The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
― Eden Phillpotts, A Shadow Passes (1919)
Running very late today. Overslept for a change. But I wanted to share the quote above from British author/poet/dramatist Eden Phillpotts who lived a life, 1862 to 1960, that spanned a time period marked by huge changes in society, culture, and technology.
It was an amazing time period to be alive. But, as Dickens wrote in regard to a different era, it was both the best and worst of times. It was a time that saw huge advancements in science and medicine that brought relief to many who suffered. It was beginning of the Industrial Revolution with the huge technological shifts that advances brought such as the rise of the automobile, the airplane, radio, television along with the beginnings of space exploration and computerization. I am not always sure if the rise of the computer should go in the best or worst category. For this discussion, we will put it in the best.
But there were also two World Wars and multiple civil wars. Holocausts and ethnic cleansings. The rise of fascism and Nazism. The nuclear bomb was developed.
I am just spit-balling here off the top of my head and not even going into the cultural and societal shifts that occurred during that period. In short, it was an amazing time period.
But in that time period did our intelligence expand along with the knowledge that spawned such great change? Did our wits sharpen in any way to make us sense those magical things that surround us?
I can’t say. I doubt it. There is certainly little evidence of it taking place. Maybe that is why the bests and worsts of that era and our own run to the extremes. Maybe our wits are not yet developed enough to fully utilize the changes we have experienced as well as the magic that always surrounds us.
Hmm. That’s a lot to think about for a guy who just rolled out of bed and hasn’t even combed his hair or washed his face. Maybe I won’t even bother today. Maybe I will just focus on sharpening those wits. Mine have been dulled down lately and do need a touch up.
The painting at the top, Betwixt and Between, very much relates to the words of Phillpotts and the song below from Dave Brubeck. It is Sixth Sense from his 1964 album, Jazz Impressions of New York.
Strange as it may seem today to say, the aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. In this state of god-like awareness one sings; in this realm the world exists as poem. No why or wherefore, no direction, no goal, no striving, no evolving. Like the enigmatic Chinaman, one is rapt by the everchanging spectacle of passing phenomena. This is the sublime, the a-moral state of the artist, he who lives only in the moment, the visionary moment of utter, far-seeing lucidity. Such clear icy sanity that it seems like madness. By the force and power of the artist’s vision the static, synthetic whole which is called the world is destroyed. The artist gives back to us a vital, singing universe, alive in all is parts.
In a way the artist is always acting against the time-destiny movement. He is always a-historical. He accepts Time absolutely, as Whitman says, in the sense that any way he rolls (with tail in mouth) is direction; in the sense that any moment, every moment, may be the all; for the artist there is nothing but the present, the eternal here and now, the expanding infinite moment which is flame and song. And when he succeeds in establishing this criterion of passionate experience (which is what Lawrence meant by ‘obeying the Holy Ghost’) then, and only then, is he asserting his humanness. Then only does he live out his pattern as Man. Obedient to every urge — without distinction of morality, ethics, law, custom, etc.
— Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart, 1941
I’ve had this passage from Henry Miller sitting in a draft file for a long time now. Maybe it was his use of the dated stereotype of the enigmatic Chinaman that kept me from using it. It sounds cringey, yes. Definitely not the preferred nomenclature today, as Walter from The Big Lebowski would be quick to point out.
But I understand that his reference is not a slur as he was referring to the wise and stoic sages such as Confucius and Lao Tzu. It was about artists acquiring a similar Zenlike state in their work one that transports them to the eternal here and now, as Miller put it.
The expanding infinite moment which is flame and song…
That is what struck me about this passage. It is something I understand and maybe the main reason I am a painter today. More so than any reasons based on practicality or talent.
It is that moment that comes while working on a painting when I am no longer in the studio on that particular day but instead find myself in the place and time of the painting on which I am working–the eternal here and now.
A different reality has taken hold then and its feeling is palpable. It is both liberating from and unifying with the world in which I live. Liberating in that the world outside my studio with its lies, hatred, corruption, and stupidity seems like a distant planet in that time and place. Unifying in that this act of creation, this other time and place, allows me to express a connection with humanity that I sometimes struggle to find on the outer world. Asserting my humanness, as Miller wrote.
Of course, this does not happen here in the studio every time I stand before my easel. No, it is a rare gem that is buried deep and has to be excavated. The world impinges further into the studio on some days and in recent weeks I have lacked the energy and mental clarity to be transported fully to that other place and time– the eternal here and now— for any extended visits.
But it’s getting better every day. Yesterday I was able to once again find that place and time for a spell and it was like a trip to a spa for me. As free and easy a day in the studio as I have had in well over a month. It didn’t last long but it felt good for the time I was there and not here.
I hope to find that place and time again today. And to stay a little longer.
Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature – if that word can be used in reference to man, who has ‘invented’ himself by saying ‘no’ to nature – consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.
–-Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950)
I employed this passage from Octavio Paz a few years back but felt that it conveyed the search for communion that I see in this painting, Finis Terrae (Land’s End). Currently at the Principle Gallery, it is one of those pieces that haunts me, lingering with me in a way that is always close at hand.
It was that way while I was painting it and in the short time I spent with it in the studio before made its way to the gallery. I couldn’t stop looking at it. It seemed to represent a search for something beyond that which one could experience with the five senses.
I struggled to identify what that thing might be and realized that the thing being sought was a sense of communion, a uniting with all from which we are comprised.
In this realization, I recognized that it presented a duality. I could see in this painting the ache that comes in the search, the desire to know that which is unknowable, while at the same time feeling a sense of peace.
That comes from understanding that the search is both a question asked in futility and its own answer.
It’s this duality that keeps me coming back to this painting in my mind.
It is both question and answer. And neither. A communion of both.
Don’t know if that will make sense to anyone but me this morning. Can’t tell if this is evidence of my mind getting sharper in response the antibiotics or evidence that it is still a bit lost in the fog.
Here’s a bit of music that I shared along with the words from Paz in that earlier post. It is a short classical violin piece from contemporary composer John Harbison. This is Song 2 from his 1985 work, Songs of Solitude. It seems to work for me as I look once more at this painting.
As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts, and hide its head from me who might, perhaps, be its benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering information, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over me the human insect.
–Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854)
I live and work in the woods, every day trudging a path through the forest several times to my studio. For me it is ideal, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It makes me feel apart from people and closer to what is wild, both in nature and in ourselves. It is sanctuary and classroom.
It is home.
Of course, there are some drawbacks in even the most seemingly idyllic setting. Every paradise has its own perils just to let you know that life is all about balance. Everything good is on a seesaw with something bad.
Here in my forest paradise, it is not the bear, coyote, or even the mountain lion that sometimes is rumored to be lurking. Or Bigfoot. No, here it is the deer tick.
I have mentioned a number of times over the past several weeks that I was feeling under the weather. It has been a rough ride marked by a persistent and odd sort of headache, fever and chills, dizziness, night sweats, foggy mindedness, and a tremendous feeling of fatigue. In recent days I have felt like my batteries were running at about 10% of their capacity. It’s insidious in that the loss of vigor creeps up on you gradually, making you believe that each downward step is just how you naturally feel.
Over the past five weeks I have seen my doctors a number of times and have had numerous blood tests along with several scans and x-rays. It has been a slow slog eliminating possible causes. Fortunately, my sister mentioned that my nephew had very similar symptoms in recent years that were caused by tick-borne illnesses.
Now, I had mentioned Lyme disease to one of my doctors as deer ticks are well known to me. I have been bit numerous times over the years and have had the telltale bulls-eye rings around some of the bites. Several years ago, Lyme was detected in one of the bands that are tested but it was not sufficient to be deemed Lyme disease. I still have three small scars on my thigh from two years ago when a single tick bit me before I realized he was there. For those of you who don’t know, you don’t feel their bite since they first inject a sort of anesthesia before they begin to feed.
I get tested for Lyme every year and each time I have to practically beg to be tested, describing in vivid detail that my existence has me in constant intimate contact with the verdant world of the deer tick. The doctors almost roll their eyes before begrudgingly consenting to order the test.
My mistake was in being ignorant of other tick-borne illnesses. My ignorance doesn’t excuse these doctors for not at least considering or mentioning the possibility of these other illnesses, especially after I have described the environment in which I live and work.
After speaking with my sister and nephew, I messaged my doctor and asked if they would at least consider the possibility that it might be a tick-borne illness other than Lyme disease. I specifically mentioned anaplasmosis in my message since its symptoms perfectly echoed my own.
A tick panel was finally ordered this past Monday and on Friday the results came back. It was indeed positive for anaplasmosis. I contacted my doctor before she was even aware of the results and pushed for prescription for antibiotics. I started a course on Friday evening.
Normally, you want to start antibiotics within a few days of the symptoms appearing. When this takes place, symptoms usually go away within 48 hours. Unfortunately, in my case it has been nearly five weeks since the first outburst. During this lag in treatment, several underlying condition may have been affected. Hopefully, none will be serious.
Yesterday, I could feel little energy in the afternoon, noticeably more than in the last several weeks, though it crashed in the evening. I ended up with night sweats again and a hard headache this morning. I still get very woozy and have to stop to hold onto something if I move or tune too quickly. But it feels like the antibiotics are making progress.
I hope to be able to get back into my full painting mode in the next few days. It has suffered greatly this past month or so.
I guess the lesson here is that we have to advocate for ourselves. Because without the info from my sister and nephew and my own begging for the test, my doctors would still be trying to eliminate potential causes even as the illness was doing more damage. As far as tick-borne illnesses, I would hope that doctors at least begin to consider their possibility when symptoms such as mine are presented, especially given where I live and work. I am not knocking doctors in any way here. It is something that is just overlooked too often and we shouldn’t have to be the ones to prod them to look into them.
Which is in the woods. With my deer, turkeys, foxes, raccoons, bears, possums, skunks, squirrels and so on.
Oh, and more deer ticks than you can imagine.
Thanks for listening to my tale of woe. I thought it was worth passing on just in case any of you have similar symptoms.
here’s this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s an old U2 song from way back in 1980. I can’t believe it’s been 45 years since this came out. Between this and my illness, I really feel old this morning. This is Shadows and Tall Trees.
The lonesome friends of science say “This world will end most any day” Well, if it does, then that’s okay ‘Cause I don’t live here anyway I live down deep inside my head Well, long ago I made my bed I get my mail in Tennessee My wife, my dog and my family
—John Prine, Lonesome Friends of Science (2018)
Another short post this morning. Not even the normal triad of word, image and song since the chorus from the song is serving as the word leg of the three-legged stool I am building here.
So, it’s a two-legged stool. Hope, it stands up.
At least for today.
The same goes for me.
Here’s the song, Lonesome Friends of Science, from John Prine‘s last album, The Tree of Forgiveness, from 2018. As you might know, John Prine passed away in 2020 from covid. II am using the painting above, Echoes of Time, because this morning I am seeing it as that tree of forgiveness as John Prine put it.
Trip the Light Fantastic— At Principle Gallery, June 2025
The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
–Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899)
Short on time this morning so, since we are in the last days of the Tour de France, I thought I’d share a favorite song, La Mer (Beyond the Sea), from French singer/songwriter Charles Trenet who wrote and recorded the now classic tune in 1946. I think it blends well with the words of Kate Chopin and the painting above.
Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867) was part of the Barbizon School of painters, an art movement in 19th century France that was instrumental in moving away from formalism and towards naturalism and artistic expression of emotion. It was very influential on many of the painters who later created the Impressionist movement.
Rousseau and Jean-Francois Millet, best known for his peasant scenes, were the two artists from this school whose work really spoke to me, seeming to have honest emotional content in them. Perhaps that is why his short quote resonated so strongly with me. That and the fact that I have found myself less impressed with cleverness than honest expression through the years. I have always believed that art comes from tapping into the subconscious, something beyond that part of our brain that produces conscious thought.
I guess I just don’t think we are that smart. Or clever.
I know I am not. My work is at its best when it comes from a place of honesty and real emotion, when it is made with more intuition than forethought. When it is too thought out and directed it begins to feel stilted and contrived, losing its naturalness and rhythm and becoming heavy-handed.
That is probably the reason I tell young or beginning painters to focus not so much on the actual idea of a painting but more on things like paint handling and color quality, those things that make up the surface of a painting and convey the real meaning of the painting. And I think that is what Rousseau was probably getting at in his terse quote.
But maybe not. Like I said, I am not that smart. Or clever.
The post above is from ten years back, but my admiration for this Theodore Rousseau painting– it’s a Red Tree! — and the message of his words remain evergreen with me. Even so, I often have to remind myself every so often to resist relying on forethought and to instead trust my intuition and reactions.
Emotional intelligence usually outshines brainpower. That holds true for both art and life in general.
Well, that’s the opinion of someone who admits to being neither smart nor clever so it might be wise to take this with a grain of salt.
Here’s a song, If I Only Had a Brain, that Ray Bolger sang as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz I submit the Scarecrow and this song as evidence of my thesis. Pretty clever of me to call it a thesis, huh?
Anyway, here’s a fine version of the song from Harry Connick, Jr. from back in 1987.
There is one thing one has to have: either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals (1887)
Nietzsche wrote a lot more about cheerfulness than one might expect. Not that I suspect that he himself was a cheerful soul. Maybe he was one of those, as the quote above implies, was made cheerful through work, love, art and nature.
I don’t know and I’m not interested enough right now to explore it any further at the moment. This quote seems to be one that is not verbatim from its source but was instead a compilation of thought.
That, too, doesn’t matter to me at the moment. I just like the quote as it stands, without full context.
It makes me wonder about my own nature and that of many others I know. Do I consider myself one who is cheerful by nature? I don’t believe I am though I have certain aspirations of being naturally cheerful, to not feel the weight of periodic depression or be eternally optimistic. I am not to that point yet and seriously doubt I will ever be there.
Actually, I know I won’t ever be that person. Whatever cheerfulness I possess comes from those potential sources that Nietzsche mentions. I think that holds true for most people, but I can’t say for sure. We all wear masks that sometimes cover our true natures.
I am sure we could go into a whole psychological examination of one another here but let’s save that for our diaries this time.
Instead let us enjoy another song from Chicago that plays into the theme today, as does the painting at the top. This is Make Me Smile. I wasn’t a big Chicago fan when I was younger and they were in their heyday. But we change with time– hopefully and thankfully– and I have become quite a fan over the years.
For the first time in years, he felt the deep sadness of exile, knowing that he was alone here, an outsider, and too alert to the ironies, the niceties, the manners, and indeed, the morals to be able to participate.
― Colm Tóibín, The Master
The painting above, The Exile’s Wilderness, was originally painted in early 2020 but without the actual figure that represents The Exile, as seen in the bottom right of the image above. I thought that the painting as it was, sans The Exile figure, was really strong and it quickly became one of my favorite pieces from that period in the early days of the pandemic.
I originally felt that the painting didn’t need the figure, that it represented a view seen from the eyes of the exile. But over the past year or so [2021], as much as I liked this painting without the figure, I began to recognize that it actually needed The Exile in order to provide context.
In my mind, I was the context. I had to remind myself that not every person who looks at this will see themselves as The Exile.
So, The Exile entered the picture, literally. And, though I was apprehensive as I proceeded, I was pleased by its effect. It’s contrast to the emptiness of the streets and windows made the figure seem even more alone. More apart. It heightened the overall effect for me.
It completed the circle of feeling that I was seeking in it.
Now, it doesn’t need that caveat of being a favorite from a certain time period. It is simply a favorite. Period.
Here’s a 2001 song from Leonard Cohen, By the Rivers Dark. Though The Exile’s Wilderness doesn’t display a river, this song definitely has the mood that I glean from this painting. Maybe the buildings here are of a riverside street along that dark river?
Maybe…
Still feeling quite drained and under the weather. Trying to keep working but it is slow going. This a slightly reworked post from several years back about a favorite painting that is here in the studio. I thought I should point out that anytime I share a painting from the studio that doesn’t list a gallery location, you can contact me if you are interested in that piece, and I will let you know who to contact about obtaining it. I only mention this because I sometimes sound like I am hoarding certain pieces when, in fact, feel that most of my favorites here in the studio deserve a life that will continue someplace other than here where only I can experience them.
The post below is from a couple of years ago and has been by far my most viewed post in recent days. In light of the poorly veiled political and cowardly cancellation of Stephen Cobert’s Late Night show, I thought it might well be worth revisiting. I have added another chapter from the Robert Hayden poem on which the post is based.
One of my favorite parts of writing this blog is the stream of consciousness part of it where I encounter something new. That part where I begin to research and one thing leads to another and another, wild tangent to wild tangent. The result is that I end up learning of someone of whom I was previously unaware or some new concept or fact.
It often starts innocently. For example, this morning I stumbled across a short video from last night’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where the singer Dua Lipa turned the tables and asked Colbert about whether his comedy and his faith ever intersected. His answer was thoughtful and complete. I urge you to watch the clip at the bottom.
But in it, he invoked lines from the late poet Robert Hayden , from his 1970 book of poetry titled Words in the Mourning Time, that were very powerful and to the moment:
We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstraction police and threaten us.
Words powerful enough that I immediately began looking up Hayden. I was a little embarrassed and ashamed that I didn’t know the name. His credits and the poems that I read were staggeringly impressive.
Hayden was an African-American born in Detroit in 1913 and died in 1980. He was the first African-American to hold the post Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, which is now known as Poet Laureate.
Inspired by the poetry of W.H. Auden and Stephen Vincent Benet, Hayden’s work often outlined the experience of the African-American throughout our history. But even so, Hayden rejected the idea of being called a black poet, referring to simply be recognized as a poet. This small distinction put him somewhat out of favor during the 1960’s with the black community though in essence his desire to be recognized without reference to his race represented one of the desired goals of the civil rights movement.
In fact, the whole of the verse from which Colbert quoted made just that point:
We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstraction police and threaten us.
Reclaim now, now renew the vision of a human world where godliness is possible and man is neither gook nigger honkey wop nor kike
but man
permitted to be man.
Words in the Mourning Time is a longer poem comprised of ten separate chapters that explores and mourns the world in the time period in the era of the Malcolm X/ RFK/MLK assassinations, and the horrors of the Viet Nam War. It speaks equally to the time in which we now find ourselves in 2025. Below is another chapter from the poem, voice in the wilderness, that really struck a chord with me:
I am including a couple of his other poems below. One is Those Winter Sundays which movingly speaks of the simple duties of love carried out by parents that are often overlooked by their children. Powerful. The other is Frederick Douglass.
As I read this poem, I wondered as I have many time before how nobody had yet made a big biographical film about the life of Douglass, who I consider one of the most fascinating, impressive, and influential characters in our history. This led me to looking this up and it turns out that the production company formed by Barack and Michelle Obama have one currently in production based on the Pulitzer Prize winning biography, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, from historian David Blight. Hope it brings his power and eloquence to the attention of a wider swath of Americans.
Glad I watched the video below and found out more about Robert Hayden. I feel a bit more complete now. And that’s always a good thing.
Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he’d call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Frederick Douglass
When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful and terrible thing, needful to man as air, usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all, when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole, reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians: this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world where none is lonely, none hunted, alien, this man, superb in love and logic, this man shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric, not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone, but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.
Redtree Times 