Winter Park — 1994
Silience
n. the kind of unnoticed excellence that carries on around you every day, unremarkably—the hidden talents of friends and coworkers, the fleeting solos of subway buskers, the slapdash eloquence of anonymous users, the unseen portfolios of aspiring artists—which would be renowned as masterpieces if only they’d been appraised by the cartel of popular taste, who assume that brilliance is a rare and precious quality, accidentally overlooking buried jewels that may not be flawless but are still somehow perfect.
–The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, John Koenig
The painting at the top is from the autumn of 1994 making it an early piece for my work. I immediately called it Winter Park when it was completed– if you can call it completed. I wasn’t sure at the time if I was done with it. The white negative space was still up in the air in my mind and I was thinking it might need some color.
But the more I looked at it, the more that negative space took on a positive form for me. Color would have sullied it, made the sky less prominent which was a big factor in choosing to leave it as it is. This was painted not long after I had experienced my Eureka! moment with a painting that I called First View from August of 1994. I have discussed that painting several times here over the years, describing how when I first saw it, I knew that I had found something important to me that I didn’t even know I was seeking.
This painting felt like a continuation of that moment. Especially in its sky. It had the same sort of mixture of muted tones that created a complex color that was hard to describe. It was both beautiful and appealing to my eye but at the same time had the feel of a deep bruise in the sky. And that appealed to me, as well.
It created a great polarity of emotion for me within this seemingly simple piece. The negative space took on the form of snow in my mind and had a joyful feel in the way its clean, cool whiteness played off the muddle of the sky. But it also felt a bit wary and weary for me in the next moment, as though it represented enduring the journey through a long, hard winter that wasn’t yet over.
It’s been a piece that I come back to quite often when I review my past work. It has roughness and rawness that appeals to me. That’s something I still crave in my work but is sometimes hard to find after years of practice and refinement of whatever skills I possess.
In the refinement you sometimes lose a hard emotional edge that can’t be replicated no matter how far one’s abilities have progressed. I don’t know that I can properly explain that.
I think that’s why I am always looking for the next Eureka! moment. I know there’s something still out there but don’t yet know what it is. It will make itself known with unmistakable clarity when it comes.
If it comes.
Who knows? I may have already exceeded my given allotment of Eureka! moments. If so, I am grateful for the few I’ve been fortunate to experience. All were unexpected gifts. All were lifechanging.
What more can you ask?
I thought I would run the post below that was coupled with Winter Park about five years back. It doesn’t have an awful lot to do with the painting itself but speaks to how Eureka! moments and bits of serendipity sometimes lead a fortunate few to destinations they didn’t even know they were seeking. Perhaps at the end of that path in Winter Park…
[From 2021] I came across the word at the top, silience, while browsing through a site I’ve mentioned here a number of times in the past, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It reminded me of the many bits of serendipity that brought me to the life and career I have been so fortunate to have and how lucky I have been in encountering people who didn’t just walk by without noticing my work.
It makes me feel grateful, indeed. It also makes me feel somewhat guilty for my good fortune when I know with absolute certainty that there are equally or more talented people out there whose work and abilities has gone unnoticed. I often see or hear the work of folks who have yet to find an audience and wonder how this could be. I find myself rooting for them, wanting them to continue to do whatever they do so that their work might someday find its way into a situation that will shine a light on it.
It also makes me somewhat guilty for the time that I have wasted, for the bits of hubris I have displayed at times when mistaking the serendipity I have encountered for some sort of entitlement or inevitability.
It’s a needed reminder that any notice my future work receives must be earned anew and that I must take notice of and encourage the talents of others.
Here’s a well-done video for silience:
Redtree Times 