Redtree Times

2011

Everything perishes except the world itself and its keepers…But while life lasts everything on earth has its use. The wise seek ways to be helpful to the world, for the helpful ones are sure to live again.

― L. Frank Baum, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

I was going to start today’s blog with an old Phyllis Diller joke– betcha didn’t see that one coming!— about her husband, Fang:

Fang is the cheapest man alive. On Christmas Eve, he puts the kids to bed, fires one shot, and tells them Santa has committed suicide.

I decided against using it as the opening because I didn’t think it would be appropriate. As you can see, that didn’t stop me from still using it. It made me laugh and made me a little nostalgic for all those variety show Christmas specials that were ubiquitous on TV in the 1960’s.

Of course, we all know Santa would never do such a thing. He’s a man on a mission, a man with a purpose, which is, as good ol’ L. Frank Baum further points out in his chronicle of Santa Claus:

Every man has his mission, which is to leave the world better, in some way, than he found it.

And for Santa, his way of making the world a better place is to try to protect the innocence of children before the world overtakes them. As Baum once again states:

Childhood is the time of man’s greatest content. ‘Tis during these years of innocent pleasure that the little ones are most free from care. […] Their joy is in being alive, and they do not stop to think. In after-years the doom of mankind overtakes them, and they find they must struggle and worry, work and fret, to gain the wealth that is so dear to the hearts of men.

But this year is going to be a tough slog for Santa tonight. It’s early Christmas Eve morning and it’s a windy 0° outside. Mind numbingly cold. It’s part of the job, I suppose. And most likely the reason he earned that Saint title. Because, again, as Baum added:

It is possible for any man, by good deeds, to enshrine himself as a Saint in the hearts of the people.

Let’s try to keep that Santa spirit alive and burning through the coldness that exists both in the weather outside and in the hearts of those who have lost the innocence of childhood. Have a good Christmas Eve.

To warm you up a bit, here’s a good early performance of Bruce’s version of Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, from Houston in 1978.

2008

There’s a room out there somewhere with a woman in a chair
With memories of childhood still lingering there
How pretty the paper, the lights and the snow
How precious those memories of long long ago

We held hands and stared at the lights on the tree
As if Christmas was invented for you and for me
When the angel on the treetop requested a song
We sang, “Silent night all day long”

–John Prine, Silent Night All Day Long

Santa, Early Work July 1994

And, afterward, when a child was naughty or disobedient, its mother would say:
“You must pray to the good Santa Claus for forgiveness. He does not like naughty children, and, unless you repent, he will bring you no more pretty toys.”
But Santa Claus himself would not have approved this speech. He brought toys to the children because they were little and helpless, and because he loved them. He knew that the best of children were sometimes naughty, and that the naughty ones were often good. It is the way with children, the world over, and he would not have changed their natures had he possessed the power to do so.

—L. Frank Baum, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902)

Came across this old piece from the time when I was just starting to paint in earnest. I hadn’t yet found the technique and style that typified my later work but I was starting to zero on it at this point in 1994.

I don’t know how this piece came about. It certainly didn’t start out with Santa as its subject, especially in July when it was done. It most likely began as a pool of paint from which I began moving the pigment around until something caught my eye, until some form or pattern emerged. Kind of like reading tea leaves.

It’s not a great piece by any stretch of the imagination. But it always makes me smile probably because I have always imagined Santa huffing along as he toted this chubby kid in his arms while whispering to him to cut out the sweets because Santa was getting too old to for this crap.

Of course, we all know that Santa would never say such a thing. He remains for many much like L. Frank Baum portrayed him in his book on Santa cited above, as a tolerant and benevolent caretaker of children the world over.

If only…

Anyway, that leads me to a song from Mabel Scott. I play her rocking version of Baseball Boogie here quite often at the beginning of the season and it never gets old. This tune has all that same boogie woogie energy which Santa needs– the dude’s got a lot of work ahead of him. From 1948, this is Boogie Woogie Santa Claus.

Terminus— Now at the West End Gallery

There is surely no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and endings of things.

–Francis Bacon, Of Delays, 1625

I tromped up through the woods yesterday. The snow wasn’t deep and it was cold enough to freeze up some of the boggier parts of the hillside so that I could wander through. It was something I hadn’t done for some time. Too long. Even though it’s only less than a quarter mile up in the woods, it seems like a world removed from the home and studio down below, which themselves often feel far removed from the world at the end of our long driveway.

It’s quieter than down below, the trees and the terrain muffling sound. The crunch of the snow underfoot is clean and clear. It’s a good sound.

With the snow on the ground and the leaves now gone, I could see deeper into the woods. I was able to better see the individual trunks and crowns of the trees. Some were like anonymous people in a crowd scene in a film, not really standing. While I could still appreciate their individual beauty, they didn’t stop my eye.

It was the bigger trees that jumped out at me, the beech and maples and the now dying ash trees that have been ravaged by the borer beetles. It made me think how loggers must look through the woods, their eyes measuring and taking in the shape of each tree until one large tree sets off their inner alarms. It made me wonder how my great-grandfather, who first set out into the Adirondack forests in 1872 with his own crew of loggers at the age of 17, would look through these woods. Would he simply see the trees as a form of income or would he look upon them as companions? After all, this was man who spent much of about 60 or so years in the deep woods in all sorts of weather conditions before the use of machinery.

It’s one of those times when you wish you had a way to spend a few minutes speaking with an ancestor.

As is always the case in nature, the forest reminds you of the beginnings and endings. The floor of the forest is littered with dead trees that have tumbled over in wetter and windier times or, in the case of the mighty ashes that have died from the damage of the beetles, rot then fall in large chunks until all that is left is the lower trunk of the tree. The remnant ash trunks are sometime twenty plus feet tall.

I am always a bit sad when seeing these dead trees who by virtue of location and environment didn’t last as long as they might have in other places. But even so, among their bony remains on the forest floor new saplings and young trees abound, all straining upward trying to lush their faces to the light.

It’s a reminder of the inborn desire to struggle and survive that is present in all species. We all desire to exist, to feel our faces in the sunlight of this world. But, as the forest points out, we all have beginnings and endings.

And that’s as it should be. How would we be able to appreciate this world, to see it as the gift it is, if we knew our time here was without end?

I don’t know the purpose of this essay. I simply started and this is what it ended up as. A beginning and an ending…

Here’s a song that is about beginnings. Not a holiday song. You most likely will get your fill of those everywhere else. Not to say I won’t play one or two in coming days but today let’s go with From the Beginning from Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

Cool Rising- At West End Gallery, Corning

A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes; the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives—all bear secret relations to our destinies.

–François-René de Chateaubriand, Memoirs of Chateaubriand, 1848

Just wanted to hear River from Joni Mitchell this morning. It’s a song that just gnaws to be heard sometimes. It’s not really a holiday song though its first verse begins in this season:

It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

The video below is a Joni Mitichell endorsed animation of the song, which I wasn’t aware of it when it came out late last year. It certainy captures the mood and tone of the song. Lovely.

First Light— Now at the Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA

Some day I shall sing to thee in the sunrise of some other world, “I have seen thee before in the light of the earth, in the love of man.”

-Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds,  291

Trying to stay quiet this morning so I don’t have a lot a lot to say here at the moment. Just wanted to share another new small painting, First Light, that is at the Principle Gallery for their Small Works show. Working in tones of gray is something I often turn to in order to cleanse the palate, though I guess I could use the word palette since we’re talking about removing color. I always enjoy doing this work as it makes me focus more on tone than color. This often helps me in the aftermath.

These recent small graytones– sounds like an old a cappella group–include small burst of color, mainly red-tinged suns that really stand out from the grays and blacks. That contrast makes these pieces pop for me. I sometimes think that my attraction to this use of grays and color goes back to the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy opens the door after the tornado had passed and there is that first burst of color and light of Munchkinland contrasted against the sepia toned Kansas life in which she existed. That scene still thrills me.

The lines at the top were from a short book published n 1913 from the great Nobel Prize winning poet Rabindranath Tagore called Stray Birds. It is comprised of 326 short one- or two-line poems. Really more like aphorisms and random observations than poems, though they are expressed with poetry and grace. Very engaging and thought provoking.

Here’s a song about the first light of sunrise. It’s a version of the Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun performed by the late Richie Havens. Havens gave a well-known performance of the song at Woodstock that you most likely know. This is a later version that takes the song even further from the original while still maintaining the beauty and meaning of its form. Good stuff.

Colors of the Season— Available at West End Gallery

Here’s wishing you the bluest sky
And hoping something better comes tomorrow
Hoping all the verses rhyme
And the very best of choruses, too
Follow all the doubt and sadness
I know that better things are on the way

—Better Things, Kinks, 1981

Well, if you haven’t noticed, we’re smack dab in the middle of the holiday season with Christmas only a week from today. It’s hard to get away from holiday music, advertising and television shows and movies dedicated to the season. The Hallmark Channel runs Christmas themed movies for all of November and December and I think they even ran them for the entire month of July. That’s seems excessive but who am I to judge what other people want — or need– to watch?

I say need because it is a season that brings some people a lot of comfort. And a lot of stress to many others. Gift giving is a hard thing.

Not the actual giving of the gift. I love giving gifts to people, regardless of the season. I always somehow feel somehow lighter, as though the act of giving has taken the weight of some unknown burden off my shoulders. It’s hard to explain.

No, it’s the act of deciding what to give someone that creates the stress. Is it adequate, something that leaves the recipient feeling underwhelmed? Or is it too extravagant, something that has the recipient feeling a sense of debt and obligation to the giver? Trying to find that middle ground where the recipient feels like they have received a meaningful gift without feeling that weight of debt to the giver is a fine line to tread.

It certainly has filled me with anxiety over the years. I wish there were an easier way to show people that you care and that you wish them better things. Maybe just saying that can be enough. 

Anyway, I wish you a little less stress in the coming week and just better things all the way around. Here’s a song from one of my favorites, the Kinks. It’s not a holiday song but it certainly captures the sentiment. It’s called Better Things.

The painting at the top, Colors of the Season, is a piece that was used as my holiday card a few years back. It’s one of my favorites of the holiday themed paintings I’ve done. I think it’s the fact that the colors are not the typical colors associated with the holiday and the lightness of its feeling. It’s just one of those pieces that carries the sense of rightness I have long talked about and sought in my work. It’s being offered at the West End Gallery for just a short time.

At Land’s End— At West End Gallery

Don’t think about why you question, simply don’t stop questioning. Don’t worry about what you can’t answer, and don’t try to explain what you can’t know. Curiosity is its own reason. Aren’t you in awe when you contemplate the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure behind reality? And this is the miracle of the human mind—to use its constructions, concepts, and formulas as tools to explain what man sees, feels and touches. Try to comprehend a little more each day. Have holy curiosity.

–Albert Einstein, Einstein and the Poet: In Search of the Cosmic Man

The Einstein quote above is from a book, Einstein and the Poet: In Search of the Cosmic Man, written by William Hermanns and published in 1983. It basically was basically a verbatim dialogue between Einstein and Hermanns from interviews from in Germany before World War II and here in the US after the war. It was mainly concerned with Einstein’s humanist pursuits, one that encompassed the formation of a cosmic religion that combined science and spirituality, one who precepts would encompass all other religions.

The interviewer and author of the book, William Hermanns, was an interesting figure. Born in Germany in 1895, he survived combat in WW I and in its aftermath devoted himself to the pursuit of peace, working both an academician, a poet, and diplomat in pre-Nazi Germany. His experiences and position made him one of the more informed authorities on Germany in the first half of the 20th century. He later moved to the United States, continuing his poetic career and becoming a professor in German Language. He also maintained Einstein’s search for the Cosmic Person which continues even after his death in 1990 with a trust devoted to his work and poetry.

You can read more about his life at www.williamhermanns.com. Here’s an example of his poetry, one that very much in line with today’s theme:

As you might have ascertained, today’s theme is questioning and searching. Maybe the fellow in the small painting at the top is one of Einstein’s Cosmic Men.

To finish up, here’s Neil Young who is searching for a Heart of Gold. Classic stuff…

Haven of Spirit— Available at the Kada Gallery, Erie

Most people have forgotten nowadays what a home can mean, though some of us have come to realize it as never before. It is a kingdom of its own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life’s storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, Wedding Sermon

Might as well have a theme today. Let’s go with home. I use the idea of finding and recognizing home in a lot of my work I like how Bonhoeffer describes the idea of home in the last sentence above: a kingdom of its own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life’s storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.

A safe haven. 

Hopefully, most of us recognize some place or person that affords us that sense of the safety of home. It’s easy to look around and see too people all around the world who struggle to hold onto that sense of home in the face of war and hatred. A simple place to call home and the idea of not wanting to mess with others and to have yourself not be messed with does not seem like it should be a wild dream. But for all the usual reasons– envy, prejudice, greed, etc,– it is much too hard to realize for too many.

I wish I had an answer. I guess the most obvious is to be kind to all others and treat all others as you yourself wish to be treated.

That’s the Golden Rule, right? Seems so simple. Should be easy.

Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to accomplish. Nobody wants to believe that such a simple sentiment can wield such power. We want something more complicated, something that allows the existence of our own prejudices and biases.

We’ll practice the Golden Rule so long as it’s to the right kind of people…

Sigh. Keep trying, folks. It doesn’t work if it’s not an all or nothing proposition.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer might sound familiar to regular readers. I featured him in a post several years ago, On Stupidity, that has been popular, consistently getting a number of views each week. He was the German pastor who spoke out against the Nazi regime throughout the 1930’s, later being sent to a concentration camp before being sent to his death on the gallows in the last days of the war. On Stupidity described the sort of blatant ignorance that led to the rise of the Nazis and seems to exist here today in forms. Bonhoeffer also coined the term Cheap Grace which describes those who claim the high ground of religion, believing that being “saved” wipes away all past transgressions and grants forgiveness– even permission– for all future sins. It is something that seems abundant these days among the evangelical set and the political right. It’s a post that is worth another look.

Okay, let’s wrap up this package. Here’s the song, Home, from Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. Seems to be right in line with today’s theme. Plus, it has whistling. Love a good whistling song, don’t you?

The Long View– At the Principle Gallery

Going back to the origin is called peace; it means reversion to destiny. Reversion to destiny is called eternity. Those who know eternity are called enlightened.

–Lao Tzu, Tao Tê Ching

I don’t have much to say this morning though the thread that runs through the triad here is one that could easily spur questions and discussion. Probably no answers but, hey, who said there were answers here? 

That thread is eternity. To be honest it came about because of the chorus to a John Prine song that was running in my head this morning. It kept repeating, kind of at the edge of my thoughts:

Wait awhile eternity
Old mother nature’s got nothing on me
Come to me
Run to me
Come to me, now
We’re rolling
My sweetheart
We’re flowing
By God

That wait awhile eternity/ Old mother nature’s got nothing on me just kept rolling through my mind like a mantra. There was something in that phrase and the rest of the chorus that reminded me of the painting at the top, The Long View, which is at the Principle Gallery. There is something in it that speaks to me about the ephemeral nature of our time on this beautiful world and the depth and light that marks the eternity that lays beyond it. It has a sense of nostalgia for the known present mixed with a longing for the unknown eternity.

Hmm. Wasn’t expecting that observation. Got to mull that over.

But the chorus’ repetition kept me from recognizing what song it was from. It took me a few minutes to recall that it was from his classic holiday song, Christmas in Prison. I chuckled on this recollection. Seemed like an opportune discovery, one conveniently that had a holiday connection while still filling out my desired triad. It fits. It’s a tune that has that same wistful mix of nostalgia and longing that I see in the painting though from the perspective of a prison inmate. But maybe we’re all prisoners in some form, perhaps captive to our pasts, our present situations, our obligations, our fears and beliefs.

Hmm. Going to leave it there. Here’s the song.