Blaze— Now at Principle Gallery
Each minute bursts in the burning room,
The great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning the trivial and unique away.
(How all things flash! How all things flare!)
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.
—Delmore Schwartz, Calmly We Walk Through This April’s Day (1937)
The last week has been a real test of my resolve. As noted here in the past, there is always a substantial letdown in the weeks after any opening. It feels like a bout of depression, deep and dark. Fortunately, I have come to recognize it as being short-lived which makes tolerating it much easier.
However, coupling this with the pressure of a looming deadline for my upcoming West End Gallery show and high temperatures and humidity that I don’t tolerate well leaves me feeling exhausted.
My get up and go has got up and gone.
Fortunately, I have been able to maintain focus in my work. It’s been a struggle. I sometimes feel like I have to bind myself to my easel like Odysseus lashing himself to his ship’s mast to resist the Sirens’ song and destroy his ship on the rocks of their island. There have been many days recently when I would love to follow the Sirens’ song anywhere but here. But I remain bound to my easel (interestingly, the main support on the easel is called a mast) and the enticement fades in the distance and the resulting work has been all I could ask for.
I thought I would share the one older piece from my current Principle Gallery show. It is a 2014 painting titled Blaze. From the very moment it came off my easel it has been a favorite of mine. It hits on every mark for me and still gives me a tremendous feeling of satisfaction when I look at it. It just feels right. Complete and alive. It reminds me that our energy and enthusiasm are a burning fire that constantly needs to be fueled. Once that flame has went out, rekindling it is a difficult thing.
The fact that it has never found a home has been vexing so I decided to show it once more in the new larger frame I introduced this year that has an architectural feel, as though you are viewing the work through columns or pillars. Like it was in a temple of some sort.
I am including this painting that is special to me along and the final verse of a 1937 poem from poet Delmore Schwarz (Lou Reed was his student at Syracuse University and was influenced by his work) that ends with a line–Time is the fire in which we burn— that serves as a refrain throughout the poem.
Because I am hoping that today’s triad of image, word and song serves to fuel my own flame, I am also including Whoop and Hollar from Ray Wylie Hubbard. Hubbard wrote another favorite of mine, Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother, for the late Jerry Jeff Walker (who is from Oneonta, by the way) in 1973. If this song doesn’t get your fire cooking you best look for the kerosene or something.
Your pilot light be out.
Now get the hell out of here. My flame is starting to rage and you might get burnt.
Redtree Times 