Redtree Times

Dark Eye of Quiet (2019)

“…that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.”

–Ray Bradbury, The October Country

Running late this morning. Overslept. Not something that happens often with me. I don’t mind except that it busts up the routine that is my mental anchor. Days like this have me scrambling and everything seems a bit scattered. It takes a while to get settled and back on an even keel. It makes writing this blog a difficult task since time becomes a factor. There is a self-imposed pressure that makes getting something cogent down with a time clock running seem like a Herculean task.

This morning instead of taking on that task fully head on, I am employing an old tried-and-true workaround– rerunning a post from several years ago. I chose this post from 2019 because the painting, Dark Eye of Night, rests against the wall behind my seat here at the desk. It is a piece that never fails to grab my eye and one that I always felt was greatly underappreciated in its short forays out into the world. I think a lot of us can relate to that.

I liked the connection to Ray Bradbury’s words outlined in this post, felt that they captured this painting’s tone. And with the dog days of summer officially beginning tomorrow, my aversion to the heat and slow burning drag of summer, made me yearn for the dark coolness and mystery of October. I tend to recognize myself as one of his autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts.

And this painting was definitely painted for the autumn people.

I am adding Blue in Green from Miles Davis at the bottom. I think it was made for us autumn people, too.

[From 2019]

Every so often you come across something from your distant past that has long passed from memory.  It could be a book, a song, a photo or some small insignificant memento, something once cherished but now tucked away in the piling up of time. Coming across such a thing after so many years illuminates how much that thing meant to you. In some cases, being able to look back at the years allows you to see that it actually influenced your way of thinking and, therefore, your life.

That’s how I felt this morning when I came across the short prologue, shown here at the top, to the 1955 book of short stories from Ray Bradbury, The October Country. I probably read this book last in the late 1970’s at a time when I devoured most of Bradbury’s books. They were all great and interesting reads and Bradbury had a poetic nature to go with his active imagination that often found feelings of isolation and fear at the edges of the mundane.

I don’t know how I reacted when I read the words above forty years ago but reading them now, I felt like he was describing me. Or at least, describing the occupants of the world I depict in my paintings, those folks who, by extension, are built from parts of myself.

They are definitely the autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts.

Lingering in twilight, tucked in dark niches inside, facing away from the sun.

The painting at the top, Dark Eye of Quiet. When I read Bradbury’s prologue to The October Country, I could see in this piece how his words, perhaps unbeknownst to me, had stayed with and filtered through me over the time. It’s a painting that aptly illustrates this point, from its title to the doorless and windowless houses that reside in shadow, seeming to be avoid the gaze of the dark sun. It has the wistful isolation of a Bradbury story.

I went through a stack of old paperbacks in a closet and dug out my dog-eared copy of the The October Country. Leafing through it, I saw a few titles in the list of contents that I had circles eons ago. I don’t remember doing this, of course, but I obviously saw something in it that made me do this. One was titled The Wind and turning the pages to that story I was greeted by a black and white illustration for the story from artist Joe Mugnaini.

I didn’t recognize or remember it but even so, it had a familiarity that made me smile.

I found an image of it online and am sharing it here. Maybe it was not only Bradbury’s words that influenced me forty some years back?

The mind works in weird and wonderful ways, eh?