Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras
With the calm of a tree…
That says it all for me.
I look forward to the night now in a way that I never did when I was younger. It’s much like the passage above from the memoir of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. That time when day is done and tasks are either complete or set aside.
Time to clear the mind and regroup– to reassemble my fragmentary self and prepare for the mental reorganization that comes in dreaming.
And all with the calm of a tree.
I can’t imagine that having any appeal for me as a young person who restlessly wanted to get to the next thing quickly. However, I now look forward to the end of each day. It feels right. Grounded– like the roots of that same calm tree.
And that’s good enough for me.
And to tie thing up neatly, here’s a longtime favorite Leonard Cohen song, Night Comes On.
We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail.
–Anand Giridharadas, The Ink, January 15, 2021
Taking a bit of a break since the West End Gallery show came down and wasn’t planning on writing anything this morning. But I saw Anand Giridharadas this morning on the tube speaking of the Harris/Walz campaign as being the politics of anti-inflammation, that they were normal, caring people whose inclusive stances stand as the direct antithesis to the uncaring, divisive, and inflammatory rhetoric coming from that other guy. He pointed out that we have had a decade or more beset by this sort of inflammatory fever and their campaign seems to serve as a balm of sorts.
I liked that. It reminded me of another article from Giridharadas that I featured here back in early 2021, in the week before the Biden inauguration. That article still seems pertinent today so I thought I’d share it again, as is.
The words above are the final line in a what I believe to be a brilliant essay from writer Anand Giridharadas that was posted a couple of days ago on his blog, The.Ink that bears the heading We are falling on our face because we are jumping high. I hope you’ll click on the link and read this short essay.
In it, he observes that the chaos that we are experiencing is not the chaos that often comes with the beginning of something but is actually the sort that comes with an ending. I have also felt for years that we were watching of the death throes of a certain type of power and control, that those who were predominantly white and male felt they were entitled.
We are falling on our face because we are jumping very high right now. We are trying to do something that does not work in theory.
To be a country of all the world, a country made up of all the countries, a country without a center of identity, without a default idea of what a human being is or looks like, without a shared religious belief, without a shared language that is people’s first language at home. And what we’re trying to do is awesome. It is literally awesome in the correct sense of that word.
This is one of my favorite passages from this essay. To be the country we desire it to be, one that offers equal hope for each of its citizens, is enormously difficult and unlike anything ever done. No nation has ever aspired to so diversely share its rights and governance among all the groups that make up its citizenry.
There are massive challenges and it will not be easy. And in a nation whose default setting is easy, that means we will have to do much more than that which we normally are accustomed to doing. We will have to work and scrap, to strain far beyond what we believe our limits to be.
But if it succeeds, we all benefit, all boats are lifted and we all become part and parcel of something great, something unique in human history.
Something of which we can all truly be proud.
Please give Mr. Giridharadas’ essay a read. It is short but potently hopeful. Definitely worth a few minutes.
For this week’s Sunday Morning Music [this was a Sunday in January, 2021], I am going with a recent tune, Tough to Let Go, from the Drive-By Truckers, whose last couple of albums have been dark and timely. I think it says a lot about what we are seeing in the chaos of this struggle between those who look to the future and those who want to hold onto an imagined past. Our beliefs, even when we can see that they defy logic and fact, are sometimes tough to leave behind. They continue to haunt us and dictate our actions until we can fully separate ourselves from them.
I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expect everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate good…. If we will take the good we find,… we shall have heaping measures….
–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience
Today is the last day to see this year’s edition of my annual solo show, Persistent Rhythm, at the West End Gallery.
It’s always a little bittersweet at the end of any show, seeing the work come off the walls. You wish it could stay up longer, of course. Or that certain pieces had garnered more attention. Or that you could have changed one thing or another or said something different at some time in the gallery.
But it’s also a time to look back on the show with a sense of pride and gratitude. Pride in the sense that I feel that I have done my very best and that each piece in the show well represents what I hope shows through in my work.
The gratitude is for the opportunity to do what I do. Gratitude for those who follow my work and support me. Gratitude for the gallery owners, such as Jesse Gardner at the West End Gallery, who have graciously given me the opportunity to showcase my work. Gratitude for the opportunity to express myself in the way I want.
Yeah, it feels a little sad when a show ends but it also highlights how fortunate I have been to even have a show in the first place.
And that is, in the words of Emerson, one of those small mercies.
And thank you for reading along. Much appreciated.
Now get out of here before I poke you with a stick…
How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
–Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900)
At the Gallery Talk for my show at the West End Gallery, I mentioned that I wanted to be a writer as a young person. Painting wasn’t even on the table at that time. I said that I was never really a great storyteller, that my writing seemed to always find its way to describing wide open spaces and the silences contained in them.
Not the most fertile ground for great narratives.
I realized at some point that writing would never be the vehicle for carrying whatever it was that I had a need to get across to others. It might have been that my skills were lacking to describe things that were beyond words. Things in the atmosphere, things that we only sense on a subconscious level.
Years later, I found that painting best filled my needs. I found that it was easier to create a meaning for space and silence visually rather than with words that sometimes felt inelegant and insufficient. Painting certainly got my point across more specifically and succinctly than the plodding paragraphs I was producing.
It created a means of access for people other than me to those inaudible feelings and purposes, as Dreiser called them above, in a way that I could never achieve with my writing.
Painting has definitely been more satisfying for me.
It gets me there.
And that’s all I can ask of it.
The painting at the top is a good example of what I am talking about. It would be hard for me to put together a readable and interesting narrative that would fully describe what I sense in this piece with a glance.
Its vague shadows and light say more than many thousands of my words.
The painting is a 30″ by 48″ canvas titled The Blue Moon Calls. It was a late addition to my Persistent Rhythm solo show at the West End Gallery. The show ends at the end of the day tomorrow, Thursday, August 29.
Between the Sea and the Sun— Now at West End Gallery
I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation. In my own very self, I am part of my family. There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the water.
– D.H. Lawrence, Apocalypse, 1930
Just a reminder that there only THREE DAYS left to see my solo exhibit, Persistent Rhythm, at the West End Gallery in Corning. The show comes down at the end of the day this Thursday, August 29th.
I am proud of the work in this show and feel it might well be one of my most cohesive shows, meaning that I didn’t feel as though there was a drop off in quality or expressiveness throughout the group. Each piece had its own lifeforce, its own message, that added to the group as a whole.
I’ve always adhered to the paint the paintings you want to see theory which basically means that there are things you have a need to see in art sometimes that you’re not seeing so it’s up to you to create them. That was pretty much why I began painting and it holds true to this very day. I think this show exemplifies that idea. This show has an overall feel and look that is what I have hoped to come across in the past in looking at the work of others.
Something that would satisfy a need inside me. Feed the soul, as it were.
And it does. Plus, it just looks damn good to my eye. But that’s just me, of course.
Here’s a tune from an artist of which you most likely are unaware. His name is Davy Graham who died in 2008 at the age of 68. He was a British folk/Baroque guitarist who had a style of playing that made him very influential among players in the 1960’s, Paul Simon, Richard Thompson, and Jimmy Page among them. I thought the song below, Rif Mountain, lined up well with the painting at the top from my show and the passage from D.H. Lawrence below it.
What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.
–Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931-1934)
I think this passage from The Diary of Anaïs Nin fits the painting above from my current show at the West End Gallery very well. The way I read this piece, titled White in the Moon, is that it is about the figure in the foreground revisiting their past.
The house, along with the tree, represents their childhood and their early home while the path from it symbolizes the road they have followed away from that place and time. The fields through the path winds represents the patchwork of memory and experience that has brought them to this point from which they now look back.
The light from the moon brings it all alive. It reminds me of an animation I once saw of how the brain works. It pointed out that certain thoughts and memories awaken parts of the brain which was illustrated by that part of the brain suddenly glowing with light.
Maybe that is how memory of our past works– as though we are shining a light on it so that we may get a better look at it.
Nin points out that while we carry the past with us in the form of memories and experiences, we are not anchored by it. We are free to move beyond this past, as well as any other thing that be used to hold us in place such as those she mentions– race, inheritance and background.
Yes, we carry these things of our past with us. Yes, they have shaped our feelings and define us to a degree. But only to a degree. We should live as evolving creatures, continuously adding new experiences and perspectives.
While we may look back at that childhood home from which we came from time to time, it is no longer our home. We now live in a different time and place as a very much changed being.
Examining how we came to be this version of ourselves, to see how the various parts fell into place, allows us to set a course forward, to choose how we may change even more. That can be a scary prospect for some, especially for those who have anchored themselves to the past, but it can be a liberating and expansive feeling.
The road that runs away from our past can be very much open to us. We just to make conscious decisions to follow it forward.
I hope this makes sense since I am clicking the publish button without rereading it. White in the Moon is 18″ by 24″ on canvas and is part of my Persistent Rhythm show at the West End Gallery. The exhibit comes down after the end of the day on this Thursday, August 29.
Here’s what I believe is a fitting piece of music for this post as well as a lovely way to start your week. It’s from contemporary composer Max Richter and is titled She Remembers.
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
― Kahlil Gibran, Mirrors of the Soul
I cry quite often.
I am sure there was a time when I would not admit to this., possibly seeing it as a sign of weakness. As I age, I find myself becoming more transparent Less guarded and less caring of the opinions of others. I have come to see it simply as a part of being human. Certainly nothing to hide.
Like most everyone, I cry at sorrow and loss, such as those times when I miss my parents or grandparents. But I never cry for myself as I once did as very young child.
Certainly, never out of pity for myself or at those all too often instances when I have hurt myself. I learned long ago that that kind of crying didn’t change a thing and just wasted the time needed to get things straightened out. Actually, when things go wrong for me, I usually react with laughter. It helps more than you know. Much more satisfying, that’s for sure.
But I cry a lot. At beauty. At wonder. At the inherent power in goodness and love. At the courage and righteousness of those defiant few that confront hatred and injustice. At the sacrifices made by regular people to help others. At unexpected kindnesses offered. At those moments of feeling attached to all deep feelings. At things that make me absolutely joyous.
I cry sometimes simply at seeing the pure happiness of others.
There are passages in literature and music that instantly bring me to tears. And so many scenes from films. Henry Fonda‘s final scene in The Grapes of Wrath always makes me cry. I also tear up every single time I see the Marsellaise scene from the famous scene in Casablanca where the patrons at Rick’s Cafe drown out the singing Nazis there with their singing of the French national anthem. I am not exactly a Francophile, but that reaction has transferred to just hearing the Marsellaise anytime. Several times during the Olympics. There’s a defiant boldness in it that speaks to whatever it that triggers my tears.
I was brought to tears seeing Gus Walz, the 17-year-old son of vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz, at this past week’s Democratic National Convention openly sob and cry out “That’s my dad!” as his father came to the stage to thunderous applause. It was such an authentic moment of pure joy, pride, and love. It made me like Tim Walz even more because someone who inspires that kind of public outburst of love from their children is obviously a good and loving parent and person.
I also envied him. I can’t think of anyone who would be crying with that kind of love or joy for me in that instance.
Those on the rightwing immediately attacked the younger Walz for his very human display of emotion. It was predictable and right on point for that party as it is now constituted. Cruelty and mockery are among their trademarks now and any recognition of the human qualities of empathy, kindness, and caring is absent. All I could think is how pitiful and awful these people have become. They lack love and warmth for humanity and, as a result, will never know or even imagine the kind of love that would inspire such a reaction from their children.
It is a sad commentary on how that party has transformed in recent decades. I would choose Gus’ raw human emotions over their joyless and ugly cruelty anytime.
Okay, that’s off my chest. Thanks, if you read this far. Here’s this week’s Sunday Morning Music selection. It’s a great performance by k.d. lang of the song Crying from a tribute to Roy Orbison soon after he died. She had performed a wonderful duet with Orbison of this song before.
I can’t say this brought me to tears but there are moments here where she has me in absolute awe. Maybe a tear or two, I don’t know.
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
—-Henry David Thoreau
A little tired this morning. Stayed up quite late watching an engrossing program on the television. Thought provoking and hope inspiring. Woke up this morning still thinking about and found myself wanting to look at some great Japanese prints of ocean waves, blue and unrelenting. In that vein, thought I’d share this older post featuring some of my favorite Japanese prints from the 19th century this morning, mainly from Hokusai and Hiroshige. The one above, TheGreat Wave from Hokusai, is undeniably the most iconic of all Japanese prints.
With their great rhythm, harmony, and force, I could look at these pieces continuously and never feel like I’ve looked enough.
As for the symbolism of these waves today, you can plug in whatever meaning pleases you.
I know what it means for me today– with an increasing bit of hope for the future.
Hokusai- Feminine/Male Wave Kammachi Festival Float Ceiling Panels
Feminine Wave – From Float Panel Hokusai
Hokusai
Hokusai
Hiroshige- Navaro Rapids
Hiroshige- Sea Off Satta Point
Hiroshige-The Wave 1859
Hokusai- View of Honmoku off Kanagawa
19th Century Japaneses Woodblock -Artist Not Indicated
When whippoorwills call and evening is nigh I hurry to my blue heaven Just a turn to the right, you’ll find a little white light Will lead you to my Blue Heaven
–Walter Donaldson, My Blue Heaven, 1924
Not going to say much this morning. Just basking in blue this morning. In a good way. Not in the I got the blues kind of way. More in the sense of other more positive ways attached to the color. Like its symbolism for a certain political party. Or true blue, which indicates loyalty and truthfulness. The color also represents the freedom of open spaces such as the sky and the sea and as well as intuition, imagination, expansiveness, inspiration, and sensitivity. There’s an interesting site, colorpsychology.org, that gives greater insight to the color blue, along with all the other colors of the spectrum.
I am showing a painting above, Passing Through Blue, that has the feel of blue in the more positive sense of the word. It’s part of my solo show, Persistent Rhythm, that is currently on display at the West End Gallery in Corning. Just a reminder that the show ends a week from today, on August 29, so time is fleeting if you want to see it.
Here’s a song that I have played here before that kind of sums up the better aspects of the color blue. It’s a version of My Blue Heaven from Norah Jones. The song was written by Walter Donaldson and originally performed as part of the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. Most of us mainly remember the Fats Domino version which was a hit for him in the 1950’s.
Okay, give a listen if you so desire. Then look to your own blue heaven and stay blue.
If I write what I feel, it’s to reduce the fever of feeling. What I confess is unimportant, because everything is unimportant.
–Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
I came across this passage in The Book of Disquiet from Fernando Pessoa. I have written about Pessoa in the past here and this book sits on a stonewall in my studio where I can pick it up at any time to browse its always compelling contents.
This particular passage immediately struck a chord with me, from the standpoint of writing as well as from that of my painting.
Both often come about because of a need to release and express those welled-up emotions that come from an existence based mainly on feeling. A need to have my say, even though in both cases I understand that my feelings and my expressions of them are of little consequence.
I sometimes wonder if I feel too much, experience too much of an emotional response to too many things. But trying to repress my feeling only creates a dam where every feeling is deposited. The feeling is not reduced, just unreleased.
And the fever builds.
And the only way to reduce this fever of feeling, as Pessoa states, is to write. Or paint, in my other case. Maybe I am fortunate to have two ways to break this fever. Or maybe I simply need both in order to fully do so.
But I know, as Pessoa also points out, that my expressions mean little in the long run. Ultimately, I am just a little person filled with many– maybe too many– feelings.
And that begs the question: Can you have too many feelings?
I don’t know. I can only recognize what exists inside myself. That is all I know so it is a normal state of being for me. It’s like experiences in your childhood that seemed perfectly normal because that was all you knew but when you see that others had vastly different experiences, you begin to wonder.
Redtree Times 