Redtree Times

King of the Night Forest — At West End Gallery

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

–John Muir, July 1890

I have mentioned that one of the things I like best about doing work for the annual Little Gems exhibit at the West End Gallery is that I get to work on new themes and directions. The smaller format is ideal for exploring new things– different color combinations, compositions, elements, etc. Over the 31 editions of  this show, some once new things have become regular visitors to my work where others have been limited to their one and only appearance.

This year’s show has one distinctly different entry– actually, two paintings of the same sort– to the body of my work. I very much enjoyed working on these and found myself looking at them constantly after they were done. If that means they will become part of my regular rotation for years to come or are simply a one-time entry for this time remains to be seen.

Some of my favorite themes had limited lifespans within the body of my work. Of course, I always reserve the right to revisit these themes in the future so they may not be really finished within the body of my work. Just paused. For example, my popular Archaeology series flourished for a year or two then moved to a place within my body of work where it shows itself every few years. And even then, it only appears in a handful of new pieces, maybe only two or three.

Sometimes, it simply depends on what I need to see in the work for myself. This work starts off as being explicitly for myself. While I might be pleased if others take to them, it doesn’t really matter to me so long as they spark some sort of excitement within me that can I carry with me into my other work.

There are two distinct pieces from this show that fall into this category. I don’t know where they fit yet or if they will become regular visitors. Or maybe they will become regulars that will never be shown outside my studio. Work for me alone.

The jury is still out on this new work. I like these new pieces a lot. They excite me, both in the process and in the way they carry their own different story and mythology. Maybe I need that new mythos right now in order to make sense of the bizarreness of what I see unfolding here recently. It leaves me feeling me more alone than ever and even more unmoored, as though the past I thought I knew and relied on was no more. 

Kind of like that feeling of which George Orwell wrote in 1984:

He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable.

Maybe I simply needed to see something different, something with its own reality, its own history and mythology. This work seems to fit that bill. Whether it remains it another question. I could see them effectively translated as much larger work– 4′ by 4′, for example. It would make for a dramatic and bold statement. But whether I go that route is unknown right now.

The first of these paintings is shown above. It is a little over 6″ by 6″ on paper and I call it King of the Night Forest. The title came from when I used to walk in the dark down to my home from my first studio that was up in the woods. I often did that walk without a flashlight or without any visible lights to guide me and found that the forest took on a whole different character in that darkness. Every sensation, every sound, every smell was magnified as I felt my way down the hill with my feet. Where I could peer deep into the forest during the day, I was now met with a deep blanket of opaque blackness.

The imagination could run wild. Maybe there were eyes watching from just beyond that wall of darkness? Maybe some being I didn’t recognize who only came out when the dimension of blackness. Maybe a whole civilization that lived in a dimension just a shade beyond our own, so near that in those dark moments when I found myself rubbing up against their dimension they could observe me. Maybe they were wondering what sort of strange beast was moving their space.

Perhaps one of those times it was the King of the Night Forest watching me slowly make my way in the blackness. 

I began these faces because they allow me to use pattern and color in their making. It really doesn’t feel much different to me than the process I often use in creating some of my landscapes that incorporate more colors, shapes, and patterns than is typical for my work. It is only the form and the narrative that emerges that is different. 

Where it goes from here, I don’t know. For now, it satisfies something with me that was in need of something new.

This painting, King of the Night Forest, and the other which I will show here in the coming days are available at the West End Gallery as part of this year’s Little Gems exhibit. The show officially opens Friday, February 7 but the work is now in the gallery and available for previews. 

I didn’t have a song in mind for this painting but right now, I feel like hearing Patti Smith and her 1978 collaboration with Bruce Springsteen, Because the Night.

Maybe it fits. If not here, maybe in the Night Forest.