Room to Breathe (2010)
You got to ride lonesome
You got to try to find the road
You got to cry a river
And follow it all the way home
Alone
— Beck, Ride Lonesome (2026)
The painting at the top, Room to Breathe, has long been a favorite of mine. When it was painted in 2010, it seemed different than the work I was doing at the time, more like a throwback to my earlier work. It had that feel, painted as it was with the transparent inks that marked my early work. It also had that same airy solitariness with the Red Tree out and away from the other trees beneath a wide and deep sky.
But more than these other similarities, it had a simplicity that I was craving at the time. My early work was simple by design, meant to cut away the distraction of detail, allowing the few basic forms to hopefully dance and harmonize with one another. More than that, it allowed space for the viewer’s own feelings.
Room to Breathe felt like it was very much cut from the same cloth.
It is well traveled, having made the rounds of the galleries around the country through the years. Every piece does not immediately find a home and sometimes those pieces that I consider true gems are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, having a painting return to you is not uncommon. In fact, it’s a regular and expected thing for any artist, something taken it in stride.
But with some pieces, there is a sense of hurt attached to them when they return. Every piece I paint has an emotional investment, carrying with it some part of me. But some pieces seem to carry a bit more of me with them. Their return always feels like it is not only the painting that is being rejected. It feels like it is a personal rejection as well.
I know that this is not the case. But that feeling still lingers even after I have rationalized the why’s and how’s of it. I sometimes think it is like seeing something in your child that is not evident to everyone else and how deeply you feel at even the most minor of rejections they experience.
It is a disappointment that comes when others are somehow blind to the qualities that you love in your progeny.
I suppose that is how I feel about this painting. And maybe it also represents my own moments of rejection or exclusion, those times when I found myself not part of the in-crowd or even in the inner core of my smaller group of friends.
Like the Red Tree standing apart from the group of trees.
I have found that standing apart is not a bad thing. There is, as the title plainly states, room to breathe. Clear air and unobstructed views.
Room to think and grow in all directions.
I am still debating whether I will include this painting in my June show at the Principle Gallery. I am not sure I want to subject this child of mine– or myself– to yet another potential rejection.
But I tell myself that one of the lessons of this life is that though you may face disappointment and rejection, you have to keep getting up and going out to meet it head-on.
Who knows– it might be your lucky day.
Here’s a new song from Beck that initially sparked this entry. It’s called Ride Lonesome. Its chorus shown at the top pretty much sums up what I have tried to say here.
Now, get out of here and go back to the other trees. I want to be alone…
Redtree Times 