Call of the Blue Moon– Coming to Principle Gallery, June 2024
He who Doubts from what he sees
Will neer Believe do what you Please
If the Sun & Moon should Doubt
They’d immediately Go out
—William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
My annual solo exhibit at the Principle Gallery opens in 6 weeks, on June 14. One of the first pieces I completed for this exhibit, my 25th such show at the Alexandria, Virginia gallery, is this larger painting, a 36″ by 36″ canvas called Call of the Blue Moon.
It’s a piece that has been catching my eye for several months here in the studio, one that always seems to calm and center me when self-doubt seems overwhelming.
It possesses a coolness and clarity that is a balm for my doubts.
I’ve been needing to look at it quite often recently.
And an air of certainty. It seems to me like a place where there is no room for doubt. It depicts a cold and barren landscape where any doubt could be lethal. Yet it has a beauty and underlying warmth that transcends its harshness.
Maybe that is its simple message, that life is often harsh and dangerous yet still offers us beauty and tenderness. And hope.
Perhaps hope is that blue moon.
It just might be but you may well see it differently. As it should be.
Here’s a song to go along with this piece, though I am not sure it fully syncs with it. It’s a song I like that I was listening to this morning as I began writing this. I came across the music of the Yoshida Brothers a few years back. They are a duo playing the traditional Japanese shamisen, a three-stringed that sort of looks like a square banjo which is played by plucking or slamming the strings with a plectrum that looks kind a scraper. The Yoshida Brothers have a very eclectic sound that mixes traditional Japanese music and sounds many other musical influences. I sometimes hear Celtic or Bluegrass influences in some of their pieces and hard rock and electronica in others. This is Overland Blues.
Redtree Times 