Redtree Times

The Hallelujah Garden— Now at the West End Gallery

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

–Marcel Proust, Pleasures and Regrets (1896)

Count me in as a blossomed soul.

I am so grateful for those folks who made their way to the West End Gallery last night for the opening of my show, The Jubilee Dance. Their presence and the happiness they brought and created made it a very pleasant evening. It was so good to see old friends and meet the many new folks who showed up. Overall, the show seemed to strike a chord with most of those in attendance.

As an artist, it’s all you can ask for.

I’ve written here many times before about the shock to the system that comes in doing events like this. I spend almost 99% of my time by myself in the studio with only Cheri as my only human contact during the day. When an opening or gallery talk comes around, it sometimes feel as though I am an inmate who has been in solitary confinement (self-imposed, mind you) for a long period who has been suddenly thrown into a crowd. I almost have to consciously remember how to interact with others so I don’t seem as awkward as I feel.

Generally, it works out and most folks don’t recognize that my mind is racing out of control the whole time. It is all kind of kept in check by the extraordinary warmth and kindness I encounter at these things, which is both soothing and gratifying.

It makes me happy and like Proust’s admonition, I am grateful.

There’s a lot more that could be said. In the usual course of these things, I will spend the day after overthinking last night’s events. That’s normally has me second-guessing and regretting some of the things I said and didn’t say or the folks I wasn’t able to get to or spend much time with.

It makes for a curious mix here back in solitary confinement– both happy and fretful.

Today I will try to focus on the happy part.

Again, many, many thanks to everyone who came out last night. And as always, a special to Jesse and Linda at the West End Gallery for everything they have done for me with great friendship and affection over the past thirty years. My life would be much different without them.

Okay, let’s have a song, shall we? This is an R.E.M. song from 1991 that features Kate Pierson of the B-52s singing with Michael Stipe. I haven’t heard this tune in several years and it came on while I was writing which I took as a tiny bit of serendipity. It works this morning. This is Shiny Happy People.