I have been busy with some personal matters but definitely wanted to get in my Sunday morning music. Whatever else is going on, it seems there is always room for a little music.
For this week’s selection I went deep in the archives, almost 50 years back to 1967. In the aftermath of their classic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles released this song, Hello, Goodbye, as a single. It was also included in their film, Magical Mystery Tour.
It was penned completely by Paul McCartney and plays on the duality of the universe– hello/goodbye, yes/no, black/white, man woman and on and on. To me it’s just another good song that I hope will start your Sunday off on a good note. So give a listen and have a great Sunday.
Just came across a really nice video that was filmed in late June. It was part of the 
Saturday, August 6, I will be giving a Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery in conjunction with my show, Contact, that is currently hanging there. The talk runs from 1 to 2 PM.
Today there is none of that other stuff here– I won’t even utter the “P” word here this morning. As promised, today is about art and music.
First thing this morning, many thanks to everyone who came out to the West End Gallery on Friday night for the opening of my show there. I am most appreciative for anyone who takes the time on a hot Friday summer evening to come into the gallery. It was great seeing old and new friends as well as seeing how they reacted to the work, which was hung beautifully by Lin and Jesse. They did a great job pairing the paintings with original glass work — each seemed to reflect and enhance the other.
The race leader this year is past two-time Tour winner Chris Froome, a Kenyan-born Brit whose skinny frame hides a huge diesel motor within that seems to just chug and chug without end. Froome’s dominance is quite remarkable but just enduring such a race is incredible in itself. Three weeks with only two days of rest that covers about 2100 miles that wind around France and neighboring countries, up and over the highest peaks and mountain passes in the Alps and Pyrenees. 
It’s been a warm summer. I guess for some of us that’s an understatement. The mowed lawns are burned to the color of Shredded Wheat and ponds show more and more of their banks as the water levels slowly descend. There’s a dustiness in the air from the driveway that coats everything and the thickness of the heat has me dreaming of hopefully cooler days ahead in the fall and winter.
I’m always intrigued by the paintings of Reginald Marsh, who painted scenes depicting the urban world of New York City throughout the early part of the 20th century until his death in 1954. His paintings always seemed densely packed with figures and constant movement, all rendered with easily recognizable line work and colors that were strong yet had a soft transparency. Striking.
But it was great fun and over the few visits there I had many memories that burned indelibly into my memory bank. My parents, and my aunt and uncle who sometimes were with us, would, after a while stop at one of the bars that opened to the boardwalk to have a cold one and I would wander alone. It was a wonderland of colorful attractions and games, their facades faded by time and sun. I have sharp memories of standing at one bar’s doorway and watching a singer all dressed in cowboy regalia standing on the bar with his electric guitar singing out country songs in the middle of the afternoon. I sometimes wonder if it might have been country troubador Jerry Jeff Walker who had come out of Brooklyn. 
I remember seeing the crowds down on the beach and suddenly seeing everyone there pointing out to the water and yelling. Looking out, I saw two legs bobbing straight out of the water, almost comically so. The lifeguards rushed out and dragged the body in. Dead and, now that I think about it, had probably been so for a while.
“Hold on!” he exclaimed in a thick accent that sounded Greek and a little angry to a terrified nine year old. He started chastising me.
I am really swamped in the studio getting work ready for my upcoming show at the West End Gallery. Too much to d0 so I wasn’t going to write anything today except maybe mention the start this morning of this year’s Tour de France, one of the great spectacles of world sport. This great bicycling event starts at Mont Saint Michel, an old abbey on a tidal island off the of coast Normandy, France. As you can see in the photo above, it’s an amazing sight, one that always stirs some mysterious emotional response within me.
We here in the States are often woefully ignorant of many of the artists from our neighbors in the other Americas, such as those in Canada and Mexico. Maybe I shouldn’t say “we” because I really can only speak for myself. My knowledge of Mexican artists was pretty much restricted to what I knew of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, both of which I admire very much.
This point was driven home recently by stumbling across the work of Alfredo Ramos Martinez, who lived from 1877 until 1946. He was a painter/muralist who lived and worked in his native Mexico, Paris and California at different points in his life. He is considered to be the Father of Mexican Modernism and much of his work focuses on the portrayal of traditional Mexican people and scenes. He has been described as a painter who was able to capture the melancholy and sorrow of the people and places he painted.
I was looking at some older paintings in the studios, my orphans as I call them. But some are not orphans, not without a home. Some are just here because they are my own and have some sort of special meaning for me. Such is the case with the piece above, Endless Time. It’s a piece that I consider a link to my earliest works, a reminder of the inner forces that drove me into the work I now do.
Redtree Times 