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Archive for April, 2025

The Wisdom Beyond Words

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 30, 2025| 3 Comments »

The Wisdom Beyond Words– Coming to Principle Gallery, June 2025

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s Thought and Art within me, speaking as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom.

— Thomas Merton, Hagia Sophia (1961)

I was looking for something to accompany the new painting shown here, The Wisdom Beyond Words, and came across this passage from Thomas Merton. It’s the opening section of his prose poem Hagia Sophia written sometime around 1961.  Though it speaks through the dogma of Catholicism, it matches very well the belief system I somewhat laid out here a week or so back. As it often is with most religions, the underlying structure and belief is very much the same idea but with symbols, stories, and representations that reflect cultural differences. 

In short, this passage captured in words what I see and sense in this painting. It could very well be used to describe the theme of my Entanglement exhibit that opens June 13 at the Principle Gallery, which I have described as being how everything is contained in small part in every other thing. Much as it is in the theory put forward by Stephen Hawking that when a star dies it collapses into itself until it is finally a single tiny point of zero radius, infinite density, and infinite curvature of spacetime at the heart of the black hole formed from the star’s collapse. A single point of immense mass and energy This was referred to as a Singularity. 

Hawking looked at this singularity and wondered since this was the end point of star’s death could it not also be the starting point for future new universes that might emerge if this singularity were to explode outward– the Big Bang Theory.

The underlying thought is that the universe and all that it is was once a single thing before the Big Bang created all that we know the universe to be now from that single point.

We were all part of one thing. We were that one thing.

And it’s that unity and wisdom of all things, much like that of which Merton wrote, that I sense in this painting. 

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Van Gogh: The Pictures I Might Have Made…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 29, 2025| 3 Comments »

Vincent Van Gogh- Memory of the Garden at Etten (1888)

My aim in life is to make pictures and drawings, as many and as well as I can; then, at the end of my life… looking back with love and tender regret, and thinking, ‘Oh, the pictures I might have made!’ But this does not exclude making what is possible…

–Vincent Van Gogh, Letter to Theo van Gogh, 19 November 1883

Love this painting from Vincent Van Gogh with its wonderful color and the abstraction of the forms that comes from eliminating the horizon line. It was a piece that came to mind when I ran across this passage from Van Gogh. The words reminded me of something else, a thought that has been on my mind in recent times.

I was asked at my Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery this past September [2019] if I ever had thoughts of retiring from my painting career. I think I made a bit of a joke about it, saying that I couldn’t afford to retire and would no doubt die while working away at a painting.

And that’s most likely true. I couldn’t imagine ever saying I am done as a painter.

It goes back to Van Gogh’s words above. I still see my artistic future brighter than my past, still envision important projects and better works to come. I still see my best work as being in the future, not dwelling in the distant past.

I can’t imagine that feeling ever changing. I can see myself on the day of my death, if I am capable of taking a moment to reflect on that day, will have that same regret that Van Gogh expressed: Oh, the pictures I might have made!

That being said, I must get to work. I am not retired yet and there are pictures to be made. The future is calling.

I have a few things that need to be done so I am running the post above from five years back. There are a couple of things to add to this post. The Van Gogh quote was taken from a wonderful letter to his brother, Theo, that addresses another question that has often hung with me over the years, that being whether or not I am an artist. I like Van Gogh’s answer that he would rather spend his time thinking about painting than using it to worry about labels or what he might or might not be. That’s pretty much where I have ended up after all these years, not giving a damn what label other might pin on me. I used to worry about whether I deserved to call myself an artist or even what to call whatever style my work might be. I’ll just do what I do and let others sort it out for themselves, if that’s what they want to do.

Let’s also add a song to this mashup. Here’s a song from Leonard Cohen (yay, Canada!) that I have shared a couple of times but by other artists. They were great covers from Willie Nelson and Tom Jones. I loved both but there’s often nothing like the original thing.

Okay. Got to run– the future is still calling…

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Waiting For the End of the World

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Waiting For the End of the World – At Principle Gallery, June 2025

Someone called from across the water
‘Are you coming off that island soon?’
I hollered back
‘No, not yet—
I’m waiting for the end of the world.’
Then I turned back to watch the sky
As its currents and clouds
Surged and volleyed
In every way we know
And some we don’t know
And I thought to myself
With the sky racing around me
‘What a fine day it is–
Waiting for the end of the world.’

At the West End Gallery painting demo this past Saturday, someone asked when I titled my paintings, if I ever had title in mind as I worked on a piece. I said that generally it came after the painting was complete, when it was fully formed and whatever it was going to say was written on its surface. I didn’t say it quite that way, of course. 

I added to my answer and spoke about the painting at the top, a small 6″ by 12″ canvas, that is headed to the Principle Gallery for my June show there. I described that, while painting this piece, the verse above came into my head and was all I could think of as I worked. Shifting colors and words, it was a strange collaboration of thoughts for me, as I simultaneously edited and adjusted both the painting and the verse as I worked.

It made the words and the image bind one to the other in my mind.

Now, I realize the title may not seem compatible with the painting at first glance. I initially worried that the title was out of step with the theme of my upcoming show, Entanglement, which is about the unity of all energies and the idea that there is no beginning or end.

But what I see in the painting is a kind of tranquil acceptance of whatever hand fate deals in the here and now. An acceptance that allows you to recognize and appreciate the beauty of this moment and place.

A feeling of oneness with the universe, realizing that the end of the world is not the end of being. 

And that thought is completely in line with the theme of the show.

It’s a simple piece that packs a lot into a small space. But sometimes even the tiniest of things contain all that makes up this universe. As do we all.

Here’s song that I shared about five years back. It’s Push the Sky Away from a 2019 performance at the Sydney Opera House by Nick Cave, pianist Warren Ellis and the Sydney Philharmonic Orchestra. The song was originally from Nick Cave with the Bad Seeds.

Okay, that’s the end. No, not of the world– just this blog post.

But glimpsing out the window, it looks like a fine day to be waiting for the end of the world.

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Thanks!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 27, 2025| 2 Comments »

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

–G. K. Chesterton, A Short History of England (1917)

Many, many, many thanks to everyone who came out yesterday morning for the painting demonstration I gave at the West End Gallery. I know how precious time is so the idea that such a lovely group of people chose to spend a good portion of their Saturday watching me work blows me away. It was wonderful group that was attentive, inquisitive, gracious, and fun, with friends coming from as far away as Toronto, Syracuse and Binghamton for the event. 

I was nervous at the prospect of painting in front of a group, but these folks quickly alleviated my jitters with their easy laughter and questions.  I started the demo with a 12″ by 16″ canvas that had been prepped with multiple layers of gesso then a final layer of deep purple paint. Since I was determined to get as far into the painting as I could during the demo I painted faster than I normally would in the studio. I had decided that I would employ a blockish style in the sky that I sometimes use as it would get maximum surface coverage in the shortest time. The blocks were slapped in in multiple colors that often had a flat appearance to me at first.  That would be rectified in subsequent layers.

I had a vague idea of how I would compose the landscape below the sky but that was thrown out the window as I worked. Adjusting on the fly is often the case with my work. I opted for a simpler landscape with patchwork fields that is seen in much of my work. I asked the group if they would prefer the landscape with hills in the distance and they said yes to that. I blocked those in and then began shaping the landscape with payer of lighter colors.

I hustled along and finally decide to finish up with the prerequisite Red Tree. Of course, I had inadvertently forgot to pack the particular red that has been the staple for my red trees for the past 25 years. But as I said, art is seldom done under perfect conditions and often requires working with what is at hand. I ended up using a crimson that was a little heavier bodied and darker than I would normally use.

Without getting into all the details, the piece was more or less finished after a little before 1 PM. I was as surprised as anyone. I hadn’t anticipated getting anywhere near completion on this painting.

All in all, I am very pleased with the result. The image at the top shows how the demo piece turned out. Though it has a look of completion, it needs a bit of work before I would call it done. There are a number of areas in it that need to be refined and just looking at the painting now I see a number of small changes and adjustments that will be made. That includes reshaping and repainting the crown of the Red Tree which is not quite as expressive as I would like. As I said, I was hurrying a bit at the end in order to get to some form of completion.

All in all, I think the demo went well. I think it gave some insight into how this type of my work comes about and how creative decisions are made along the way in making any piece. It showed how the work seldom if ever proceeds in a straight line from beginning to end and that it is the ability to adjust and adapt that transforms a piece. 

Thank you once more for everyone that showed up yesterday. You made my task much easier and, while I can’t speak for you, you made it fun for me. And as fun is sometimes a rare commodity these days, I really appreciate that part of yesterday.

And a special Thank You to Jesse and Lin at the West End Gallery for coaxing me out of my cave for the day. Maybe we will do it again sometime in the future. Maybe with the other style, the wet work in transparent inks, that I began my career with. We’ll see…

Here’s this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s Bonnie Raitt’s cover of Thank You (that fits the theme here, right?) which was written by Isaac Hayes and famously recorded by the great Sam & Dave.

Thank you!

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Painting Demo Today!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I am giving a painting demonstration this morning at the West End Gallery in Corning. It begins at 10 AM and ends somewhere between noon and 1 PM. I realize that most folks will not be able to make it to the gallery today so I thought it might not be a bad idea to share a blog post from a number of years back, from early 2013, that gives a glimpse into how I work, though it doesn’t show the entire process from start to finish. For today’s demo, the painting I will be working on will be smaller than this and will be a simpler composition that will hopefully allow me to get further along in the process in the allotted time.

There will be other differences, of course, but you will have to be at the West End Gallery this morning to see that. The doors open at 9:45 so that attendees can claim a seat, which are limited in number, if they wish. Or they can stand and go back and forth between the artists that will be giving demos today. I will be painting on the 2nd floor of the gallery and painter Gina Pfleegor will be in the Main Gallery beginning at 10 AM. We will be joined around 11 AM by Trish Coonrod who will be working on the 2nd floor with me. And at 2 PM watercolorist Judy Soprano comes in take over and finish out the day. It should be informative, interesting, and maybe even a little bit of fun. Hope you can make it!

gc-myers-feb-2013-1

This is a new piece that I started over the weekend.  It’s a fairly large canvas, 24″ by 48″, covered with layers of gesso then blackened before I began to lay out the composition in the red oxide that I favor for the underpainting. I went into this painting with only one idea, that it have a mass of houses on a small hilltop. That is where I began making marks, building a small group of blocky structures in a soft pyramid. A little hilltop village. From there, it went off on its own, moving down the hill until a river emerged from the black. An hour or two later and the river is the end of a chain of lakes with a bridge crossing it. We’ll see where and what it is when it finally settles.

I like this part of the process, this laying out of the composition. It’s all about potential and problem-solving, keeping everything, all the elements that are introduced, in rhythm and in balance. One mark on the canvas changes the possibility for the next. Sometimes that possibility is limited by that mark, that brush of paint. There is only one thing that can be done next. But sometimes it opens up windows of potential that seemed hidden before that brushstroke hit the surface. It’s like that infinitesimal moment before the bat hits the pinata and all that is inside it is only potential. That brushstroke is the bat sometimes and when it strikes the canvas, you never know what will burst from the rich interior of the pinata, which is the surface of the canvas here. You hope the treats fall your way.

One of the things I thought about as I painted was the idea of keeping everything in balance. Balancing color and rhythm and compositional weight, among many other things, so that in the end something coherent and cohesive emerges. It’s how I view the process of my painting. Over the years, keeping this balance becomes easier, like any action that is practiced with such great regularity. So much so that we totally avoid problems and when we begin to encounter one, we always tend to go with the tried and true, those ways of doing things that are safest and most predictable in their results.

It’s actually a perfectly fine and safe way to live. But as a painter who came to it as a form of seeking, it’s the beginning of the end. And as I painted, I realized that many of my biggest jumps as an artist came because I had allowed myself at times to be knocked off balance. It’s when you are off balance that the creativity of your problem-solving skills is pushed and innovation occurs.

It brings to mind a quote from Helen Frankenthaler that I used in a blogpost called Change and Breakthrough from a few years back: “There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.”  

 You must be willing to go outside your comfort zone, be willing to crash and burn. Without this willingness to fail, the work becomes stagnant and lifeless, all the excitement taken from the process. And it’s that excitement in the studio that I often speak of that keeps me going, that keeps the work alive and vitalized.

It’s a simple thing but sometimes, after years of doing this, it slips your mind and the simple act of reminding yourself of the importance of willingly going off balance is all you need to rekindle the fire.

This is a lot to ponder at 5:30 in the morning. We’ll see what this brings in the near future.  Stay tuned…

gc-myers-feb-2013gc-myers-feb-2013-wipgc-myers-feb-2013-2wipgc-myers-game-of-life-small

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Contradictions: Reality/Unreality

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Between the Sea and the Sun– Now at West End Gallery

Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side.

–Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

I’ve been thinking about contradictions lately, mainly in those contradictions that exist between our perceptions and reality. Most of us can easily see these sorts of contradictions in ourselves. Well, at least I think most of us can. Actually, for all I know, maybe most folks don’t see any difference in how they see themselves and how they really are. That would explain a lot.

But manly I have been thinking about contradiction as it occurs in art. I think the passage above from The Brothers Karamazov articulates this pretty well. Often art creates forms of beauty that challenge us with contradictions between what we know in our mind and what we perceive with our senses.

For my work, it comes in forms, colors, sizes, perspectives, omissions, and other aspects that one knows, when one really considers them, are unreal. They do not or cannot exist in reality in the way they are shown. The contradiction comes in the fact that this unreality is often perceived as a reality by the mind.

I realized this for myself a long time ago. The work always translated as reality to me, whether there were blue treeless hills, brightly colored patchwork fields, giant suns, or trees whose proportions sometimes defied perspective.

It basically straddled the boundary between reality and the totally fantastic, that area where those two contradictory terms meet and coexist. Unreality becomes reality. That area where what the mind knows (or believes) is nonsense begins to make sense.

As I have said in the past at Gallery Talks while groping to explain this, I never questioned the reality of what I painted. It always translated immediately in my mind as being reality.

It just was, despite all evidence to the contrary. The coming together of reality and unreality, which might well be used to define all art.

You know, I wasn’t planning on writing anything this morning and this thing just popped out. I hope it makes sense. Maybe it’s art because in my head it does…

Okay, I have to go get stuff around for tomorrow’s painting demo at the West End Gallery. It begins at 10 AM and goes to around 12 and maybe a little later, depending on how it is going. If it’s going well, I might keep working. If not, I might set the damn thing on fire right then and there. Just kidding– I would take it out of the gallery before setting it ablaze. Hope to see you there!

Here’s a song that caught my eye this morning. I didn’t think I had ever heard of it before, but the chorus made me think I had heard it at least once or twice. It sounded familiar. It’s a 1966 song called Painter Man from a group called The Creation. This group claimed that their music was as much visual as it was musical and sometimes had a member of the group painting while they played on stage.

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Demo Prep/ Sand Dabs, Five

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on April 24, 2025| 2 Comments »

Eye to the Future— At West End Gallery

You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence,
serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but
I’ll take it.

— Mary Oliver, Sand Dabs, Five

I am getting ready for a painting demonstration I am giving on Saturday at the West End Gallery, beginning at 10 AM. This event is part of the Arts in Bloom Art Trail of Chemung and Steuben County which involves open tours of artists’ studios and events such as this in the area’s art galleries.

As I mentioned before, I seldom paint in front of people and am a little self-conscious as a result. Even more so when at one point on Saturday painters Trish Coonrod and Gina Pfleegor will also be showing off their prodigious talents. Both paint in a more traditional manner at a very high level of skill. I think of Trish’s talents as one would of a grandmaster pianist and Gina’s as that of a highly trained operatic soprano or a golden voiced chanteuse.

Me? I think of myself as a guy with an old and out of tune guitar who knows maybe three or four chords. Sings a little off key. What I lack in skill I try to make up for with the 3 E’s— effort, emotion, and earnestness. 

I do whatever it takes to find something on that surface in front of me. It’s kind of like the line at the top from poet Mary Oliver— I’m forever looking for serendipity or, on those special days, grace to show up before me in the paint. There’s a lot of time when its appearance is an uncertainty and it can take some time to coax it out into the open. 

My hope is that it will choose to show up during the few hours I will be working on Saturday. I am still trying to decide if I should have a plan on how or what I will paint or if I should just let serendipity and grace decide for me. I am leaning toward the latter just because that path can sometime be the most exciting.

We’ll see what happens Saturday morning. I am hoping grace shows up for a brief visit.

I am sharing the rest of the Mary Oliver poem, Sand Dabs, Five, from which the line at the top was taken. I think that I could apply much of what it expresses to what I am trying to say as an artist., particularly those final lines.

 

Sand Dabs, Five

Mary Oliver

 

What men build, in the name of security, is built of straw.

*

Does the grain of sand know it is a grain of sand?

*

My dog Ben — a mouth like a tabernacle.

*

You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence,
serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but
I’ll take it.

*

The pine cone has secrets it will never tell.

*

Myself, myself, myself, that darling hut!
How quick it will burn!

*

Death listens
to the hum and strike of my words.
His laughter spills.

*

Spring: there rises up from the earth such a blazing sweetness
it fills you, thank God, with disorder.

*

I am a performing artist; I perform admiration.
Come with me, I want my poems to say. And do the same.

 

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The Communing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 23, 2025| 2 Comments »

The Communing– Coming to Principle Gallery, June

In the spell of the wonderful rhythm of the finite he fetters himself at every step, and thus gives his love out in music in his most perfect lyrics of beauty. Beauty is his wooing of our heart; it can have no other purpose. It tells us everywhere that the display of power is not the ultimate meaning of creation; wherever there is a bit of colour, a note of song, a grace of form, there comes the call for our love. Hunger compels us to obey its behests, but hunger is not the last word for a man. There have been men who have deliberately defied its commands to show that the human soul is not to be led by the pressure of wants and threat of pain. In fact, to live the life of man we have to resist its demands every day, the least of us as well as the greatest. But, on the other hand, there is a beauty in the world which never insults our freedom, never raises even its little finger to make us acknowledge its sovereignty. We can absolutely ignore it and suffer no penalty in consequence. It is a call to us, but not a command. It seeks for love in us, and love can never be had by compulsion. Compulsion is not indeed the final appeal to man, but joy is. And joy is everywhere; it is in the earth’s green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky; in the reckless exuberance of spring; in the severe abstinence of grey winter; in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame; in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright; in living; in the exercise of all our powers; in the acquisition of knowledge; in fighting evils; in dying for gains we never can share. Joy is there everywhere; it is superfluous, unnecessary; nay, it very often contradicts the most peremptory behests of necessity. It exists to show that the bonds of law can only be explained by love; they are like body and soul. Joy is the realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.

––Rabindranath Tagore, Sādhanā: The Realisation of Life (1913)

This is a new painting that is included in Entanglement, this year’s edition of my annual solo exhibit which opens June 13 at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA. This painting while modest in size at 14″ by 14″ speaks volumes about the theme behind much of the work in this show, of which I gave a rough outline in a post here on Monday.

This painting is titled The Communing. and it speaks to, as the great Indian poet/philosopher Rabindranath Tagore put it in the passage above: the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.

This goes back to the concept of singularity, one expounded by Stephen Hawking that theorized that the universe and all that it is was once a single thing, a single tiny point of zero radius and infinite density, before it the Big Bang exploded it and created all that we know the universe to be now.

We were all part of one thing. We were and, for that matter, still are that one thing. A oneness.

That’s what I see in this piece. I see myself as the figure on the rooftop, reaching out to the hidden knowledge of the universe that are represented here by the twists and entanglements of the bands that make up the sky. They create a sense of both mystery and interconnectedness. Of our oneness. They raise questions that can’t be answered while at the same time giving a sense of understanding.

And isn’t that the basis of all belief systems?

This was the first piece that employed these knot-like bands in the sky, and it immediately sparked something within me. It was like I needed to see them and this piece at that point. I have no idea how people will react to this painting and the ones that followed it. But, as I commented to my wife, it doesn’t matter– I needed to paint this now, if only for what I take from it.

It speaks to something needed by me now. And if it speaks or doesn’t speak to others at this time, so be it.

That’s the story of all art, right?

If you like, I’ll see you up on the roof…

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Tango/ Passionata

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Passionata–Now at West End Gallery. Corning

“It’s a tango.” Marco maneuvered me out among the dancers. “I love tangos.” “I can’t dance.” “You don’t have to dance. I’ll do that dancing.” Marco hooked an arm around my waist and jerked me up against his dazzling white suit. Then he said, “Pretend you are drowning.” I shut my eyes, and the music broke over me like a rainstorm. Marco’s leg slid forward against mine and my leg slid back and I seemed to be riveted against him, limb for limb, moving as he moved, without any will or knowledge of my own, and after a while I thought, “It doesn’t take two to dance, it only takes one,” and I let myself blow and bend like a tree in the wind. “What did I tell you?” Marco’s breath scorched my ear. “You’re a perfectly respectable dancer.”

-Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963)

I am busy this morning and was planning on skipping the blog today. But this song, Tango, from jazz great Diane Reeves came on and I immediately felt like it should be shared. It’s a wordless song and for Reeves the composition serves as a sculpture’s underlying armature that she fills in with her improvisational skills. I’ve heard a number of performances of this song and each has its own distinct feel. It is the same song but always unique. It almost feels new each time, and in reality, it is.

I’ve often described my painting in similar terms. There are compositions that I fall back on over and over again, but they are never really the same. There are so many varying and constantly changing factors that go into each piece that I would be hard-pressed to recreate any piece in the same way twice. The color choices change, sometimes subtly and sometimes in much more drastic ways. The textures change. My brushwork changes, often as a result of the change in my brushes as they age from use. What I see as the focus of the painting shifts, sometimes altering everything.

And to top it off, I seldom do anything exactly the same way all the time. This sometimes makes things feel exciting and new in the moment. And sometimes, it can be frustrating. Like so many things in life.

Just wish I could paint as well as Diane Reeves sings.

I have seen this song called Tango du Jour which no doubt is a nod to each performance’s uniqueness. Whatever you want to call it, it’s a tour de force. This is from a 2013 performance in Istanbul.

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Entanglement

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Entanglement— Coming in June to Principle Gallery

So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You’d better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can’t rearrange the universe.

–Isaac Asimov, Nightfall (1941)

 I have been extraordinarily fortunate to have had solo exhibits at the Principle Gallery in Old Town Alexandria, VA every year since 2000. This year’s exhibit, my 26th solo effort there, opens Friday, June 13, and is titled Entanglement. The painting at the top is the first piece from this show that I am sharing. It is titled The Entanglement.

At my last Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery this past September, I spoke briefly about my own belief system. I can’t remember exactly how I put it since I pretty much speak off the cuff at Gallery Talks, but I vaguely remember beckoning at my work on the walls behind me and stating that one could observe my entire belief system in those paintings. It was not of any particular religion nor was it a rejection of any other. I pointed out that we all have a belief system of some sort. Even Atheism or whatever else you might call believing in nothing is a belief system. Mine, as shown in my work, was simply how I saw the totality of the world and the universe, expressed in a way that my simple mind could comprehend and accept. 

I don’t know that I was able then to fully explain it in a way that was satisfactory to anyone but myself. Probably not. But I felt kind of freed up by just admitting to a belief system, however unformed and vague it might seem. Thought I had felt this way about the link between my work and my beliefs, saying it aloud made me look at my work in a different way. It became the impetus for this year’s exhibit.

Entanglement, the title of this exhibit, also is perhaps the most vital aspect of what I believe. Over the coming weeks, I will try to explain it a bit more, though my perception of it shifts and moves all the time.

You see, my belief system is not based on any dogma or doctrine or on any sort of demand for certainty. Human uncertainty is a given in my belief system.  I say human uncertainty because I do believe there is some sort of certainty in my belief system. But it’s more in the way of the immutable laws of physics. Well, the laws physics as an ill-educated person sees them.

And that’s where Entanglement enters the picture here. I see us as being manifestations of waves and bands of energy that have merged together to manifest and create flesh and blood beings. These beings, we humans, are temporary, existing for but a limited time on this physical plane. When that time comes to an end, their energy rejoins the bands and waves are constantly in motion around us.

We have free will in my belief system. There is no central figure overseeing and guiding our movements or choices while we in our physical form. Our freely chosen actions either create harmony or disharmony with these bands of energy. Good as we understand it might be seen as being in harmony with this energy while Evil might be seen as being in disharmony, which creates a disruption in the intricate pattern which these energy bands create.

However, it is a self-healing system, one that instantaneously begins to modulate and return itself to a state of harmony. The results of these healing actions within the system are sometimes referred to here as karma. As far as I my limited knowledge of history tells me, though there is always someone using their free will to choose disharmony, the system always comes back to a state of harmony within a reasonably short time. In short, evil seldom prevails for an extended period of time.

Much of what makes up this belief system of energy waves and bands is not inconsistent with other religions or systems of belief. Much of the underlying theology for most religions, once you strip away parochial dogma, is fairly consistent throughout the world. The Ten Commandments, after all, are generally rules which aim to create harmony and discourage disharmony. You needn’t be Christian to see that they aren’t bad rules to live by.

I am going to take a break from this for now. I get a little self-conscious talking about this, imagining someone reading this and rolling their eyes and saying, “What a nutjob!”

Not that I need to defend myself, I will say that it makes this world somewhat tolerable for me. When things are going bad for us as species, it allows me to believe that the system is already beginning to correct itself, aided by those on this physical plane who sense this disharmony and attempt to bring the world back into rhythm with their efforts.

There’s a lot more to it that I will share in the near future.  Actually, if you have read along for a while, you probably know what I believe already.

Now, getting back to this painting, The Entanglement. For me, I see this as being a scene of the harmony of which I have describing. The bands of energy move all around in patterns and directions we cannot sense and will never fully understand while we are here. It also creates a feeling of placidity in the scene as well as a sense of connection to the immense power behind it.

We are, after all, built from that energy, distinct parts of it. Our energy, our spirit, as we might call it, will forever be entangled with those ever-swirling bands of energy.

This connection and entanglement is the focus of much of the work from this year’s show. I find myself staring intently at the swirls and tangles in the skies I have painted for this show. Engrossed by its layers and shifts, I find myself sitting for a long time in front of some of these new pieces, often asking where it begins and where it ends. 

And I know there are no answers to these questions. And that’s just fine with me.

I don’t need an answer from that which I am.

The Entanglement is 18″ by 24″ on canvas and will be part of Entanglement, my annual exhibit at the Principle Gallery, opening Friday, June 13, 2025.

 

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