Redtree Times

October Sky, 2015

Human lives… are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence… into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual’s life… Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of great distress.

–Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I was reading an article this morning about the role serendipity plays in shaping our lives and our perceptions of it. How we shape our being by the meaning we find in coincidences and the parallels we recognize in art– those books, music, and films we take in– and our own lives. I can certainly point to such instances in my own life. This somehow reminded me of the painting above and the blog entry below from a few years back. The blog post featured little close-up chunks of the painting and that reminded me in a way of how we put together the composition that is our life. Little bits that by themselves often go by unnoticed but ultimately interweave and coalesce into something more than themselves.

Felt like it was good morning to replay this post, especially given that the title of the painting is a timely one, October Sky.

I was looking for something to play this morning and put on this album, Blues Twilight, from jazz trumpet player Richard Boulger. I’ve played a couple of tracks from this album here over the years.

While the title track was playing, I went over to over to a painting that hangs in my studio, the one shown above. It’s an experiment titled October Sky from a few years back that is a real favorite of mine. I showed it for only a short time before deciding that I wanted it hanging in the studio. I never really worked any further in the direction this piece was taking me. Part of that decision to not go further was purely selfish, wanting to keep something solely for myself, something that wasn’t subject to other people’s opinions.

A strictly personal piece. A part of the prism that doesn’t show.

I look at it every day but generally it is from a distance, taking it in as a whole. But his morning, while the album’s title track played I went and really looked hard at it, up close so that every bump and smear was obvious. And I liked what I was seeing, so much so that I grabbed my phone and began snapping little up-close chunks of it.

It all very much felt like the music, like captured phrases or verses. Each had their own nuance, color and texture and they somehow blended into a harmonic coherence that made the piece feel complete.

It’s funny but sometimes when I am working hard and in a groove that takes over from conscious thought, I almost forget about those things that I myself like in my work because I don’t have to think about them in the process of creating the work. Looking at this painting this close made me appreciate the painting even more, made me think about it in a different way than the manner in which I now used to seeing it.

Guess it’s a good thing to stop every now and then and look at what you’ve done, up close and personal.

Here’s Blues Twilight from Richard Boulger. Enjoy the music and take a look at the snips below the song, if you so wish.

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At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.

–Salvador Dali, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali (1948)

From 2008:

At the opening for my show at the Haen Gallery in Asheville, NC, a young woman approached me, telling me first that she had a piece of mine which she loved. She said she felt the same about all my work. We talked for a bit then she came out with the inevitable.

“You’re not what I had expected. I thought you might be wearing a beret or a cape or something like that.”

Strangely, I get that a lot.

People expect me to be something much different than I appear to be. More flamboyant, I guess. Maybe more boorish. Maybe like this guy, Salvador Dali, who exemplified that stereotype of the crazy artist.

But they’re faced with me– a thick-waisted, middle-aged guy with a sloppy gray beard. I used to kid with the folks at the Principle Gallery that one day I would show up at a show in a Dali-like manner, swooping in to hold court in my flowing black cape, waving my arms about in dramatic flourishes. Maybe wearing a monocle and spats like Mr. Peanut. Maybe with a waxed rat-tail moustache a la Dali?

I sometimes wonder if people would look at my work differently then.  Would they find different attributes in the paintings? Would they find a different meaning in each piece?

I don’t know. I hope not.

But I do know there is an illusion behind each person’s impression of a piece of art, that it is a delicate web that supports how they value a piece and that can be affected by my words or actions or even appearance. I have had collectors who did not want to meet me at openings for that very reason, fearful that I might end up being a total dope and that the paintings on their walls were now worthless in their eyes.

Probably a wise move on their part.

That is one of the reasons I’m a little reticent to do this blog. I could write something off the cuff, something that I might soon realize was a product of flawed logic, and quickly destroy someone’s whole perception of my work.

Perhaps that is not giving the work enough credit for its own strength and life. Perhaps this is the flawed logic I mentioned. Whatever the case, it’s something I bear in mind. But for the time being, I will keep the cape and moustache wax in storage and stick with the credo of my childhood hero, Popeye: “I yam what I yam.”

And that’s all that I am…

Followup from 2012:

In the comments from the original 2008 post, someone made the point that the work should stand on its own regardless of the mannerisms or perception of the artist. Of course, I agree completely with that in theory. 

However, I point out that sometimes the artist can affect, both positively and negatively, how their work is viewed with their words and actions. I cite a story I’ve told innumerable times of going to a local college to hear a famous author speak. I was seventeen years old and aspiring to be a writer at the time, armed with a legal pad filled with questions that I hoped to ask this author so that his words of wisdom might guide me along. At the reception afterwards when I finally got a chance to speak with him, he was half in the bag drunk– and a smug prick as well. He rudely dismissed me, moving on without taking a second to consider my question to him. I was crushed and left promising myself that I would never read another word that fool would write.  I have kept that promise to this day.

I also vowed to myself that if I was in that position, I would never treat anyone so dismissively. Hopefully, I have kept that promise.

This was written in the first few months of writing this blog so some things have obviously changed. I was still up in the air about writing this blog, something which I have obviously reconciled with myself. But I am still the same middle-aged guy with a thick waist and a sloppy gray beard.

Followup from 2023:

Since it’s been fifteen years now, must be I have gotten over my hesitancy in writing this blog. Still the same thick-waisted middle-aged guy with what is now a white sloppy beard. The cape and moustache wax have, like Elvis, left the building long ago. Still worry about inadvertently coming off as rude or dismissive of folks at openings and talks. 

And still strong to the finish ’cause I eats me spinach…

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Sharing Heart– At Kada Gallery, Erie PA

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promises only; pain we obey.

–Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past

There is always some sort of conflict and atrocity taking place somewhere on this Earth of ours. History tells us that. It’s so prevalent that many of us are able to tune it out altogether, barely noticing it.

We become inured to the pain and suffering of so many others.

But there are moments when it feels like the hurt and horror of the world reaches some sort of peak. Like a psychic string has been plucked that reverberates around the globe, pealing out a tone that anyone with an iota of empathy can feel.

It feels like such a moment. Maybe it’s just me.

And even if it is something that is felt by others as well, I am left wondering what one can do in response to that vibrating tone. Is it a call to action or a warning to be prepared when whatever evil is taking place heads your way? Maybe a warning that it can come your way?

I don’t know. It certainly has me on edge but, then again, maybe it’s just me.

For the moment, let’s act on the words from Proust at the top of this page. Let’s fulfill our promises to kindness and knowledge. Maybe that is the thing that will dampen that plucked string.

What can it hurt?

Here’s one of my all-time favorites, Try a Little Tenderness, from the immortal Otis Redding. This is a performance in Cleveland that took place the day before he died in a plane crash back in 1967. I am still in awe of all that he left in his 26 years on this planet. Let’s listen to his advice.

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George Grosz- Explosion, 1917

The war was a mirror; it reflected man’s every virtue and every vice, and if you looked closely, like an artist at his drawings, it showed up both with unusual clarity.

–George Grosz, Autobiography (1893-1959)

I was watching and listening to the reports from Israel yesterday. There were anecdotal stories that were filled with horrific details of death along with amazing stories of survival. As artist George Grosz wrote above, the best and worst of man.

This conflict feels like a massive expansion from the same motivating forces that have created similar death and destruction in Ukraine for the last 18 months.  The news reports are often accompanied by videos of huge explosions in the night sky that color the atmosphere in the colors of war and apocalypse– black and red and deep yellows and orange. After a while, it feels overwhelming. I am reminded by these images of artist George Grosz whose powerful work filled with those same colors of war reflected his WW I experience as a German soldier.

Below is a post from back in 2011 about the effect of this work.

From 2011:

I woke up in the dark this morning after a fitful night of sleep filled with horrible dreams.  I don’t want to go into the details but they were awful and constant, each sweeping from desperate scene into yet another. Dark and tinged in deep colors of black and red. Hopeless in the scope of their finality and, though I am hesitant to use the word, there was a sense of apocalypse.

I was shaken. I’ve had many horrifying dreams over the years but they seldom felt so vast and desperately final.

As I trudged down to pick up my newspaper, I tried to sort out these dreams in order to find an equivalence in imagery that I know that captured in some way the feel of these dreams. As I neared the studio the dark paintings of George Grosz done in Germany in the years before World War I came to mind. They were forebodingly dark and angry and just the overall look of them made me think of the darkest corners of man’s mind. The red tones and the way they filled the picture plane along with the chaotic nature of the compositions brought to mind the nightmarish feel of my dreams.

Grosz’s work changed over the years, especially after fleeing Hitler’s Germany, moving to the New York in the 1930’s where he lived until the late 1950’s when he returned to Berlin, dying there in 1959. His American work is often considered the weakest of his career, less biting and more esoteric. There were exceptions during the war such as 1944’s Cain, Or Hitler in Hell, shown here, which reverts back to the colors and nightmare feel of his early work.  Very powerful work that may not sooth one’s soul but rather documents the darker aspects of human existence.

I don’t know if my own nightmares have an effect on my work. Perhaps they come out in work that seems the antithesis of them, work that seeks to calm and assure. Even so, I believe they are there in the background somewhere.

I don’t really know to be honest. I do know that I want to put last night’s visions behind me. To that end, I think I should get to work and let my nightmares only dwell in the work of Grosz for now.

Below is more of the work of George Grosz along with a video of his work set to violinist Andre Rieu playing a selection from The Merry Widow, which gives the whole thing a lighter tone than one would expect.

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Walt Whitman- Photo by Thomas Eakins, 1891

Whitman – Eakins Painting, 1887

America

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair’d in the adamant of Time.

— Walt Whitman, 1888

Not that it matters, but the photo of poet Walt Whitman at the top was taken by the famous painter Thomas Eakins in 1891 while his painting of Whitman on the right was completed in 1887. Just wanted to get that info out of the way.

Whitman and his belief in the power of democracy and equality has played a role in my life for a long time. Thought I’d share the only known recording of his voice, from a wax recording of his reading of his poem America. The recording only contains the first four lines of the short six-line poem leaving off one of my favorite of his phrases, the last line: Chair’d in the adamant of Time. He is basically declaring that so long as America remains a country of Freedom, Fairness and Justice for all, it shall remain as the grand, sane, towering, seated Mother as it has often been perceived by the rest of the world. I like that he portrays the country in the matriarchal sense.

It takes less than a minute to listen to Whitman’s reading. It’s interesting to hear his voice, especially the emphasis he places on some words, such as ample. To my ear, it reminds me of the voice of actor Lionel Barrymore, also a longtime favorite of mine.

Now, for the sake of transparency, I have to let you know that there is a lot of controversy as to whether this is indeed Whitman’s voice. I share this link to the Library of Congress Blog and an article that makes a strong case for it being a recording by an actor from a later date. 

So, maybe it is Uncle Walt and maybe it isn’t. Maybe the reading itself doesn’t matter so long as we understand the message in his words, be it Whitman or an actor, especially at this point in time.

To those who pay attention, the question of whether we can remain that country of Equality, Fairness and Justice for All remains up in the air at the moment. We struggle against powerful forces that seek to define equality, freedom, and fairness in terms that they define that benefit the few, not the many. Hopefully, enough of us can recognize the motives moving these forces and take a stand to defend an America that would make Uncle Walt proud.

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The Durable Will– GC Myers

It is the glory and good of Art
That Art remains the one way possible
Of speaking truth,—to mouths like mine, at least.

–Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book (1868-69)

The events of recent times, here and abroad, have me questioning the meaning and value of truth. It seems like we have entered an era in which every word and action is dissected, parsed, decontextualized, twisted in all directions, and ran through a gauntlet of algorithms that leave one wondering if any truth can endure and overcome such strain.

Are there still universal truths and, if so, will we be able to continue to recognize these truths going forward?

That’s a big question with most likely no concrete answers and probably an unfair question to ask in this early Monday morning.

Unfortunately, it’s the kind of question that sometimes wakes me up at 4:30 AM, making my mind immediately begin racing.

I have spent the last 25 or so years trying to make some sort of sense of this world through my work, to reveal even the smallest bit of truth that speaks to a universal audience. These questions about what truth now means make me wonder whether the truths that I have known are still real, are still durable enough to persist.

One may never know. I guess the best we can do is to keep speaking the truth as we know it and hope that its reality will allow it to survive the tests it will surely face.

Man, this week feels like a bear already and it’s not even 7 AM!

Let’s listen to the great and underappreciated jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby with a tune that lines up with today’s thoughts. It’s called Truth Spoken Here from her 1969 album, Dorothy’s Harp.

It’s good stuff and that’s the truth…

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Moonlight Quartet–At West End Gallery

Little blue, be my shelter
Be my cradle, be my womb
Be my boat, be my river
Be the stillness of the moon
If I could, I’d go with you
To a place I never knew
In your eyes, so dark and open
There’s a light that leads me back to you

—Jacob Collier, Little Blue

What a time.

What a world.

It all seems out of rhythm, in vast disharmony. The hatred, anger, and inhumanity that is taking place– how can one make sense of such things? How can one maintain balance in a world so out of balance?

We can put our heads in the sand to ignore it or try to rationalize it away by saying that it’s been this way for thousands of years, that it’s simply part of our nature. But that doesn’t make it right. Doesn’t bring even the slightest reassurance or comfort, even to someone who is far removed and insulated from the horrors of the moment.

I wish I had answers for you. Or for myself. Of course, I don’t have any.

Probably the best we can do is not to accept it, to not let the hatred and disregard for life seep into our own lives. To be kind and tolerant of others we come across. To do no harm.

Maybe we can create tiny ripples of humanity in a vast and turbulent ocean of inhumanity. Maybe we can still the waters.

Hmm…

For this Sunday Morning Music break, here’s a song from Jacob Collier with a performance that is all about harmony. Lovely tune in an unlovely moment. A tiny ripple.

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Grant Wood– Near Sundown

Technique does not constitute art. Nor is it a vague, fuzzy romantic quality known as beauty, remote from the realities of everyday life. It is the depth and intensity of an artist’s experience that are the first importance in art.

–Grant Wood

I am featuring the quote above from Grant Wood (1891-1942) mainly because I just want to show off a couple of my favorite pieces of his work. But his words resonate for me as well.

I sometimes speak or write of the different processes I employ in my work. They are important tools in conveying whatever constitutes the emotional message of a piece. Hopefully, they create an image that has some form of aesthetic beauty as well. But, as Wood points out, they are secondary to the emotional input from the artist that has been formed by experiencing and observing the world around them.

That’s a message I have passed on to students and student groups I’ve spoken with in the past. It is important to learn all sorts of technique and to hone the abilities of your craft. But more it is even more important to educate yourself– to learn, read, listen, observe, and feel the world around them with intensity, all with the goal of making oneself a more complete human being.

That is the thing that moves work from craft to art.

I believe that might be what Mr. Wood was saying.

Anyway, let’s look at his work while listening to a tune dedicated to and titled for Grant Wood at the bottom from the Turtle Island String Quartet. Good stuff.

Grant Wood- Young Corn

Grant Wood- Stone City Iowa

Grant Wood- New Road

Grant Wood- Fall Plowing

Grant Wood- Haying

Grant Wood- Death on the Ridge Road

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Early Attempt- 1993

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

–Samuel Johnson, The Prince of Abissinia, 1759

I have mentioned here a number of times that this time of the year I sometimes go through my old work done before I was showing my work publicly. Most of the time I go through work that was beginning to show signs of what was to become whatever style I might have. I can see where things are heading in many of these pieces.

Early Attempt- 1993

But yesterday, I went through a bin of old work that I have been avoiding for a long time. It contained a lot of my very earliest attempts, done in the months after I was injured in a fall from a ladder back in 1993.  These first attempts were done with old airbrush paints and a brush pushed into the cast surrounding my shattered wrist. I don’t know what even prompted me to do this outside of a nagging, almost panicky need to express myself that was feeling restrained by the injuries I was nursing.

I had to do something.

Going through the work, most on paper or paper canvas, was sheer agony at times. Oh, there were glimmers of what might come later but some was just painful to take in. Much of it was muddy and dull and some just plain terrible to behold.

Looking at them, all I could think was what in god’s name made me want to keep moving forward from that point? I sure couldn’t see it.

What was in this work that was telling me to keep at it? Why go on?

I can’t answer that question. Maybe it was, as I said, just a need to express myself even if it wasn’t as graceful and satisfying as I would like. Maybe even in these awful attempts there was still something, a small step forward, I could see then but can’t recall now. Maybe it was like stumbling through a maze in absolute darkness and seeing a tiny firefly go around a corner in the blackness ahead. Enough to make you go ahead just a little more.

The interesting thing here is that I had no idea where the maze was leading. I enjoyed looking at paintings and other forms of art but had no notions of making art my livelihood or career. Never even thought it was a possibility. Maybe I sensed I was at a turning point in my life and this would be a way to document it so that I could look at it later in order to make sense of the moment.

I don’t know.

But something made me persevere. Something made me want to continue so that eventually the single firefly ahead of me in the maze became a glowing torch that almost demanded that I forge ahead.

I am showing three of those pieces from the first months after I was injured in September of 1993. They aren’t great, not even very good though they are among the best from this earliest group of work. Not a high bar to clear. Like much of my work even now, they just came as they were, unplanned and unmodeled. I just made a first mark and soon after, they appeared.

Maybe I am a fool to show them. Why would an artist show their weakest work, the kind of stuff that most artists either hide away forever or destroy? I can’t answer that except to say that maybe they were the fireflies I needed.

Whatever the case, I feel a sense of gratitude to these early pieces that gave me what I needed in the moment.  And maybe they simply bought me more time to grow, more time to listen to and develop my own voice.

And that’s a lot.

Here’s a song, Time, in that vein from 1970 from Edwin Starr. You most likely will remember him for his classic tune War with a line anyone who lived in that era knows so well: War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! I didn’t know much of his work at the time outside of War but everything I have come across over the years from Edwin Starr has been like finding a hidden treasure. This is one of those.

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Tango– 1999

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

–Leonard Cohen, Dance Me to the End of Love

I was looking at the painting above, Tango, yesterday in my studio. It was a piece that was sold back in 1999 but came back to me in 2015 when I found it online as part of an estate sale from a deceased collector in central Virginia. It was a favorite of mine when it was painted and getting it back was exciting. It was a thrill to see that it was just as I had remembered it and maybe even better. I wrote about regaining this piece and two others from that sale on this blog back in 2015.

But looking at it yesterday, I was suddenly hooked by a detail I hadn’t noticed before. In the first gap between the entwined trees there is what appears to me to be a miniature version of the basic composition, with the green of the hills separated from the golden yellow of the fields by the white gap. This was pretty much the basis of most of my paintings from that time.

It’s a small thing and not one that detracts at all from the overall feel of the painting.  But I now find myself immediately going to that small detail and finding a bit of delight in it. It feels like there is a small window into the inner world of the intimacy between the two trees.

This little detail adds a degree of pleasure to my enjoyment in this painting. Part of the tango we do with art we love. We find small bits and details within that enthrall us and make that piece even more special in our eyes. I can generally find some such small detail in any piece of my own and in the works from others that speak to me.

Like a secret softly whispered in the ear…

Here’s a video set to a Leonard Cohen song that very much is in the spirit of this painting. This is Dance Me to the End of Love.

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