Redtree Times

Something Beyond— At West End Gallery

But We Had Music

Right this minute
across time zones and opinions
people are
making plans
making meals
making promises and poems

while

at the center of our galaxy
a black hole with the mass of
four billion suns
screams its open-mouth kiss
     of oblivion.

Someday it will swallow
Euclid’s postulates and the Goldberg Variations,
swallow calculus and Leaves of Grass.

I know this.

And still
when the constellation of starlings
flickers across the evening sky,
it is     enough

to stand here
for an irrevocable minute
     agape with wonder.

It is     eternity.

— Maria Popova

This poem, But We Had Music, is from Maria Popova, who has written the wonderful blog The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings) since 2006. I have gleaned so much from her insights and sharing of the writings and thoughts of so many great thinkers. I seldom come away after reading her blog without a wealth of new perceptions.

But this time her own poem instantly hit me as a fitting companion to the painting at the top, Something Beyond. It is, of course, one of the paintings featured in my new solo exhibit of work, Guiding Light, that opens next Friday, October 17, at the West End Gallery.

For me, this piece speaks to the same realization that comes in Popova’s poem– that though our lives here are so often filled with busyness, worries, sorrows, joys, opinions, and accusations, there sometimes come moments that remind us of the temporary nature of our time here. We are so often lost in the boiling, roiling, and turmoiling of the minute details of everyday life that we lose sight of the miracle and wonder of it all.

I had such a moment as the one described in the poem just yesterday when I had to run into town early in the morning. It was cold, our first freeze of the season, and there was an icy fog hanging on the road. After a few miles there was a break in the fog and the morning sky softly broke through. There was a lovely and delicate salmon pink color created by the sunrise on the low cloud above. A group of eight or nine geese was rising out of the field off to my right and flew in line across that pale pink sky. They were flying perpendicular to me, both of us moving toward the same point ahead, so that I was able to watch them for more than mere glance. It was a lovely few moments, so tranquil and natural that it felt like a small bit of grace from somewhere beyond, a simple reminder of the wonders that surround us. 

It’s easy to lose sight of that. We live our lives in what could and should be a simple and wonderful world. Unfortunately, it all too often seems tangled up with the stupidity, anger, hatred, and confusion usually brought about by those who forget that we are ephemeral beings living on borrowed time and that no amount of money or power will change that fact. 

A handful of geese in the sky on a cold October morning can sometimes feel like a remedy to all that. 

Below is a reading of Maria Popova’s poem from singer/songwriter Nick Cave with visualizations from filmmaker Daniel Bruson. I have also included a piano piece, Spanish Waltz, from Spanish pianist Nel Aique. It came on while I was writing this and it mirrored the feel of the flight of those geese yesterday morning. Lovely.

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To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world is almost a palpable movement. To enjoy the epic form of that gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night, and, having first expanded with a sense of difference from the mass of civilized mankind, who are disregardful of all such proceedings at this time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through the stars.

― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

There’s often a dichotomy in art that illustrates our connection to all of humanity– our commonality with all things– while at the same time pointing out our own uniqueness and sense of difference. 

It’s a delicate dance that requires a cooperative balance between the two, with neither dominating and each strengthening the other.

Having a sense of our value as individuals brings a depth of understanding and an acceptance of others that enhances our connection with our humanity.

And recognizing that connection brings a sense of humility that keeps us from thinking that, even though we perceive our own uniqueness, we are any more special than the next person in line at the grocery store. 

I think art can do this; make you feel both common and special at once.

Both part and apart.

And I think that is something that we need. It’s easy to see what happens when people feel too much of one or the other, when people begin to believe that they are unimportant– faceless and voiceless– while others believe they are above all others in every way.

It is hopelessness and hubris. The delicate dance falls apart.

That’s a lot to see in a what seems like a quiet and peaceful painting on its surface. But that is how I read this new painting, Far and Away. For me, it is about that delicate dance of connection and apartness. About finding the balance and rhythm between the two and losing yourself in the dance.

You might not see it that way. That’s okay. Some dances aren’t for everybody. 

Far and Away is 18″ tall and 6″ wide on canvas. It is currently at the West End Gallery where it is waiting to be hung on the gallery walls later this week as part of my solo show, Guiding Light. The exhibit opens next Friday, October 17 with an Opening Reception that runs from 5-7 PM.

Here’s an obvious choice for a song to go with the painting and the words at the top from Thomas Hardy. This is Moondance from Van Morrison from 1970, a mere 55 years ago.

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Revisiting the Past— Coming to West End Gallery October

The images selected by memory are as arbitrary, as narrow, as elusive as those which the imagination had formed and reality has destroyed. There is no reason why, existing outside ourselves, a real place should conform to the pictures in our memory rather than those in our dreams.

–Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

—L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)

“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.
You forget some things, don’t you?
Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

I am using three passages above for this new painting, Revisiting the Past, mainly because I simply couldn’t decide between them. Each speaks to feelings I get from this piece, particularly the last line from Cormac McCarthy:

You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.

That’s one of those things that is so filled with truth that you don’t question its veracity. While we may remember many of the better moments from our past, it is our lived moments of trauma that hang with us forever, often near the surface of our consciousness and in vivid detail.

It might be said that the kiss and the caress dwell easily in our memory, ready to be pulled up at our prompting whereas the anguish and suffering we have experienced is like a scar over a deep wound, on the surface that sometimes aches in a way we cannot ignore, constantly reminding us of how it came to be there.

There is a dreamlike quality to this painting that reminds of the passage from Proust. I, of course, interpret his words though my own filter. I certainly would not want my reality to consist of my dreams since I have only a few truly good dreams that I can recall, sitting here this morning. The dreams I remember are the ones that still haunt me, the nightmares and night terrors–those that left a scar.

Hardly the stuff on which I would want to build a reality.

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there, the famous first line from the Hartley novel, fits perfectly with this painting for me. We revisit the past from a point in time beyond it. We are not dealing with the past as the same person or with the same circumstances or dynamics.  Time has passed and things have changed in many ways. What was once the norm has been lost or altered and the future has revealed things that were hidden at the time.

We have changed, hopefully growing in wisdom and understanding. Our perspective is from more distant point now, one that allows us to have a more objective overview. We can now hold it up and turn it to get a better idea of what it was and now means to us, like a scientist examining a specimen.

It might still hurt and haunt but at least we know the what and how of it. Maybe even the why, though sometimes the why of anything can be elusive, living completely hidden in the mind of others.

This is one of those paintings that can say a lot to someone who has ever been haunted by the past or their dreams. I can’t speak for those who haven’t experienced either.

They might be the lucky ones. Or not. Maybe we need some form of haunting in our lives.

I don’t know.

I have to stop now. Time to go to work. The painting, Revisiting the Past is 14″ by 14″ on canvas and will be available as part of Guiding Light, my solo show at the West End Gallery that opens October 17.

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There are so many things we’ve been brought up to believe that it takes you an awfully long time to realize that they aren’t you.

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