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Archive for the ‘Favorite Things’ Category

Lust For Life

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, tagged , on December 9, 2019| 2 Comments »

Actor/Producer Kirk Douglas turns 103 years old today. As the last of the Hollywood’s Golden Era stars, it would be easy to simply point out the highlights in his long and fabled career. For god’s sake, he was Spartacus. That in itself might be the headline for most people.

But he starred in and made so many great films in so many genres that to focus on one seems to short him in some way. There is the anti-war classic Paths of Glory, the great boxing film Champion and Out of the Past, a film noir gem. He played a modern cowboy out of step with the ever changing world in Lonely Are the Brave, a rising jazz star in Young Man With a Horn and the epic hero Ulysses in the film of the same name.

There are so many others that I could go on and on but I want to focus on one film. It was his portrayal of Vincent Van Gogh in Lust For Life that that really hits for me. It’s a beautifully made film from director Vincent Minnelli with lush colors shot in locations in France that lend it an air of authenticity.

Douglas plays the artist to what feels to me like perfection, capturing Van Gogh’s manic passions and frustrations as well as his fragility. You feel like you are watching Van Gogh and feel his sense of self epiphany that comes from the creation of many of his paintings. It is a performance that is a mixture of strength and vulnerability, much like you see in a Van Gogh painting.

There are a lot of fine films that wonderfully portray artists but this remains a favorite of mine. It’s one of those movies that I can tune into at any point and immediately engage with just because of Douglas’ portrayal and the the beautiful visuals of the film itself.

Like I said, there are tons of films to talk about with Kirk Douglas but there is much more to celebrate with Kirk Douglas’ 103 years on this planet. He has the ultimate American biography. Son of immigrants, raised in a very poor family, worked since he was a child to help his family, talked his way into college, served in the Navy during WW II, became a stage actor ( he was the original Randle Patrick McMurphy in the Broadway production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which he also produced) and then a real movie star.

Plus, he had severe stroke back in 1996 and has flourished in the years since.

It’s been a big life. To make it through all that to be 103 years old, he must have, like Van Gogh, a real lust for life.

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Gimme Shelter

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , on December 8, 2019| 3 Comments »

I am running late again so I am going to keep this intro to this week’s Sunday morning music selection short. It’s a great version of the Rolling Stones’ classic Gimme Shelter from 1970 by Merry Clayton.

While most of us have no idea who Merry Clayton is, she is a legendary back up singer, giving strong vocal backing to a host of artists through the decades. She was a Raelette behind Ray Charles and also backed up  such a diverse group of artists such as Pearl Bailey, Burt Bacharach, Tom Jones, Joe Cocker, Linda Ronstadt, Elvis, Carole King, Tori Amos, Neil Young and even Lynyrd Skynyrd.

The most famous story about Merry Clayton revolves around this song, Gimme Shelter. It seems when the Stones were recording it, Mick Jagger thought it would be great to have a strong female voice in its chorus. They called Clayton in the middle of the night and she showed up shortly after, pregnant and in curlers, and knocked out her part in a couple of takes. The ultimate trooper, her chorus became a defining element of the rock classic.

There’s a lot more to read about here incredible, and largely unsung, career, some of it told in 2013 Oscar winning documentary about back up singers, 20 Feet From Stardom. In 2014, Merry Clayton was in a serious car crash and, as a result, had both legs amputated.

The ups and downs of a life.

Here’s her Gimme Shelter. Have a great Sunday.

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Stay High

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , on December 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Got a lot to get done this morning but I did come across this video of a song from the recent solo album from Brittany Howard, the lead singer of he Alabama Shakes, and I wanted to share it. It’s an acoustic version of the song Stay High.

The album version is more produced, of course, and has the feel of early 70’s soul/ R&B, her voice reminiscent of the falsettos of Eddie Kendricks or Curtis Mayfield. This acoustic piece is plain sweet and simple and natural in its feel. It just made me feel good this morning.

Give a listen. Maybe it will make you feel good, as well.

 

 

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Hat

Posted in Current Events, Favorite Things, Opinion, Poetry, tagged , , , , on December 6, 2019| 1 Comment »

I was going to write something about gullibility this morning and while I was searching for something to kick off the post, a quote or an image, I came across this little bit of mirth from the late Shel Silverstein. It pretty much summed up everything you need to know about our willingness to often accept things that make no sense or are demonstrably false.

Of course, none of us will admit to wearing the plunger. We convince ourselves it’s a damn fine hat because Teddy or someone else, maybe someone named Donnie, says it is just that. If he says it looks good then it must, because he always tells us just what we want to hear and believe. We’re too smart and wary to fall for something other than the truth.

But in fact, we are actually like the character in All the King’s Men that Robert Penn Warren described: “I suppose that Willie had his natural quota of ordinary suspicion and caginess, but those things tend to evaporate when what people tell you is what you want to hear.”

And when someone is telling you that the toilet plunger on your head looks great, you really want to believe him. Because otherwise you’re just an idiot with a damn toilet plunger stuck on your head.

You know, whenever I see one of those godawful red hats on someone from now on, all I am going to see is that person with a toilet plunger on their head.

There’s a brain somewhere inside that bony box sitting between your shoulders, people. Take off the plunger and use it.

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Bellows/ Learning Possibilities

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Quote, tagged , on December 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

George Bellows- Blue Morning 1909

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Try everything that can be done. Be deliberate. Be spontaneous. Be thoughtful and painstaking. Be abandoned and impulsive. Learn your own possibilities.

–George Bellows

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George Bellows- Stag at Sharkey’s 1909

I’ve been an admirer of George Bellows’ work for a long time. He was a member of the Ashcan School, the group of painters from around the turn of the 20th century who painted gritty scenes set in the streets and buildings of urban America. He did a series of scenes with club fighters of the era that are favorites of mine, such as Stag at Sharkey’s here on the right, reminding me of my own grandfather who was a club wrestler of that same era.

My grandfather had numerous matches in the men’s clubs as well in the vaudeville theaters that were common in our hometown. He was called Shank for his ability to put a leghold on his opponents and hold it until they submitted. He had matches that lasted for several hours and had a pretty large local fanbase.

I can easily envision him at home in the dark scenes that were painted at that time by George Bellows.

While best known for his dark and gritty work, Bellows seemed to have paid attention to his own words of advice above. Though he died prematurely in 1925 at the age of 42 from peritonitis from a ruptured appendix, he stretched his work in many directions beyond his work as a member of the Ashcan group. He did portraiture, war scenes, landscapes and Maine seascapes and a host of other sorts of paintings in his prolific but short life. All were distinctly his own.

I wonder if he ever fully learned the extent of his own possibilities. While we may never know the answer, he left us a lot of hints as to what they might have been.

George Bellows- Love of Winter 1914

George Bellows- Big Dory 1913

George Bellows- Cleaning Fish

George Bellows- Haystacks and Barn

George Bellows- Massacre at Dinant (War Series) 1918

George Bellows- Shipyard Society 1916

George Bellows- Steaming Streets 1908

George Bellows- The White Horse 1914

George Bellows- Up the Hudson

George Bellows- The Fisherman’s Family 1923

 

 

 

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In Bloom

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , on December 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Taking it easy this morning in the studio. Well, it seems easy even though I’m working on a requested piece and trying to reorganize things in here before I start getting in the next painting groove, for whose arrival I am patiently waiting.

I can feel that the next groove is getting here soon and I want to be ready. Certain parts of my studio have slowly devolved in the last year or two into a slight state of chaos. Things get misplaced and can’t be readily found so I spend ten minutes searching for it and lose a bit of my creative momentum, which is already an ephemeral thing for me. It comes and goes in a flash and any time lost while it’s at hand is lost forever.

Plus, there’s a corrosive effect of having my studio in a state of chaos. I can tolerate and even thrive with clutter to a point. But beyond that point, it piles up quickly and spills over into my thought process and my attitude. I’ve realized over the twenty-plus years I’ve been doing this thing and see that the tipping point is near at hand.

So, I am painting and organizing today. Here’s a song from Sturgill Simpson. It’s his cover of In Bloom from Nirvana. There are a couple of levels of irony in this version. Kurt Cobain wrote this song about the irony of the new fans they gained as their fame grew, who sang along with the songs without understanding the lyrics and whose actions in life were sometimes direct contradictions to the meanings of the songs. Kurt Cobain described this song as being about the intolerance of “rednecks, macho men and abusive people.”

It’s ironic that Simpson covers this song because from outward appearance and sound, one might mistake the Kentucky country singer a for one of those rednecks. But Simpson himself deals with that same type of fan who sings along without knowing the meaning of his songs. While his sound is based deeply in traditional country his attitudes are not redneck at all.

In short, this is a really good interpretation of a good song. Also, a neat looking video. Give a look and a listen then have a good Sunday.

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Giving Thanks, Again

Posted in Favorite Things, tagged , , on November 28, 2019| 3 Comments »

pooh-and-piglet-original-eh-shepard-drawing

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“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”

― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

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Remember that every tiny heart has an infinite amount of room for gratitude.

And love.

And compassion.

Wishing you all a peaceful and quiet Thanksgiving Day…

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Fiona’s Candle

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , on November 27, 2019| 1 Comment »

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There are two ways of spreading light… To be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.

–Edith Wharton

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This is a sort of new painting headed to the Principle Gallery for their upcoming Small Works show that opens next week. I say sort of new because it is a painting from a few years back that was changed in a way that made it a completely different piece.

Back then it was titled Candle and it was just as it is without the female figure and the boat. With its simplicity and color, it was a favorite of mine and it has been here in the studio for the last year or so, much to my delight. There has always been something in it that speaks to me.

But I have recently worked on a few paintings with small female figures in them and their presence has had a real impact in those compositions, adding a real layer of meaning and depth to those paintings. In the studio, I started to to look at this painting– without the figure– and began to see her there. I could see her adding a symbolism that would change and enrich the painting.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to change the original painting but day after day all I could see was a ghost of that figure in place. The original began to fade for me, began to seem lacking, as thought it had waited for me to add this figure and make it whole.

So, this what you have now.

I changed the title of this painting with another addition, becoming Fiona’s Candle. The Fiona comes, of course, from the British born US Diplomat Fiona Hill who testified in the recent Impeachment Hearings. Her strength, her intelligence, her straight forward approach, sense of purpose, and her unwillingness to suffer fools or alter her moral compass for them made a deep impression on me and many others.

We could use a few more Fiona Hills.

In this painting, I see the female figure as having those same characteristics. She is seeking, as Edith Wharton wrote above, to spread the light, to illuminate the truth– which I see here as the Sun, a set and constant thing– as either the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

I am usually averse to changing pieces that speak so strongly to me, that seem to already have a life force in them. But there are always exceptions and this painting, for me, seems to have been fortified, made stronger by one simple addition.

 

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A Type of Gratitude

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Quote, tagged , , on November 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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Sometimes you give birth to something or you’re part of a team that gives birth to an idea, and it grows and has a whole life of its own, and you feel grateful. It’s just so humbling.

–Glen Hansard

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I understand the type of gratitude that singer/songwriter Glen Hansard is describing above. He was talking, I believe, about the life of Once, the movie that he, along with Markéta Irglová, starred in and wrote and performed the songs that made this little low budget film a hit in 2007. It then went on to be adapted for a stage production on Broadway in 2012. It was a hit there as well, winning 8 Tony awards.

Once— as an album, a movie and a play– definitely took on a life of its own and Hansard’s gratitude is understandable.

I know that feeling for myself, albeit on a much smaller scale. Every artist, I think, hopes their work will have meaning that reaches out to people in a way that it affects them deeply but that hope alone doesn’t make it happen. There is something beyond the intention and control of the artist.

That outcome is not predictable. It is a convergence of the work, time, tone, and the emotional perception of the person taking in the work.

In short, it is a small miracle.

To have a work go beyond my own understanding of it, to generate meaning that I never saw in it, and to become a real part of someone’s life is a certainly a wonder of sorts. And for me, there is nothing more gratifying than to be associated in any small way with such an occurrence.

I also feel humbled because, and I don’t know if this makes sense, it makes me feel my own smallness in the larger aspect of the work. I realize then that I only play a small part in whatever alchemy creates the miracle of art.

Hmm. Something to think about as we head into Thanksgiving.

Here’s Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová peforming the Academy Award winning song Falling Slowly from Once.

 

 

 

 

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Kiefer/ Finding Obsession

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Quote, tagged , , on November 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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As an artist you have to find something that deeply interests you. It’s not enough to make art that is about art, to look at Matisse and Picasso and say, how can I paint like them? You have to be obsessed by something that can’t come out in any other way, then the other things – the skill and technique – will follow.

–Anselm Kiefer

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Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945) is one contemporary artist that continually fascinate me. His work often deals with history and how we in the present time are connected to it. One of his projects is a long term exhibit at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art that features 30 very large paintings, all about 6′ by 11′, assembled in one space. The exhibit is titled Velimir Chlebnikov based on a theory from the Russian Futurist of that name ( who died in 1922 at the age of 36) who believed that major naval battles happened every 317 years and had some sort of cosmic importance for the human race.

This group of paintings from Kiefer deal with nautical warfare and are built up on heavily textured grounds comprised of a variety of materials one doesn’t often associate with painting–dirt, sand, straw, rust and lead. It’s gritty and rough yet striking and somehow beautiful at the same time.

Now, I can’t comment on the theory. Maybe there is something in Chlebnikov’s metaphysical numerology. Who knows?

But I can comment on the impact of the assemblage and display of this group of work, this obsession of Kiefer. As an artist, I find it awe inspiring. It makes me want to push beyond my own creative inhibitions, to work on my own obsession in a way that makes a large statement.

Big work.

Bold work.

Work that pushes past what I know and how I work now.

Work that forces me in a direction I can’t foresee.

Work that changes me in some fundamental way.

It’s something to think about.

I guess that is one way in which art influences art.

Anselm Kiefer’s Velimir Chlebnikov, a series of 30 paintings devoted to the Russian philosopher who posited that war is inevitable, is on display at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

 

 

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