I am coming into the last week of preparing my solo show, Heart+Land, which opens July 17 at the West End Gallery. It’s at this point every year, after the second show in a matter of a couple of months, that I begin to feel a bit worn down. I really see it in trying to write the blog. A lot of mornings I find myself sitting here just staring at the screen and feel that my mind is blank as well, as though the wheels in my mind feel like they will never turn again. I am preoccupied with with those pieces that still need work and other tasks that are waiting for me just out of my sight. Out of sight but not out of mind.
So, I thought I would start the holiday a day early with a little music and one of my favorite Springsteen songs. Some know it as Sandy from the name of the girl to which Bruce’s character is singing but it’s actually titled 4th of July, Asbury Park from his 1973 (yes, it was that long ago) album The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. It’s a song that immortalized the Jersey boardwalk culture of that time, like the fortune teller Madam Marie whose real life shop is shown above, with its bittersweet lamentation about lost love and outgrowing the lures of youth’s easy pleasures.
So, I am giving it a listen then heading back to those tasks that are beginning to tap their toes with impatience. Have a great 4th of July.
This is a new piece, an 18″ by 24″ painting on panel, that is part of my upcoming show at the West End Gallery. It is titled In the Moment of Grace. Fittingly, it was finished in the time that I listened to President Obama‘s stirring eulogy for the victims of the Charleston tragedy on Friday in which he pulled its theme from the classic hymn Amazing Grace. Although I was already fully invested in this painting, that fact added so much more meaning to it for me.
That eulogy was the culmination of a remarkable and historic week, one that found the Supreme Court issuing decisions that upheld the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and made Gay Marriage a right throughout the nation. And if that wasn’t enough, the Confederate flag finally came down in South Carolina, though it took the act one young black woman willing to be imprisoned for her civil disobedience rather than the act of an intransigent State House and Senate. The President’s words over the fallen in South Carolina framed the end of this week perfectly.
Amazing Grace.
Despite the wonder of it all, I know there is much more to be done and more conflicts to be faced in the struggle for equality and fairness for all. That is the nature of change and change is the nature of America. And I think that is the point that is missed by so many of those who hold so tightly onto the past, those people who say that they want “their country” back: America is not a monolith, not owned by one group or region and cannot be defined by one thing, person, place or time.
That is its strength. Like a great work of art, it lives always in the present. And the present is an inclusive and shifting prism, a kaleidoscope or, yes, a rainbow of diverse people who make up this nation. It has eventually always made room for all who sought to live in that light and it is that spirit of inclusion that separates us from the rest of the world. Tolerance unifies a disparate people and brings us closer to grace.
As I said, there are many more hurdles to be overcome, more work to be done. I could continue preaching here for a while but I wish to just sit back for a moment and relish the present. So, for this Sunday morning music I thought a little Amazing Gracewould be appropriate. Her is a truly beautiful version from Judy Collins and the Boys Choir of Harlem, sung on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
Have a good Sunday and reflect for a moment on this remarkable week.
First things first, a happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there, including my own living down in Florida. I was going to say more about him today and some recent cognition troubles he’s been experiencing but I think I will keep it simple and just send out my wishes for a Happy Father’s Day.
Being Sunday, it’s time for some Sunday Morning Music. I was going to play something with a father-y theme but this week’s tragic event down in Charleston has been on my mind.
In the late 1980’s, my parents lived for a couple years on one of the sea islands outside of Charleston so we were able to visit a few times. It was hard not to embrace the place with all its charms, its people and history always on display. I’ve had a soft spot for that area ever since and when the Principle Gallery opened a new location there two years ago I was thrilled in that it might give me an excuse to visit that place once more.
So when a hate-filled , weak-minded coward given power through a gun takes the lives of nine innocent people in that city, I am filled a multitude of emotions. Sadness for the families and friends of those victims, for the city itself and for this nation that seems to accept this type of tragedy more and more as the norm. Anger at the killer and at ridiculous hatred he possesses. Anger at the societal mindset that incubates or tolerates this hatred, especially in a state where the Confederate flag brazenly flies about the state capital. Anger at those people who believe that this is somehow “their”country and that it is their duty to somehow take it back. Anger at politicians who give lip service but little else in the aftermath, only looking to put the event in a perspective that suits their own agenda.
How many more times will we tolerate this? Many, many more I am sure because there is no easy answer here, no magic pill that wipes away racism, especially in a society where the constant thinly-veiled racism shown in the contempt and disrespect for our president is accepted as the normal. We can’t continue the way we have int he past, simply accepting this as the everyday event it is quickly becoming. We must not tolerate intolerance. We must choose to change.
But Charleston will survive, will get past this time as it has so many other dark days. This morning I am playing a song that has a foot in those earlier days of Charleston. It’s a song from George and Ira Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess based on the Dubose Heyward novel, Porgy, set in the the real Cabbage Row area of Charleston. This became Catfish Row in the story so that it could be relocated to the seafront. The photo above with the Catfish Row sign is the actual site of Cabbage Row where families of freed slaves lived in the late 1800’s and ealry 1900’s, selling cabbage from the windowsills.
The song is I Loves You, Porgy from the late and oh so great Nina Simone. She was one of the greatest and most distinct interpreters of song ever. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her sing anything that didn’t become hers once it was sang. This song is a tour de force among many version of it from a wide range of singers. Enjoy and have a great Sunday and a great Father’s Day.
Just a while ago I had been thinking about this painting, about 18″ by 26″ on paper, from back in 2007. It’s called Time Flowsand it’s a bit of an anomaly for me, with all the stonework and waterfall. A one time only thing that pops back into my thoughts now and again.
But it is its texture rather than the subject that always sticks out for me– thickly layered and very rough with deep pits that go all the way to the paper below. It was coarser in many ways than my normal surface but it worked perfectly for this particular piece. The pits captured pigment in an interesting way, more interesting than if I had tried to paint it with a brush.
It came back to mind this morning in the aftermath of last night’s flooding that took place just a few miles north of the studio. Small streams and falls turned into raging cascades, washing out and covering many roads. Thankfully, no injuries.
Seeing the videos of the local water in motion made me think of it connected to a song from Jimi Hendrix titled May This Be Love. I always think of the song as being titled Waterfalls. Like the painting, it is definitely more placid than the swollen streams from last night.
The other day I came across this luminous photo from Finnish photographer Mikko Lagerstedt. Titled Lost World, it shows a sailing ship partially sunk in shallow water beneath a densely star-filled sky. All of the elements of the image– the color, the composition, the reflection on the water and the glow of the sky– give this photo a mysterious and intriguing vibe. Just a great photo.
Mikko Lagerstedt is a self-taught photographer who specializes in what he terms atmospheric photography with an emphasis on simplistic landscapes and night scenes. They have a brilliance in them that plays well off the sparseness of the landscape and the immensity of his skies. For more images and info, go to his site by clicking here.
I thought I would find a piece of music to go along with it for this week’s Sunday music and one of the first things I stumbled across had the feel that I was looking for. It’s The Shining by Badly Drawn Boy from back in 2000. It’s a song that pops up on my playlist every so often and always pulls me in with its opening moments that feature a mix of cello and french horn.
Enjoy. Hope your Sunday goes swimmingly. Not exactly sure what that means but I’m sticking with it.
Sunday morning and I’m back in the studio after a couple days down in the Alexandria/DC area. And even though it was a very enjoyable time and a great opening for the Native Voice show, it is, as always, truly wonderful to be back in the studio this morning. Back to my center.
I thought the work for this show looked very good on the walls of the Principle Gallery. There’s more warmth in the wall color than the photos that have been posted show and the work seemed to really stand out against it. This show consisted mainly of works on canvas because I wanted those solid blocks of color to dominate and push out into the space rather than have matting around the image soften the impact and put distance between the viewer and the painting. I think this was the right decision based on the very enthusiastic response to the work.
The Next Generation
Of course, the best part of the evening is seeing friends, old and new, and catching up a bit. The theme this year seemed to be the next generation, with a number of new additions to families making their first visits to an opening. I love hearing how small children respond to the colors and forms in the paintings. Plus I like the idea that these paintings will in some small way be a part of the environment that influences their lives in the years to come. Hopefully, they will prove to be positive influences.
Thank you to everyone who came out on Friday evening. Some traveled some distance and for that I cannot be more appreciative. It is that sort of enthusiasm that inspires me and makes my job so much easier.
And of course, very warm thanks to Michele, Clint, Jessica and Pamela at the Principle Gallery for both your tremendous professionalism and your friendship. Both equally mean the world to Cheri and me.
So, as I settle back into my treasured routine on a Sunday morning, it is once again that time when I play a little music here on the blog. Today I am in the mood for something mellow and nothing is better at that than the voice of the great and ever elegant Nat King Cole. Here is his beautiful version of Hoagy Carmichael‘s classic Stardust.
It was a good trip down to Alexandria yesterday. I was there to deliver the the work for my show, Native Voice, which opens this coming Friday, June 5, at the Principle Gallery there on historic King Street.
It’s always a good feeling to get the work safely into the gallery for any show. There’s a sense of relief in this step in the process of letting the work move on to their new lives but there is also a bit of excitement in seeing the work in the gallery environment, to have the staff get their first look and to see how the work itself looks within the space.
For the entire time I have shown with the Principle Gallery, in my 19th year now, the walls of the main gallery space were painted in a burnt orange color, one that really highlighted and complemented the color of my work and may have even, in some small way, influenced the direction of my work’s color palette over the years. But a freshening makeover of the space this past year brought a new wall color, a slightly warm shade of white.
At my first look at it in September, I was fearing that the color would be too cool, too stark. But seeing it again yesterday, alleviated those concerns and it seems to have gained warmth and I am excited to that the new work, mostly deeply colored with a number of larger pieces, will definitely pop on the new walls. In fact, the wall color is not to far removed from the wall color of the Fenimore Art Museum gallery where my work hung in 2012 and I was very pleased with how that worked out.
One of those pieces is the one shown at the top, a 24″ by 24″ painting on linen that I call À La Mer which translates from the French as To the Sea. I like the mix of motion and stillness in this piece with its sky that could almost be an extension of the sea’s movement with ripples of color running through it. There’s just something tranquil in the way the eye moves toward the sea in this piece, a feeling that very much reminds me of the tone of the old French song La Mer (The Sea) which is better known here in the US by the wonderful version in English from Bobby Darin, Beyond the Sea.
So, of course, for this Sunday’s musical selection I have chosen a version of La Mer, this one by French Canadian singer Chantal Chamberland. I hope you’ll enjoy it and take that feeling into the rest of your day. Have a great Sunday!
I was going to take a day off from the blog. After all, it’s the final day in the studio for the work in my solo show, Native Voice, that will be heading down to the Principle Gallery in Alexandria tomorrow. This is always both a day filled with stress and great relief. There is still much to do on this day but in what seems like an instant it is suddenly done and I let out a great sigh of satisfaction in that the task has been completed, which is always easier when I feel good about the work that I am doing and that is the case with this show.
So the idea of taking the day off on this busy day was appealing. But I wanted to really show this piece, a 24″ by 30″ canvas that I call Clair de Luneafter the famous DeBussy piece. I was searching for a title for this painting and was stuck, wanting to steer it away from references to the blue hues in it, when this song came up on the Pandora station to which I was listening. It was a version by pianist Michael Dulin. As the music played , I could almost see it meshing with the colors of this painting, the calming tones of the music resting easily in the blues and greens of it.
It just felt right. It fit. So give a listen and take a look. Maybe you’ll see what I saw. Now it’s back to work for me– much to do before I travel tomorrow.
Memorial Day weekend. I’m no historical anthropologist so I can’t be completely certain when I say that I don’t believe there is any one group of people on this planet who have not been touched by war in some significant way. The history of this world has been written in the bloody ink of war.
A few years back, when I began doing genealogy for the families of my wife and myself, I was surprised at the many, many generations in each line who had taken part in the wars of their times, putting their lives aside to give so much of themselves– in some cases, their very lives– for causes that often might have been mere abstractions to them.
Part of me is proud that these people have answered the call to be a small part in something bigger. But another part of me is simply sad to think that they were called on to give so much in order to satisfy or deny the baser motives of those in power. War has usually been about greed and acquisition, nationalistic pride or ethnic and religious hatred– in each instance proposed with the greatest conviction and certainty by the leaders of each side of the cause.
And on Memorial Day, we remember the people who actually fulfilled the pleas of these leaders, be they right or wrong. These citizens did what they were asked and what they felt was necessary in their time and place. And I have nothing but respect for that.
For today’s image, I chose the daguerreotype of the Civil War soldier at the top because there was something in him that seemed to show the sacrifice of war. Maybe it’s the steely stare of his eyes. Or maybe it was his belt that is cinched in to what looks to be a ridiculously tiny diameter, showing how emaciated he appears to be. I’m not exactly sure but there is something in him that seems contemporary, less dated.
And for today’s Sunday musical selection, I have chosen the song Ben McCulloch from Steve Earle. It tells the story of two brothers who enlist in the Confederate Army in the Civil War and discover the hard realities of war as they serve under General McCulloch, who was a real person who died in battle in 1862. The chorus probably echos the sentiments of many soldiers through time for their commanding officers as they face overwhelming odds.
So have a great Sunday and a Memorial Day filled with some appreciation of what the day really encompasses.
Times continually passes on and takes some of our friends along with it as it goes. Thursday, that friend was the great BB King. He was the ambassador and face of the blues for the last half century, a genial presence who crossed over into the mainstream yet maintained the same intensity and integrity as when he was carving out his legend in the 1950’s playing clubs across the country as he toured almost non-stop.
By the time I was in my teens, he had transcended the blues and was part of popular culture. The Thrill Is Gone was a mainstream hit, winning him a Grammy in 1970, and he maintained a visibility on the television, always accompanied by Lucille, his black Gibson guitar which has become probably the only guitar that most people can recognize by name. And if they didn’t know her name they most likely knew the sound of her voice. Everybody knew who BB King was.
But my real introduction to BB King came when I was going through the used bin at a local record shop and found a beat up copy of his Live at the Regal Theater from a show in Chicago in late 1964. It was well worn as though whoever had owned it before had played the hell out of it. From the second the needle on my turntable snapped into the groove, I understood why that was so.
Pure electric, a perfect storm of time, place and people made every moment of that record crackle. One listen and you knew it was about as good as it gets. I still get shivers when I hear it.
So to honor the passing of our friend, this Sunday’s music is a song that was a favorite of that Regal Theater crowd (and mine as well), How Blue Can You Get? But the performance I am showing is from a different venue. It’s from a Thanksgiving show in 1972 from NY’s Sing Sing Prison with BB King, The Voices of East Harlem and Joan Baez. I think this is a great version of the song and seeing the inmates respond really adds something to it.
So, give a listen to our friend and have yourself a great Sunday.
I am coming into the last week of preparing my solo show, Heart+Land, which opens July 17 at the West End Gallery. It’s at this point every year, after the second show in a matter of a couple of months, that I begin to feel a bit worn down. I really see it in trying to write the blog. A lot of mornings I find myself sitting here just staring at the screen and feel that my mind is blank as well, as though the wheels in my mind feel like they will never turn again. I am preoccupied with with those pieces that still need work and other tasks that are waiting for me just out of my sight. Out of sight but not out of mind.
Redtree Times 