Redtree Times

Early Noctograph ca. 1810

It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by making people neglectful it lets in disaster. There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference. It is not enough to say that the twentieth century is the best age in the history of mankind, and to take refuge from the evils of the world in skyey dreams of good. How many good men, prosperous and contented, looked around and saw naught but good, while millions of their fellow men were bartered and sold like cattle! No doubt, there were comfortable optimists who thought Wilberforce a meddlesome fanatic when he was working with might and main to free the slaves. I distrust the rash optimism in this country that cries, ” Hurrah, we’re all right ! This is the greatest nation on earth,” when there are grievances that call loudly for redress. That is false optimism. Optimism that does not count the cost is like a house builded on sand. A man must understand evil and be acquainted with sorrow before he can write himself an optimist and expect others to believe that he has reason for the faith that is in him.
      I know what evil is. Once or twice I have wrestled with it, and for a time felt its chilling touch on my life; so I speak with knowledge when I say that evil is of no consequence, except as a sort of mental gymnastic. For the very reason that I have come in contact with it, I am more truly an optimist. I can say with conviction that the struggle which evil necessitates is one of the greatest blessings. It makes us strong, patient, helpful men and women. It lets us into the soul of things and teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. I try to increase the power God has given me to see the best in everything and everyone and make that Best a part of my life. The world is sown with good; but unless I turn my glad thoughts into practical living and till my own field, I cannot reap a kernel of the good.
       Thus my optimism is grounded in two worlds, myself and what is about me. I demand that the world be good, and lo, it obeys. I proclaim the world good, and facts range themselves to prove my proclamation overwhelmingly true. To what is good I open the doors of my being, and jealously shut them against what is bad. Such is the force of this beautiful and willful conviction, it carries itself in the face of all opposition. I am never discouraged by absence of good. I never can be argued into hopelessness. Doubt and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.

–Helen Keller, Optimism Within, 1903

After I wrote yesterday’s blog entry, I was thinking that I needed to point out that not all optimism is equal. There is one form that is reckless and lazy, whose adherents believe that things will always work out without any concern or help from them. There is a reciprocal form of pessimism that is equally as reckless and lazy, one that believes that the end is near so why try to stop it. Both are inactive and irresponsible.

I guess what I wanted to add to yesterday’s post is that my optimism is a cautious one, one based on me staying informed, doing research, and trying to do whatever it takes to help others and myself along the way. It is an optimism that tries to be active and participatory. It understands that the path into the future consists of hills and valleys, that it is effort that creates the lasting change that fuels true optimism.

In thinking about this I came across some passages from a short book, Optimism, that Helen Keller wrote in 1903 while still a student at Radcliffe. The passages I read described very much the sort of optimism I had wanted to describe, one that differentiated between the naive and detached Pollyannish sort and that which is more realistic and engaged.

I decided to find the book to make sure I was understanding these passages in their original context. I went to the Internet Archive, one of my favorite sites for researching older books. It allows you to leaf through old volumes and has a great search function. Optimism was there and I quickly found the passages which led me to reading more of the book. It described her optimism in terms that made sense to my way of thinking. It was quite an interesting read and even in these few paragraphs, there are numerous memorable lines, such as:

I distrust the rash optimism in this country that cries, ” Hurrah, we’re all right ! This is the greatest nation on earth,” when there are grievances that call loudly for redress. That is false optimism.

With all that Helen Keller overcame, she, of all people, could write on optimism with authority.

A little added info: The Wilberforce she mentions in the passage above is William Wilberforce (1759-1833), the Member of Parliament who was the driving force in the British movement for the abolition of slavery, which culminated in the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Wilberforce also founded the British SPCA. the world’s first animal welfare organization.

Also, while doing my research I discovered that before she was introduced to the Braille System of reading and writing for the blind, Helen Keller used a device to actually write with her own hand. As you can see from the image below, from a letter she wrote when only 11 years old, her handwriting in her writings of that time was quite neat and orderly. Much better than my own, that’s for sure. It was made with some form of a device called a noctograph like the one shown at the top. I had never heard of this device so a little research uncovered that it was invented in the early 1800’s so that people with loss of sight or those in the dark could more easily write. I have included a short video below that explains how it worked.

Helen Keller Letter 1891

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.

― Noam Chomsky

I am running a mashup of two past blog entries today. One is just the illustration above from Shel Silverstein reminding us to reject negativity and remain open to possibility. The other was from last New Year’s Eve when I declared myself a Committed Optimist. I thought it was worth revisiting to see if I had held up my end in upholding that oath. Was I the Committed Optimist I desired to be?

To be honest, I can’t really say.

There were plenty of disappointments, missteps, losses and downright failures that certainly put it to the test. But there were also plenty of good things, revelations, lessons learned, and just enough glints of hope for the future to make me still feel optimistic about that future.

And isn’t having the belief that there is a future for myself and the world evidence enough of one’s optimism?

In that case, I am still, one year in and a little shaky at times, a Committed Optimist. Now, let’s start working on that future..

–January2, 2023

Tonight is New Year’s Eve with the year 2022 beginning at midnight. The last several year’s have been racing with increasing urgency to this moment and it almost feels like we are near the point where all the storylines merge and hopefully come to an end. The threats of pandemic, climate related disasters, potential government overthrow and civil war all hang in the air, all with outcomes that are yet to be determined.

But despite the threats that sometimes haunt my fevered dreams, I have found myself in recent days feeling oddly optimistic.

I am optimistic about the work I will produce but even more than that, I have a feeling of positivity that these more daunting and dangerous matters can be resolved.

Well, maybe not the climate related disasters. That can’t be resolved in short order, if ever. But the optimistic part of me believes that we as a species will find the will to adapt to the coming changes in our environment.

So, call me an optimist this morning. I am proud to wear that label after the last five awful years.

Optimists sometimes get a bad name. Maybe rightfully so.

I mean, they sometimes gloss over glaring and seemingly unsurmountable obstacles. They sometimes overestimate their abilities and potentials. They sometimes forget that others may not have the same forward-looking attitude and, as a result, will not assist in the mission.

And they are sometimes dreadfully wrong and their attempts fail in gloriously awful crashes.

But you know what? They fail only because they have the daring and foresight to start and do things. Big things.

Optimists get things get done. Plain and simple.

Pessimists have never accomplished a thing worth remembering. If they have, it eludes my memory.  Pessimism is easy, without any commitment or acceptance of responsibility. It doesn’t take any daring or effort to criticize, to point out flaws or the doomed outcomes that they believe will come.

No, pessimists do nothing. I know. I have been a part-time pessimist for long stretches of my life and during those periods, I was worthless and miserable.

Any great accomplishment, any breakthrough, anything that has moved or benefitted mankind, came from an optimist. They had a vision, saw a need, and plunged in. They brushed aside the naysayers, the pessimists, and did what needed to be done.

They saw a future.

But optimism is not easy. Not by a long shot.

We’re not talking Pollyanna, rose-colored glasses stuff here. I’m talking hardcore, roll-up-your-sleeves, bare-your-knuckles and show-your-teeth optimism.

The optimism I am talking about requires steely determination and willingness to sweat and bleed to achieve the envisioned future. It requires taking on a responsibility for others besides yourself. It takes the daring to move on even as you know that you could very easily fall flat on your face and outright fail.

Most importantly, it requires absolute, unwavering commitment. This is the real key to everything.

Commitment is a dangerous thing in the hands of the misguided or the more evil among us. We see evidence of this all the time. But in the hands of those who work and struggle for a better future for all people- even those creative sorts who want to leave the world evidence of the grace that resides here– commitment is a force of nature.

Commitment in the hands of an optimist is the engine that makes the world a better place and creates a better future for us all.

Look at the history of human achievement– it gets stuff done. Plain and simple.

I want to see a better future. I want to see it in my work but, more importantly, I need to see it in the world around me. And I am optimistic that it will be done.

So, for this last entry in the year 2021, let me state that I plan to enter the New Year as a Committed Optimist.

Might even put that on my business card, if I had one.

Let’s play one last song for this year. This is When Your Minds Made Up From Glen Hansard, from his creation that became an enchanting movie and stage production, Once. I chose it because this performance is filled with commitment. Its finishing moments are filled with absolute, primal and ethereal commitment.

And that– absolute, primal and ethereal commitment– is my wish for the New Year.

My mind’s made up.

Chaos & Light— At the West End Gallery

Like the folds of summer dresses
Like the scent upon my wrist
Like the way you played guitar
Like a boxer punches with his fist
And taken or just lost to me
It’s better now to say
I dwell in possibility
On New Year’s Day

—New Year’s Day, Mary Chapin Carpenter

Happy New Year. Let us all dwell in its possibility…

Solitary Song— At the Principle Gallery, Alexandria VA

You will be wrong and you will be bad quite often. That is the process of growing. Keep failing, but keep listening and keep learning. Do not let the failures allow you to shrink and to move into some small corner to do your work: Always be big and bold. Take risks. No one grows without a lot of stumbling.

–Tennessee Williams, Interview with James Grissom, 1982

I have been in that annual period of retrospection, looking back on the past year’s work. I am trying to determine where I went hit or missed with my creative decisions and where I want to work to take me in the coming year.

I feel really good about this past year’s work. It has done everything I needed it to do for myself, which is always my first goal. I feel that much of it ranks among my best work.

But even so, I have had a nagging indefinable doubt and dissatisfaction about the year as a whole. It’s like everything is there and where I want it to be artistically in individual pieces but the accumulated body still somehow lacks some element that I have overlooked.

This is not an easy thing to discern and might not even make any sense to the casual observer. I mean, if the work is strong and totally satisfying, isn’t that enough? Isn’t that the goal?

The short and easy answer is yes and I could easily go along with that– except for that nagging doubt that is hanging around. Then I came across this quote from Tennessee Williams the other day and it stopped me cold, especially this line: Do not let the failures allow you to shrink and to move into some small corner to do your work.

I immediately recognized that the missing element from this past year– and maybe much, much longer– was that I was allowing myself to shrink within my work. I was not taking risks, working big and being bold.

Going back through the years, I realized that the scale of my work kept getting progressively smaller. Looking at this year’s shows as they were hung, I didn’t see the big statement pieces that have often reinforced and tied things together in past shows. In fact, most of my early shows always had multiple pieces that were larger than anything I have painted in a while. They were big and bold and seemed to have a positive effect on the surrounding work.

This might not seem like much of anything, let alone a revelation, to you. I understand that. But for me, it was most enlightening, like I had come across the missing piece of a murky puzzle. It gives me something to work on, to build off.

I am not big on New Year’s resolutions, but I might follow the advice of Tennessee Williams as a goal for the coming year: Always be big and bold. Take risks.

We shall see.

To complete this triad of image, words and song on this New Year’s Eve, here’s a well-worn classic from Bob Marley, Get Up, Stand Up. More good advice to heed.

Have a good New Year’s Eve…

Sacred Solitude— At Principle Gallery, Alexandria VA

Meditation is holy to me, for I believe that all the secrets of existence and nonexistence are somewhere in our heads—or in other people’s heads. “And I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle. The motto of this noble library is the motto of all meditators throughout all time: ‘Quiet, please.’ Thus ends my speech. I thank you for your attention.

~Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday

I entered the phrase “songs about solitude” on Google yesterday and it came back with “songs about loneliness” on the search line above the results. It kind of bugged me because the two words, solitude and loneliness, are not synonymous. Not even close to my way of thinking. 

Maybe there just aren’t many songs about actual solitude. On the other hand, there are plenty about being lonely: Only the Lonely. Oh Lonesome Me. Are You Lonesome Tonight?, I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, and on and on. And that’s just off the top of my head. I am sure you can come up with many others pretty easily.

Nobody’s writing songs about being placid in their solitude. When you’re serene, you probably don’t feel the need.

I that know my compulsion to paint really decreases when I am close to feeling totally at peace. Not that I’ve had much experience with that. But when I am stressed and bothered, maybe even a little angry, I feel the need to paint the most. Some of my best work, in my opinion, has come from those times.

But even though the work might be great, the goal of working through those turbulent times is to get past them, to a place of solitude. A place of meditative stillness where one can read and think in the way Kurt Vonnegut describes in the passage at the top. It’s a weird give and take– you want to be at peace with yourself and create great work but the best work comes when you are not.

Right now? I am not exactly on that island of sacred solitude that appears at the top of the page. Roiled, flummoxed, and maybe even a little pissed. That might not sound great personally but from a creative standpoint, it’s pure rocket fuel. Just got to light that fuse.

Here’s a rare pop song about solitude. You can find more classical compositions dealing with silence and serenity pop or rock songs about it are hard to find. This is the classic I Am a Rock from Simon & Garfunkel.  To be honest, this song is a Trojan Horse. It feels like it is about the beauty and power of solitude but it ends up being about the character in the song pretending to be fine with his isolation when, in fact, he is lonely. And somewhat emotionally stunted, to boot, not being able to cry or feel pain.

But even as Trojan Horse it is, it’s still a great song.

Now, quiet, please!

Symphony Serene— At the West End Gallery

As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind. Some see only clouds there; some, prodigies and portents; some rarely look up at all; their heads, like the brutes,’ are directed toward Earth. Some behold there serenity, purity, beauty ineffable. The world runs to see the panorama, when there is a panorama in the sky which few go to see.

–Henry David Thoreau, Journal

I had already paired the painting at the top, Symphony Serene, with the passage from Thoreau when I came across a song, Hymn #101, from singer/songwriter Joe Pug that I liked very much. One verse really jumped out at me, and I almost subbed it into the blog in place for the words of Thoreau:

And I’ve come to be untroubled in my seeking.
And I’ve come to see that nothing is for naught.
I’ve come to reach out blind
To reach forward and behind
For the more I seek the more I’m sought
Yeah, the more I seek the more I’m sought.

But then I remembered that there are no rules here. That’s a big sky at the top and there’s plenty of space for both, isn’t there? That and a lot more, no doubt. But for today, let’s just leave it at that.

Here’s Hymn#101 from Joe Pug. Hope you’ll give it a listen.

Tempus Pacis– Currently at the Principle Gallery 

IN HER GARDEN OF YADDO
          Hours fly,
          Flowers die
          New days,
          New ways,
          Pass by.
          Love stays.
______________
    Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
    But for those who Love,
          Time is not.

—Henry Van Dyke, For Katrina’s Sundial

You don’t hear much about Henry van Dyke (1852-1933) these days though he lived a life filled with achievement. He was a Princeton English professor, an influential Presbyterian clergyman, US Ambassador to Luxembourg and the Netherlands during WW I, and a widely read bestselling author and poet. Not to mention that he was good friend to many of the luminaries of that era including Helen Keller and Mark Twain, whose funeral he officiated in 1910. A big life.

Much of his literary output has not fared well in modern times. It’s considered a little old fashioned and sometimes a bit too religious– he was a clergyman so this is to be expected– for modern readers. I’ve got a few of his old books and they’re okay. Perhaps a bit dated and overtly sentimental, sometimes maudlin. There’s not a lot that fills the modern reader with excited inspiration and self-revelation, like the evergreen verses of Walt Whitman. But it’s well-composed and well-thought and there are gems among them.

For instance, the verse at the top was composed to be used an inscription on a sundial on the estate of a wealthy friend, thus the title For Katrina’s Sundial. The second verse part of it has become well known on its own as a poem called Time Is. It has been read at the funeral of Princess Diana and used on a London memorial to British victims of the 9/11 attacks, as well as inspiring a 1969 song from the rock group It’s a Beautiful Day.

Van Dyke also wrote the lyrics that were set to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy which became the hymn, Joyful Joyful We Adore You.

Now you know a little more about Henry van Dyke. Here’s the song using his poem from It’s a Beautiful Day, the San Francisco based band best known for the song White Bird which I have shared here in the past. This is a good old hippie era jam with passages that slightly recall Time Has Come Today from the Chambers Brothers.

Whatever time is, it’s time for me to go…

Imitatio– At the West End Gallery

We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.

― Voltaire

After you find out all the things that can go wrong, your life becomes less about living and more about waiting.

― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

I am using two quotes to kick off today’s post. They are from two very different sources, one the intellectual leading light of the Enlightenment of the 17th century and the other the hard-edged contemporary author of Fight Club.

But both say pretty much the same thing, albeit in different terms: Life is often mainly a matter of waiting.

Waiting for things to begin. Or end.

Waiting for signs or a proper time. Or conditions to change.

Waiting for the Muse to visit.

Waiting for the sun to shine or the dark clouds to recede.

Waiting for justice.

Or the next shoe to drop.

Waiting for things to get better. Or worse.

Waiting for hopes or horrors.

That’s certainly how the last couple of years have felt, like I have been treading water in a deep pool. Not going forward in any way but paddling like hell to just stay afloat, waiting for something to which I can’t even name.

Not even sure I will recognize whatever it is if when and if it appears.

The scary thing about this time is that feels like the normal state of being now even though deep down, something tells me this should not be so.

So, I wait in my corner trying to appear as patient as possible to see if this will soon change. All the while, my brain is furiously treading water, nervous and impatient.

To accompany this little foray, I am going way back with the Rolling Stones. Here’s one of my favorite Stones songs, I Am Waiting, from 1966.

Now, time for me to get back to my chair in the corner. Gonna get some good waitin’ in today. Close the door on your way out, okay?

This post ran about a year ago at this same time of the year. I feel this same sense of waiting every year around now, like I am waiting to get past the requirements and anxieties of the holidays, get past the marker in time that is the new year, get past the creative blocks that seems to build around this time every year. Waiting for the Muse to either inspire or belittle my efforts. Who knows when she will show up? I sometimes feel like the refugees described by the narrator at the beginning of Casablanca:

Here, the fortunate ones through money, or influence, or luck, might obtain exit visas and scurry to Lisbon; and from Lisbon, to the New World. But the others wait in Casablanca… and wait… and wait… and wait.

So, I wait. And wait. And…

Pursuing the Light– Now at the West End Gallery

I only believe in temporary denial. You know, the kind that gets you home to get your act together and try again. That’s a good denial. The kind that helps you finish the audition or the dinner or the job interview or the credit application–the whole time keeping it together, cool and confidant–then you go home and rewrite your whole autobiography and game plan and prepare to take over the world. That’s good denial. But I don’t believe in denial beyond the period you need to cool down and pep up: I believe in revision. Garson [Kanin] and I both refused to face the facts. People didn’t like a writer or a film, and we both realized they were wrong. We were right, and we trusted that in time other people would join us. And they did! Trust your instincts and trust your taste. It will work out. It has to, if you have talent, and you can’t be in denial about that, and you can only revise your talent so much. Listen and see if people believe in you and want you to succeed. Then go out and earn the faith they had in you. Deny and revise. It’s a good motto.

–Ruth Gordon/Interview with James Grissom/1984

It’s that time of the year as we approach the final squares on the calendar page. It’s a period of time to sum up, to reflect on our triumphs and defeats, both big and small. For me, it’s a time of reflection, one that focuses on the work I have done over the past year, one that normally entails facing the doubts that seem always around me. I’ve written about this subject of self-doubt ad nauseum in the past so I am not going to go too long about it today.

One of the hardest parts of this job is when the work that feel you most passionate about, the work that you feel represents a step forward in your creative progression, doesn’t garner the response you feel it deserves.

Intellectually, it is easy to rationalize this since one realizes that art is subject to personal tastes and desires, that it cannot reach every person in the same way.

But emotionally, it feeds directly into a vein of uncertainty and self-doubt about your own tastes and talents. Mainlining, immediately in the bloodstream and throughout every system. The intellectualized rationalizations don’t stand a chance. It’s like trying to wish away a virus.

I have said in the past that getting past this becomes easier when you can fall back on the experience of having endured prior episodes of this self-doubt. And I believe that is mainly true. However, there is something to be said for the naive confidence of the less experienced, those who have not yet become gun-shy from the inevitable failures and disappointments to come. That innocent naivete carries with it a certain fearlessness and bravado that is important in the creation of art. It is exuberant, hiding nothing and naked to the world for all to see.

Nothing to lose.

That feeling is hard to find again as you progress in your career. You begin to shade things, to be less transparent in an attempt to protect and maintain what your earlier exuberance produced.

This creeping self-doubt is a quandary, a puzzle to be solved. If it, indeed, can be solved. Maybe it requires getting to a point where you feel you have nothing less to lose once more. A point where all is transparent again.

This probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to most folks. I understand that since this is more like a diary entry than a blog post. Just thinking out loud this morning. I came across the excerpt from a Ruth Gordon interview above and it really hit a nerve for me since I am currently in that No-Man’s-Land where self-doubt resides. It reminded me that sometimes it is simply patience that gets you past the self-doubt that has you denying your own abilities and value. If you have enough belief in your abilities and tastes to honestly produce and show work that is a true expression of yourself, that talent and work will someday be vindicated.

Changing yourself or your work for anyone is never a lasting answer.

Okay, I lied. I went on way too long for what I thought I wanted to say. Not even sure I said whatever that was.

Here’s a song to put a bow on this odd little package. It’s a song from the Pixies called Where Is My Mind? performed in an altered manner by the Postmodern  Jukebox featuring vocals from Allison Young.

For some reason, it makes sense here this morning.

2007

There is nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child…. Time, self-pity, apathy, bitterness, and exhaustion can take the Christmas out of the child, but you cannot take the child out of Christmas.

–Erma Bombeck, I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression

Merry Christmas…