Redtree Times

The Song That Brought Me Here– At Principle Gallery

What we have not had to decipher, to elucidate by our own efforts, what was clear before we looked at it, is not ours. From ourselves comes only that which we drag forth from the obscurity which lies within us, that which to others is unknown.

–Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past

We all carry a lot of baggage with us on our journey through this life.  It’s a rare moment when we find ourselves free from all the traces from the past that we lug along– all the snippets of conversations, faces, song melodies and lyrics, pictures, smells, film clips and everything else we have input into the hard drive of our mind is always whirring around. I know that I will sometimes pull up some fragment from the past and wonder how I was still holding on to this piece of information. It might be the name of someone that I barely knew forty or fifty years before. Somehow it hangs on and occasionally pops out, confounding me with the idea that this seemingly useless bit of data is taking up space that could be occupied by truly meaningful information.

Like old Popeye cartoons. The one with Olive Oyl singing What We All Need is Brotherly Love runs on a loop in my head.

Or the year that Humphrey Bogart died–1957.

Or the name of the book that influenced the original Superman comic. (It was Philip Wylie‘s Gladiator— an interesting and fun read, by the way.)

Or the names of obscure musicians and their songs. Many times I have cursed Jay Ferguson and his one hit song, Thunder Island— a song that I didn’t even really like– for taking up valuable space in my brain when I can’t retrieve something much more important from my memory.

Or the name and minute details of the life of someone I met once forty years ago. This becomes even more maddening now when I can’t remember the name of someone I have just met ten minutes before.

But somehow, despite and because of all this detritus, we emerge in some individual form.

A single distilled version of everything that we take in.

A single voice. One song.

Now here’s a little Popeye along with Wilco. It’s a video for Wilco’s Dawned on Me from last year [2012] and it features the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon in over 30 years. I can’t remember if Olive Oyl danced like this in my memory but now I will.  The data has been entered.

This post is from 2013 with a few additions.

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“The world concerns me only in so far as I owe it a certain debt and duty, so to speak, because I have walked this earth for 30 years, and out of gratitude would like to leave some memento in the form of drawings and paintings—not made to please this school or that, but to express a genuine human feeling.”

― Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

I was wandering through the studio the other day looking at the paintings that are here. There are pieces that represent just about every year from the past 29 or 30 years. It’s been such a long time that even if it’s one or two pieces a year that end up back with me, it adds up.

But it wasn’t the number of pieces that struck me this time. It was more a question of what will become of them one day. Will they still exist long after I am gone? Will they find homes where they will spark some emotional response with their new owners or will they never be seen again as they rot in some mountainous landfill somewhere?

It was a sort of memento mori, a reminder of my death which made me somewhat sad. But it also made me hopeful that the work will somehow live beyond me and serve one day as a memento vivere, a reminder of my life. 

In the end, I realized that if even a few make it to the future, that would be alright with me. They would serve as expressions of my gratitude for my time here and hopefully help some future person recognize their life’s own uniqueness and express their own gratitude for it.

This reminded me of a post from back in 2018 that dealt with this using a passage from a Vincent van Gogh letter to his brother. I thought it was worth sharing again, if only to look at van Gogh’s wonderful works.

[From 2018]

Thought a good way to kick off this week might be to share a few paintings from Vincent van Gogh along with a quote from one of his letters that speaks very much to my own feelings about my own reasons for doing what I do. These are not his better known paintings, though some of you may well know these pieces. They’re pieces that speak to my own personal inclinations. You might notice that most of these paintings have his ball sun/moon.

The idea of feeling a need to leave a memento behind that expresses one’s gratitude and one’s expression of self is one that is not foreign to me. I often think about how my work will speak for me after I am gone. Actually, if it will speak into the future at all and if so, will it be an honest reflection, a true representation of my voice.

I know that an artist, for all of the ways they try to guide the narrative about their work and life, has little control over their work in the future.

What will be, will be.

Their voice might echo but it is always just that, an echo, a one-sided conversation from the past. Hopefully, what is said in that echo reverberates and speaks to someone of that future time so that they can fully understand and connect to the feeling behind it. And if so, with the hope that they might respond to that voice in some way that continues to give life to it.

As I said, an artist has little control over this outside of doing their work with honest efforts and emotions. It’s obvious this was the case in the work of van Gogh and we continue to have a conversation with his echoes from the past, his mementos of gratitude.

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Edgar Degas– The Millinery Shop

Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.

—Edgar Degas

I have always loved this quote from the great Edgar Degas. It has meaning on a couple of different levels for me. First, it speaks to the sheer difficulty of the process of creating a painting. If you look at it as a purely mechanical process– step 1, step 2, step 3 and you’re done— it does seem exceedingly simple.

But art is not purely craft. There is an intangible element that gives it meaning for both the maker and those who take it in after it is made. Tapping into that intangible is the difficult part. Some days it is near impossible and makes the job very difficult, even though it might seem easy and effortless on its surface.

Been there, done that. In fact, sometimes having more skills and tools available sometimes hinders creativity as the artist begins to rely on the tried and true, which sets a limit on their further exploration.

The second meaning I get from Degas’ quote is how others view this job. I know folks who can only view art as a hobby and if you’re working as an artist, you’re just fooling around with doodles and such. They often don’t see it as work at all. They don’t understand that it is much more than having a particular ability. They don’t see the great effort that is required to have a career as an artist.

The long hours alone. The sacrifices you make to be able to have enough time.

The often sheer frustration that comes in creating work. The days and weeks and months spent feeling blocked and uninspired, times in which you question your own ability and value as an artist.

The many hours spent doing unseen and boring things like photographing, prepping, matting, framing and varnishing that are required to make the work presentable.

The agony of having to constantly self-promote in order to keep your name visible in the public eye. For most artists wanting to support themselves in the current business of art, they must serve as their own primary advocate.

The pain of having your work–- your creation and your voice— ignored, outright rejected or under-valued, not to mention the self-doubt that comes along with these things.

I am sure there are a bunch of other crappy things that are just slipping my mind at the moment.

This isn’t meant to be a whine fest. Every business has its own challenges, and I am sure anyone who has ever been self-employed can see their own situation in most of these things. For example, every restauranteur knows that great food is not enough to make a restaurant successful.

I understand and accept these pitfalls and they don’t detract from my view of this career at all. I just want people to understand that an artist’s life is not unlike their own with most of the same challenges and problems. It may sometimes seem easy, even romantic, but that is just the view from far outside.
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That being said, I wouldn’t trade this job for any other. Thanks for allowing me to think that.

This post was from back in 2018. I apologize for it not being more about Degas’ work. I tried to make that clear in the title for the reposting. To make up for it, here are some more my favorites from Edgar Degas:

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Cool Contemplation— At Principle Gallery

The two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.

–Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (1605)

I don’t know exactly why I chose the three parts of today’s triad. Maybe they don’t exactly line up up with one another. Maybe they do. Take them for what they’re worth.

Being Sunday and needing a song to play, I chose the song first. It was R.E.M. and their Man on the Moon. Next, looking for an image, I came across the piece at the top, Cool Contemplation. The clarity of its light and the positioning of the moon made me feel as though the crow was contemplating some great thought, perhaps something to do with the moon, the house in the distance or the even more distant moon.

Maybe he was pondering whether he could fly to that moon? It seems so close.

The passage from Francis Bacon seemed to just fall into place. We often have a lot of certainty in our beliefs and opinions. These are sometimes unfounded and untested, simply based on what we want to believe. Plain and smooth as Bacon might have put it. It’s the easy way and the one chosen by most of us.

But it is best when our opinions and beliefs are grounded in long contemplation that involves challenging them, discarding the flaws of logic and fact that are uncovered, and then reevaluating and adjusting them.

As Bacon points out, it’s rough and troublesome. Not the easy way.

Reading bacon’s quote felt like it belonged in today’s triad. It is a celebration of real productive contemplation, the kind born of uncertainty and curiosity. It also reminded me of a certain political movement– a cult, if you will– who has very much embraced the easy way. There is no self-awareness nor self-reflection in this movement. They are adamant in their certainty, never challenging their first reactions or beliefs and never discarding flaws of fact or logic. And because they refuse to acknowledge the factual mistakes and problems in their logic, they never reevaluate or readjust.

It remains constant. Which means it is forever grounded in its errors and misunderstandings. According to Bacon, it will ultimately end in doubt and failure.

It will certainly never achieve the certainty of truth.

Okay, enough. You know I want to write more on this and be much more explicit and maybe drop a few f-bombs here and there. I am trying to keep this space free of the craziness out there. I have enough in here for all of us.

So, take what’s here for what it’s worth.

Here’s R.E.M. with Man on the Moon.

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Lit Candles, 2006

We were so close, there was no room
We bled inside each other’s wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace
Some came to sing, some came to pray
Some came to keep the dark away

— Melanie, Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)

Wasn’t going to write this morning. Looking for the Muse, you know. That kind of thing. But I thought it should be noted that singer/songwriter Melanie died this week at the age of 76. Most of you who remember Melanie most likely immediately think of a couple of her hits from the early 1970’s, most notably, Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma and Brand New Key. The latter was almost a novelty hit with lyrics that may be familiar to you if you are of a certain age: I’ve got a brand new pair of rollerskates/ You got a brand new key.

But she had chops, being one of only three solo women to perform at Woodstock. In fact, this song, Lay Down (Candles in the Rain), was written about her experience at that festival. It’s a song that dropped off my radar for many years until I found it again a few years back. I always get a thrill out of this version with the Edwin Hawkins Singers.

Great and memorable stuff. G’bye, Melanie. Thanks.

Now, where’s that Muse?

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Breaking Joy–At Principle Gallery

Joy lies in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in the victory itself.

— Mahatma Gandhi

How do you define joy? Is there such a thing as joy that is the same for every person or is finding joy strictly a personal preference? Are there people who live without any joy at all in their lives or are there moments in everyone’s lives where they experience something close to joy? Maybe it’s not a giddy kind of joy. Maybe joy for some is a feeling of contentment, an absence of fear, an absence of pain.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe joy is finding that which takes away our fears and pains.

I don’t know. I know that it doesn’t have to be sought. It’s just there or it’s not. For me, it might be as simple as laying in the grass and having my dog come over and lay against my chest. It might be in sipping a cup of tea or watching the deer graze laconically in the yard. It might be in laughing out loud at something I’ve seen a hundred times yet still find funny or in making my wife laugh, something which gives me the greatest joy.

It can seem so simple. Yet I see people who seem joyless and I wonder where the joy might be in their life.

Certainly, they must have something which brings them something akin to joy. At least contentment. But maybe it’s not for me to see or maybe they live a joyless existence. Who knows? Just something I wonder about on a sunny morning when the sun filtering through the trees, scattering patches of light on the thick grass beneath them, brings me joy.

The above was posted here back in 2009. Some things have changed. It’s not a sunny morning for one thing. And our good girl, Jemma, our rescue Corgi, passed away years ago so the joy of her resting against my chest is no more. But there is still joy in the contented purrs of our cats, especially the feral family that currently occupies my garage. There is something so satisfyingly joyful in having a near-wild creature choose to let you love them. To trust you.

The mother cat disappeared for several days last week. We feared she was dead. I was heartbroken since she had transformed from what was originally a snarling, swatting wildcat into a creature that openly showed her affection for me with loud grinding purrs and soulful, contented gazes up at me as I petted her.

Thankfully, she returned a few days ago and we were joyful. But she was obviously injured and kept her distance. We believe she had an encounter with a raccoon in the garage.

But in the last day or so, she has progressed and returned to the garage which I seal up at night so that no other creatures can enter. She is on the mend, moving much better, and has allowed me to once again stroke her.

She is back once more with her purrs and stares. It’s a small thing but it makes me happy.

Gives me joy.

And maybe that is the sort of victory that Gandhi described at the top, the kind that remains after persevering and enduring all the hardships this world sometimes bestows upon us.

Maybe hard-earned joy is the ultimate victory.

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Pilgrim Rock– At West End Gallery

And thus ever by day and night, under the sun and under the stars, climbing the dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by sea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one another, move all we restless travellers through the pilgrimage of life.

-Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

This is a new small painting, 4″ by 2″ on paper, included in this year’s edition of Little Gems at the West End Gallery.  The title that came to be attached to it is Pilgrim Rock. I am not exactly sure what it was in this piece, what mental connection was made, that brought that title.

I did see this odd, perilous little island as an enticement, a thing of strangeness and beauty that creates a longing in one who sees it from afar. The island with its Red Tree atop it draws these pilgrims but even as the pilgrim comes near to reaching this longed for place, its steep rocky walls keep them at a distance.

I don’t know exactly what that means in psychological terms, or if it has meaning at all. Or if what I see in it will be the same or similar to what anyone else sees. I could certainly imagine a number of other interpretations of it that tell much different stories.

I find this interesting that such a small and simple image could have multiple meanings and narratives attached to it. I think it’s that, even though it is limited in size and detail, it has space in it for the viewer to add their own feelings and experiences, to perhaps see themselves as the Pilgrim or the Red Tree.

Pieces like this with multiple possibilities create an enigma that always intrigues me.

Here’s a song to fill out today’s triad of image, word and song. It’s Pilgrimage from R.E.M. in 1983. It’s a song whose lyrics also offer multiple possibilities and interpretations, much like Pilgrim Rock. I sometimes find this song brightly positive and sometimes darkly cynical. My interpretation is as much about my feelings at the time as the song itself.

Like I said, an intriguing enigma.

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I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client understands that that’s worth anything, or that the client thinks it’s worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It’s worth it to me. It’s the way I want to live my life. I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.

–Saul Bass

Saul Bass is not a name that probably jumps to the mind of many people. It’s a name that was employed in a Seinfeld episode but that’s not the Saul Bass and his work that I’m sharing here today. No, the Saul Bass I’m talking about lived from 1920 until 1996 and is considered a groundbreaking graphic designer, best known for his work in the movies. The three movie posters at the top feature Bass’ signature work. If you watched many movies over the years, you no doubt have seen his work in the opening credits or in movie posters.

He was also served as a visual consultant on many well-known films (Spartacus, for example) and was an acclaimed filmmaker. He made a short film called Why Man Creates which won the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject in 1968. The film featured a series of vignettes on creativity. You can watch the entire film on YouTube. It is about 22 minutes long so today I am sharing the opening segment, called The Edifice, which basically summarizes the entire history of man’s creative endeavors in the form of a rising building. I thought I’d share it because it’s a fun piece and you might recognize Bass’ signature style. But I also wanted to share it because creates a rising continuum in which our own creative endeavors have a place and purpose.

That’s important to remember.

Take a few minutes to enjoy this then check out the photo below of Bass and another designer laying out the animation artwork alongside a segment of it.

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In Full Regalia— Coming to West End Gallery

He alone is great and happy who fills his own station of independence and has neither to command nor to obey.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Götz von Berlichingen

The new painting above is a small one, coming in at a mere 5″ by 5″ on panel. It is headed to the West End Gallery later this week for their annual Little Gems show that opens in early February.

I call this painting In Full Regalia. I tend to view pieces such as this as much portraits as they are landscapes. The crown and trunk of the tree represent the head and neck of the portrait’s subject while the mound on which the tree grows serves as the shoulders and body.

For this piece, the multicolored plots of land that make up the mound reminded me of a rich robe, something that might have been worn by royalty.

It made me think that this might be a royal portrait.

And in a way, it is and was meant to be such.

The idea of self-sovereignty is a recurring theme in my work. And in my life.

It’s a concept where the individual maintains sole authority over their body and mind, action and thought. They alone determine the direction of their life and the choices they make.

They are, in effect, rulers over the realm that is their life.

It’s a way of looking at one’s life that is very much focused on personal independence and the power of the individual. I think that is why the Red Tree most often stands alone in my work, way from the other gathered trees that make up the forest. Maybe it’s a need for elbow room or the desire to be seen as an individual rather than part of a group.

Whatever the reason, we often notice the tree that stands alone in the landscape. Much as we often notice the individual who lives their life in the way they choose. Those who march to the beat of a different drum.

That’s seems like a perfect segue into a song to complete today’s triad. The song is Different Drum which, as many might know, was a hit record for Linda Ronstadt with the Stone Poneys in 1967. However, the song was written by Michael Nesmith in 1964, a few years before he became best known as the droll, stocking-capped guitarist for The Monkees. It was originally recorded by a bluegrass group, The Greenbriar Boys, in 1964 though the song was performed much in the same way as the later Ronstadt/Stone Poneys version. Nesmith recorded it in 1972 and it has a more folkie, bluegrassy sound. I like it a lot.

It’s its own thing. Like the Red Tree, it stands apart from the forest.

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Evercool— Coming to Little Gems, West End Gallery

One of the many suppressed longings of creation which cry after fulfilment is for neglected joys within reach; while we are busy pursuing chimerical impossibilities we famish our lives… The emptiness left by easy joys, untasted, is ever growing in my life. And the day may come when I shall feel that, could I but have the past back, I would strive no more after the unattainable, but drain to the full these little, unsought, everyday joys which life offers.

–Rabindranath Tagore, Glimpses of Bengal (1921)

The painting at the top is new, an 8″ by 8″ piece on wood panel that is headed to the West End Gallery in the next week for inclusion in the annual Little Gems exhibit. The title for this painting is Evercool.

I think the strength in this piece comes in its contrasts. It feels cool yet there is considerable underlying warmth. It has motion yet it also possesses great stillness. It feels dark yet has much light.

Just little joys.

Appropriate for a Little Gems show. This year marks my 30th Little Gems exhibit at the West End Gallery. My first, in 1995, was my first experience showing my work in public. At that point, I had no idea that I could possibly do this as a way of life and that decades later my life would center around this work. But that’s the way things turned out and now I can’t imagine doing anything but this.

Another little joy.

For this week’s Sunday Morning Music, I chose a song that may not completely mesh with this painting and the always wise words of Rabindranath Tagore. It’s an acoustic version of the old Procul Harum song, A Whiter Shade of Pale, from Dave Matthews while on an appearance on the Howard Stern show. It’s a lovely version.

You know, now that I think about it, maybe this performance does fit in. It has a very bittersweet feel– much like that produced by the contrasts in Evercool.

Another little joy on a bleak, cold winter Sunday morning. All we can hope for.

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