the knowledge that we have a long history comes the realization that we have a future and with that, the hope for a chance to improve our condition.

Speaking from a scientific perspective, Steinbeck/Ricketts suggests that hope is an inborn survival mechanism of humans and has been the propelling force for all progress, as well as the one trait we possess that has kept us from going extinct. Our awareness of the past and our dissatisfaction with the present drive us to strive for betterment in the future.

Hope.

There is another section that describes how hope is also a strong indicator of our incompleteness as a species. Turns out, we are a far from final product. Who’da thunk?

We have made our mark on the world, but we have really done nothing that the trees and creeping plants, ice and erosion, cannot remove in a fairly short time… In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the trait of hope still controls the future… Man in his thinking or reverie status admires the progression toward extinction, but in the unthinking stimulus which really activates him he tends toward survival. Perhaps no other animal is so torn between alternatives. Man might be described fairly adequately, if simply, as a two-legged paradox. He has never become accustomed to the tragic miracle of consciousness. Perhaps… his species is not set, has not jelled, but is still in a state of becoming.

As one who often feels far from complete and still in a state of becoming, it gives one a lot of fuel for thought. Hope for the future and awareness of the past as counterbalances for survival are themes in much of my work. And thinking.

I have to point out that this is a very short and incomplete rehashing of a completer and more superior article from Maria Popova and her marvelous blog, The Marginalian. Please check it out and become a subscriber. Really good stuff. It will give you valuable knowledge along with a healthy dose of hope and awareness.

And we know that is already part of us, right?

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Three Sides to the Story— At West End Gallery

The bottom line is this: You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it…If there is no moral question, there is no reason to write. I’m an old-fashioned writer and, despite the odds, I want to change the world.

—James Baldwin, New York Times, September 23, 1979

Another one of those passages from someone who works in a creative field other than my own that pretty much translates to many other fields. I think that anyone who take a creative path in their life probably feels that they have something unique to offer the world.

But do many of these people think in terms of changing the world with their work?

That’s a tough question. I think anyone, given the choice between changing or not changing the world with their work, would choose to have it do so. To not change the world in any way means that you didn’t touch anyone with that part of you that you share.

And nobody wants that.

So, you go ahead with your work with the hope that you will somehow change the world, knowing that it probably will not cause a tidal wave of change. At best, any change will be like a small ripple in the ocean. As Baldwin says, almost immeasurable and imperceptible.

But changing even one person’s perception of their world is not a small thing. Change occurs in these small ripples, in incremental measures that push us in one way or another. It’s when we give up, when we decide to not add our tiny ripple to the enormity of the ocean, that we are adrift and subject to uncontrollable waves.

So, we keep doing what we do despite the seeming impossible nature of the task. Most likely we will fail but so long as we try the chance for change remains.

Got to read this one again. It’s 5:30 in the morning, after all. Not even sure if this is not one of those dreams where the logic seems impeccable until you wake up and ask yourself what the hell you were thinking.

While I decide, here’s a song about the uncertainty surrounding your ability to change the world. It’s a longtime favorite from Ten Years After, the British blues rock band from the 60’s & 70’s with singer/guitarist Alvin Lee at the helm. Though I love the sound and general message in this song, I have always been just a little put off by the last line of its chorus:

I’d love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do
So I’ll leave it up to you

So I’ll leave it up to you… To me, that feels like giving up and allowing others to dictate what the future will be. I understand that so many of us, including the singer in this song, feel powerless to affect change. It can be a daunting task. But as Baldwin says, just changing the way people– even one– see the world can create change.

So do what you do. Try.

Okay, it’s 5:40 AM now– time to wake up…

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A Song For the Eye— At West End Gallery

That’s the only song I wrote in one sitting. The melody I had worked on for some time. I didn’t really know what the song was. I remember that my mother had liked it.

Then I was in Edmonton, which is one of our largest northern cities, and there was a snowstorm and I found myself in a vestibule with two young hitch-hiking women who didn’t have a place to stay. I invited them back to my little hotel room and there was a big double bed and they went to sleep in it immediately. They were exhausted by the storm and cold. And I sat in this stuffed chair inside the window beside the Saskatchewan River. And while they were sleeping I wrote the lyrics. And that never happened to me before. And I think it must be wonderful to be that kind of writer. It must be wonderful.

–Leonard Cohen, on writing the song Sisters of Mercy

There’s a great website, Blank on Blank, with a blog and videos of bits of interviews with notable folks from the last 50 or 60 years that have been rediscovered. They present them in short and entertaining animated videos. I featured one here several years ago with Ray Bradbury.

I came across one of their videos this morning about Leonard Cohen telling the story of how he came to write his song, Sisters of Mercy, in Edmonton in 1966. There are conflicting accounts online of his time there but his telling of the song’s origin in a 1974 interview is entertaining, nonetheless. It begins with his reading of a poem, Two Went to Sleep, that he had composed twenty years before, sometime in the mid-1950s. The animation of the poem pairs well with his telling of the Sisters of Mercy.

Thought I’d share the Blank on Blank video along with his song, Sisters of Mercy. Take a look at the Blank on Blank site, if you get a chance. Sme interesting and diverse thinking there.

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Placidarium— Now at Principle Gallery, Alexandria VA

Are you distracted by outward cares? Then allow yourself a space of quiet wherein you can add to your knowledge of the Good and learn to curb your restlessness. Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement, and so continually renew yourself.

–Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

This painting, Placidarium, a 12″ by 12″ canvas, is currently at the Principle Gallery for its annual Small Works show.

The title came from the feeling it gave me as though the scene existed in some sort of terrarium or aquarium, separate and apart from the worries and troubles of the outside world. It’s a piece that has long been a favorite since it has lived with me and it has never failed to elicit that same feeling of placidity for me.

It has a secure and serene stillness that often evades us here in the outside of the placidarium.

Here’s this week’s Sunday Morning Music to go along with this painting and Marcus Aurelius‘ advice. It is the Rhiannon Giddens performance of the Dolly Parton classic first released in 1969, the beautifully written Don’t Let It Trouble Your Mind. It’s a lovely version and I could easily hear this song playing in my own placidarium.

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Endless Possibility- At the West End Gallery

Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

–-John Updike, Self-Consciousness: Memoirs (1989)

It’s another Small Business Saturday, that Saturday after Thanksgiving when people are urged to go out into their communities and shop in locally owned small businesses. It’s one of the best ways to keep your local community vibrant and alive. The money spent for the most part stays local and multiplies many times as it radiates out into the community.

It can be a huge economic engine for the small businesspeople in your local area.

But it is also something more– it is the sustaining lifeblood for a multitude of dreams. Every local small business represents the fulfillment of a dream of someone in your area. It required that someone believed in an idea or ability that they possessed and then risked something– often everything– in putting themselves out there in front of their friends and neighbors.

It can be a gigantic gamble where failure can sometimes mean financial ruin, public humiliation, and lifelong dreams being forever crushed.

But you can look at that risk as the only chance you might get at following your dreams. A chance to finally be the person you once imagined yourself being. Even the humblest small business is the realization of a dream for someone.

And anyone’s dream is a big deal, in my opinion.

I am an artist and a small businessperson, as is every working artist and artisan. We don’t like to talk about it as a business, of course, but after the making of the art it is that thing that keeps our dreams alive. Our dreams and our livelihoods depend on people dealing with us or the local shops and galleries that carry our work– all small businesses.

Small but consequential.

Every gallery I work with provides income for at least 50-80 artists and artisans. That’s 50-80 dreams fulfilled in each gallery.

And, again, that’s a big deal.

I’ve been extremely fortunate to have my dream kept alive for the past 28 or so years. And I have those dream-enablers at the galleries that represent me as well as the many of you out there who have supported my work to thank for that. As much as I might like to think I achieved anything on my own, my dream has been dependent on so many people.

Like anyone with a dream of following their passion, it has meant the world to me. I would love to see many others achieve their own unique dreams in the same way.

So, help them out if you can. I am not asking you to buy locally as a charitable act. View it as more of an investment in your neighbors and your community and an act of humanity in that you are feeding someone’s dream. Whatever you might purchase from a small local business — be it a painting, a cup of coffee, a piece of clothing or pottery, a cupcake, or any of the many things made and sold in your area–is your first dividend on that investment. It is money well spent.

And to those of you out there with a dream who have yet to find the nerve to take the leap, I urge you to follow your dreams. Sure, it might be hard and you might fall on your face. That’s a given. But keep in mind that there is always the possibility of achieving your dream only if you take that leap.

You don’t want to be one of those people who go through life saying, “What if?” At least if you fail, you have the chance to chase another dream.

That is, of course, a perfect segue into a song from Bruce Springsteen. In the early 1980’s, Bruce often performed his take on the Elvis Presley title song from his 1962 movie, Follow That Dream. He slowed the tempo and it was barely discernible as the same song. A few years later, he altered it even more, changing the lyrics and chorus to the point that it basically a different song that he still performs occasionally. But in both, he still delivers the same message from the original in a potent way. The rendition below is from a live performance at Wembley Stadium in June of 1981.

FYI: The painting at the top is titled Endless Possiibility. I think it goes well with today’s subject of following your dreams. It is available at one of my favorite small businesses, the West End Gallery. If you’re in Corning on this Small Business Saturday, please stop in and take a look around.

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Carnival— Now at Principle Gallery Alexandria

Carnival is not a spectacle seen by the people; they live in it, and everyone participates because its very idea embraces all the people. While carnival lasts, there is no other life outside it. During carnival time life is subject only to its laws, that is, the laws of its own freedom. It has a universal spirit; it is a special condition of the entire world, of the world’s revival and renewal, in which all take part.

–Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World (1965)

This is a new small painting, 4 by 6 inches on paper, that is now at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA. It is included in the upcoming Small Works show, which opens next Saturday, December 2.

After I had finished this little guy, I struggled with its title a bit. It has a feel that can take you in a lot of different directions. I finally settled on highlighting the joy I saw in it, that feeling of simply celebrating one’s existence and unique place in the universe.

That brought me to Carnival.

Carnival is, as most of you know, the celebration of earthly pleasures that takes place before the abstention of such things during Lent. It is a time of revelry when social standing, profession, caste, age– any identifying title that separates us into narrower slices– is set aside. Masks and costumes are donned to maintain an anonymity that separates one’s regular life from one’s life in the Carnival. The unity of the crowd is part of Carnival.

We’ve applied the term Carnival to other non-religiously aligned celebrations. However, the traveling carnival with its midway filled with sideshows, games of chance, burlesque and plenty of food and drink is very much in the same spirit. One sheds their outside status once they enter the carnival grounds and they simply become part of the surging crowd.

I can see this applying to this painting. We stand on the mounds we build or find ourselves on. But there are moments of clarity and joy when we realize that, while we celebrate our individuality, we are forever an equal part of something far greater and more powerful than ourselves– a spiritual state of universality where all the titles, status, accumulated wealth and notoriety of this world are worthless.

I would like to think we need to maintain our individuality and uniqueness while still recognizing the meaning we find in shedding that identity to be part of the Carnival every so often.

That’s a lot of weight for a small and simple painting. But I think it can carry the weight.

Here’s a song from The Band, that seems to be ready-made for this painting. With lines like: We’re all in the same boat ready to float off the edge of the world, how can it not fit? Here’s their Life Is a Carnival.

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Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.
–Joseph Stalin

I was looking at a selection of quotations with a Thanksgiving theme when I stumbled across this lovely item from that great inspirational speaker, Joseph Stalin. It was so much in contrast with the rests of the lovely platitudes that it made me laugh. Stalin would probably not be the guy you would want as your guest on Thanksgiving, especially if you expected him to say grace. He would no doubt our holiday as a foolish expression of sentiment, a day for sick dogs to howl in thanks to their owners.

You know, even though it comes off as cruelly insensitive at first, I think Stalin’s comment might actually make sense. Though I doubt that this was the intent of his words, Thanksgiving is a day where we can recognize that we are no better than our pets, that we are as dependent on others as our pets are on us for love and support. We should do like our dogs and show our gratitude to those we love without condition.

And that would be okay with me. You can call me a sick dog on this day because I am nothing if not grateful for so many people I have encountered in my life from my family and friends to the many good people who I don’t even know who have offered kindness when I was in need of it.

Here’s a reply to Stalin from a real human being, Elie Wiesel:

“When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity.”

So, whatever you might call today, be it Thanksgiving or Sick Dog Day, be thankful for those you know and love.

Be a dog today. It’s the human thing to do.

This post ran back on Thanksgiving of 2012. I liked it then and I like it now.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

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Garden of Delight– At the West End Gallery

Simultaneous contrast is visible depth – Reality, Form, construction, representation. Depth is the new inspiration. We live in depth, we travel in depth. I’m in it. The senses are in it. And the mind is too.

–Robert Delaunay, Simultanism, 1913

I don’t know that the depth that French Modernist/Cubist painter Robert Delaunay (1885-1941) describes above is the same as I am talking about today but I liked how he expressed it and it could fit– if you squeeze it a little here and push it a bit there. He was talking about simultaneous contrasts, about seeing two differing representations in an abstract painting. Well, I think that’s what he was talking about. Not totally positive on that and will do some research on it later. For now, it doesn’t matter.

My interest in depth comes from a recent visit to the West End Gallery where Jesse Gardner, the gallery owner, handed me a pair of cardboard framed 3D glasses. It seems that a glass artist with an interest in optical illusion from the Corning Museum of Glass had been in that week, wearing the glasses as he went from painting to painting. He pointed out to Jesse how well the 3D effect worked on many of my paintings. She put on a pair and was wowed by how much the paintings seemed suddenly have that extra depth and how the Red Tree seemed to jump to the forefront and had an almost sculptural feel to its crown.

These glasses were not the old ones with one lens red and the other blue. These were ChromoDepth glasses which push the colors Red and Orange to the front of the picture and organizes the depth of the remaining colors according to their position within the rainbow’s color spectrum– ROYGBIV which is Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

Without my knowledge and quite by accident, quite a few of my paintings follow that order of color, at least somewhat loosely. And since the focal point of many is the Red Tree, some of my work seemed a perfect fit for the 3D effect.

Lake Troubadour

When I visited the gallery, Jesse and I went around the gallery and some seemed to jump out at us, especially those with a darker sky in blue or violet. It felt like it added a new dimension to those pieces where it really worked, such as Garden of Delight, above. In the piece shown here on the right, Lake Troubadour, the mound and field with the guitarist were pushed way in front of the background. It seemed to glow and created what I can only call a deep shadowbox effect, giving the scene a fuller sense of the depth that it represented.

I went back to the studio and ordered some of the glasses. When they came, I went around the studio and wasn’t able to get quite the same results. For one thing, some of the paintings here didn’t have the correct arrangement of colors. I also found that you need enough light to allow the colors to react. But on those pieces where the colors were in place and the light and angle was right, the effect was fascinating. The lines formed by the black base of the painting that separate the colors turned into what appeared to be shadows behind the forms, further enhancing the 3D effect. And, a I pointed out, the Red Tree seemed to take on a fuller sculptural form, even more prominent int he picture, if that is possible.

Seeing the work in this new way has been most interesting and I have began thinking of ways in which I can employ the effect. But overall, I doubt that it will change the manner in which I paint or how I choose the colors for each piece. I sort of believe that if I began to think too much about how to employ it, it would become contrived and lose whatever organic quality it possesses. That is normally what happens when I try to force an idea or concept into a piece. But having the idea appear on its own is another thing, especially when it has a fresh and natural feel.

When it just is. Maybe that’s why it was such a thrill to see the pieces in the gallery and the studio take on that extra depth and life– they were already alive and existing on their own.

If you get a chance, stop into the West End Gallery soon and take a tour with their 3D glasses. You might see some of the work in new ways.

And that is usually a good thing.

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The Welcome Tree–At the West End Gallery

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.

– Marcus Tullius Cicero

From 2018:

The great Roman orator Cicero certainly has it right. When you think of the great virtues– honor, courage, loyalty, honesty, compassion, respect, and grace along with so many others– you can easily place gratitude as a contributing factor to each. These virtues are often just gratitude set in motion.

If gratitude is not the parent of all virtues, it is at least a conjoined twin.

I am not harping on gratitude now just because it is the week of Thanksgiving. No, it has become painfully obvious that there is a lack of gratitude, and by extension, the absence of accompanying virtues, being shown by many of our public leaders. This includes one person in particular. [Mind you, this was 2018. However, we are still dealing with that one particular person]

Simply put, this lack of gratitude trickles down (much more so than any tax cuts!) from the top to the general population. As a result, we end up with ugly attitudes permeating our daily life.

Gratitude transforms into a sense of entitlement.

Humility becomes boastful self-aggrandizement.

Respect is replaced by insult and denigration.

Courage becomes cowardice.

Loyalty becomes a temporary transaction where one’s loyalty is given only for as long as the other person remains useful.

Empathy devolves into a mocking of the shortcomings and weaknesses of others.

Responsibility is replaced by a need to place blame on others.

Honor becomes disgrace.

Trust turns to deep skepticism.

Grace transforms into insolence and coarseness.

And honesty?

Honesty has turned into a sort of mythological creature, like the Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster–- seldom seen and so shocking that when it finally shows itself, we don’t believe what we are seeing with our own eyes. Dishonesty becomes the accepted norm, and we lose the ability — or even the will–- to distinguish between what is a lie and what is the truth.

Without gratitude, we then become a nation of amoral liars, a land without virtue or honor that can no longer be trusted.

It doesn’t have to continue in this way. We have long believed that we are a nation based on its virtues, always moving towards doing what is right, no matter the cost. We can reclaim that. We can be a country of virtue.

It all starts with simple gratitude.

Be thankful for all that you have. Express it in your words and, more importantly, in your actions.

I thought I would rerun the post above about gratitude that I posted a couple of times several years ago around this time, during the week of Thanksgiving.

I am a firm believer in the words of Cicero at the top, feeling that, if it is fully embraced, gratitude permeates everything we do in a positive way.

I also believe that nobody achieves anything solely on their own, that everyone owes someone something for getting them where they are. Someone along the way taught them something, pointed them in a direction or opened a door that greatly helped them move along. 

As much I would like to think I have done everything on my own, even the tiny amount of success I have achieved is the result of lots of help and encouragement from hosts of people. Without them, I am nothing.

A sense of gratitude makes everything it touches better. And as I wrote above, a lack of gratitude debases everything.

Here’s a song that I play every so often around this time of the year. It’s a favorite, one of those songs that I find myself singing to myself for weeks at a time when I hear it again. It’s William DeVaughn and his Be Thankful For What You Got.

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Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays

I didn’t really need confirmation of the fact that I have been doing this for a long time but am sometimes   reminded of it in the oddest ways. For instance, I was surprised when I recently came across a listing on Ebay for what the seller describes as being “vintage” and “a real nostalgic piece of ephemera” with my name on it.

It was, of all things, a page from a 2001 magazine (I think it was American Art Collector) with three advertisements. The ad from the Principle Gallery for my then upcoming 2001 show there was at the top of the page.

I had no idea that such things were considered collectibles in any sense of the word. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since I have seen, on more than one occasion, gallery postcards from my past exhibits framed and for sale in antique shops.

It felt kind of odd being described as vintage or part of anything nostalgic, as though I was looking at a different facet of reality that didn’t exist in my own world. That area beyond your own sense of self-awareness where the world perceives you in ways you can’t recognize.

Adding to the oddity was the fact I didn’t remember this ad and the painting featured on it was not as familiar to my memory as other pieces. It was from a pre-digital period where most of my paintings were recorded on film or slides. As a result, I am not able to easily revisit much of this work from around 1995 to early 2001. And when I do, I am usually dismayed at the pitiful quality of the images.

Back then, if you photographed the painting you had to wait for developing before you knew if came out good enough for use. I would sometimes get my slides back and find that there it was slightly out of focus or there was glare or shadow on the piece that I hadn’t noticed when taking the photo. It’s so easy now with the instant feedback of digital cameras. But back then I would either have to reshoot and go through the time and effort of developing the new film again. Or live with it if the painting had already made its way to a gallery. Which often occurred.

This particular piece, a mixed media of oil and acrylic on paper, must have turned out well since the image seems okay. Even so, I would bet that it looks much better in person than on the page.

I guess being part of something called vintage or nostalgic isn’t that bad. At least I haven’t yet entered the realm of antique.

I may be called an antique at some date in the future, but I hope the work never reaches that point. I hope it always lives in the present, except in old magazine ads.

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