Redtree Times

Of Good Cheer– Now at the West End Gallery

Be of good cheer. Do not think of today’s failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.

― Helen Keller

The new painting above, included at my West End Gallery show opening this coming Friday, never fails in filling me with a sense of possibility. Its surface has a brightness of tone that completely overwhelms its underlying darkness.

Oh, the darkness of the original black-painted surface is still present, still managing to serve as a counterweight to any pretense of cock-eyed optimism. Even so, there is a potent sense of joy and a real bring-on-the-day energy in this piece.

I can’t say for sure, but it might be the most cheerful painting I have ever painted. That’s saying a lot.

The title for this 15″ by 30″ painting is Of Good Cheer. It is mainly derived from the words at the top from Helen Keller though many will recognize the phrase from Jesus’ advice to his Apostles in his final days when he told them of the persecution and hardships they would be facing. I am sure it has also made its way into a Christmas carol or some other similar song.

Whatever the case, the idea of finding some joy in the face of hardship is good advice for anybody anywhere.

Of Good Cheer is, as I pointed out, at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY for my annual exhibit there that opens this Friday, July 22.

I hope you get a chance to see this particular piece in person. I feel that most of my work looks much better in person but that is especially true for this piece. I had a horrible time photographing it, in properly adjusting and matching the multiple blue and green tones in it. The image above is a fair representation but the original is far superior.

For this week’s Sunday Morning Music, let’s hear some good cheer from the Staple Singers from back around 1970. It’s a song that I think really lines up well with this painting. This is I’ll Take You There.

Terminus— Now at the West End Gallery

The strangeness of Time. Not in its passing, which can seem infinite, like a tunnel whose end you can’t see, whose beginning you’ve forgotten, but in the sudden realization that something finite, has passed, and is irretrievable.

― Joyce Carol Oates, Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang

The end of the road.

The end of land as it meets water and sky.

The end of light as it is overtaken by dark.

The end of yesterday as it becomes today and of today as it shifts to tomorrow.

The idea of the endings of things is the theme I see in this new painting, Terrminus. It’s a new piece included in my annual solo show at the West End Gallery that opens this coming Friday, July 22.

It’s often said that life is a series of beginnings and endings and I suppose that’s true. But so many beginnings are soon forgotten or never even recognized in their nascent state. Who knows what something will ultimately be when it first begins?

Endings have a more memorable quality, often having long trails that lead to them. An ending is a form of evidence of something having been.

I like this piece a lot. Its elements calm me. But more than that, it makes me want to think. The trees between me and the scene make it feel as though I am approaching something as yet unseen and that makes me think about ideas like the endings of things.

Or as Joyce Carol Oates put it above, the strangeness of Time.

I think I will think about that for a while now.

The Homecoming– At the West End Gallery

Wild nights – Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile – the winds –
To a Heart in port –
Done with the Compass –
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden –
Ah – the Sea!
Might I but moor – tonight –
In thee!

–-Emily Dickinson, Wild Nights

Well, the work for Chaos & Light has been delivered and is ready for hanging at the West End Gallery in advance of next Friday’s show opening. Always a relief in getting that out of the way, to experience the sense of satisfaction that comes with completing a relatively big task.

Of course, the flip side is that this is accompanied by a bit of sorrow in the emptiness of the studio now. I get used to having the new work around me, to being able to constantly take it in and relish those parts of it that really speak to me.  As the show nears, the accumulated closes in on me and I begin to think of it as a warm security blanket.

To have it suddenly gone creates a void, gives the studio a feeling of cool emptiness.

I know it’s temporary and only in my mind but it’s still creates a noticeable tone of sadness. I miss being able to see many of the pieces from the show since each has a lot of personal connection for me. I go through a lot of different feelings in the process of painting almost every piece, running the gamut from despair to elation.

The painting of each is its own form of catharsis.

Maybe that’s the attraction that painting has for me.

The painting at the top, The Homecoming, is a good example of this. It was one of the final pieces competed for this show and the feelings I experienced while painting it are still fresh in mind. So many times, I felt like giving up on it, wanting to put it aside or cover it with a fresh layer of black paint. But the addition of a spot of color here and there and my mood would elevate.

Then crash a short time later.

It was very much an up-and-down, love/hate relationship between me and the surface of this painting almost to the very end. Ultimately, perseverance triumphs. I would like to say I am elated at that point but the feeling is different. It’s not really satisfaction or pride though it does have elements of that.

I think I would have to go back to a word I used earlier: catharsis.

Each painting changes me in some small imperceptible way as I go through a wide range of emotions in the process.

I very much felt this with The Homecoming. Even though the piece has an implied narrative– of Odysseus returning to his home island of Ithaka— for me, all I see is the range of emotion experienced in painting it.

Maybe that’s why it is often so difficult to judge one’s own work objectively. It’s hard to ignore those personal emotions and revelations that are deeply engrained and often not obvious in the work.

There’s a lot more I could write about this piece, about the colors and shading and composition, all the things that make it what it is. But for me, it’s all about that feeling of catharsis I see in it.

And I suppose that is all I can ask of it.

A Higher Way– Part of the upcoming West End Gallery Show

Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one’s consciousness, making of every image a privileged place.

― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

This new painting, A Higher Way, continues the theme of my upcoming West End Gallery show that sees humanity continually existing near the dividing line that separates chaos and order.

One aspect of this theme I have yet to mention is that we normally have a foot on each side of that line. I tend to believe that we need to have a bit of both in our lives, that chaos is the source of creativity and innovation while order creates a livable and sustainable structure. But skewing too far toward either side creates extremes forms of both chaos and order.

A sense of equilibrium is required and sustaining this sense of balance between the two states is dictated by our thought and perception.

And what I see in this painting is the Red Tree standing clear of either side. It is set apart the gathered factions of order that are symbolized here in the massed trees surrounding it below as well as the flower beds. But it is not fully part of the chaos that is the sky.

It still has an existence in both sides yet maintains its sovereignty of thought, aware of but free from allegiance or influence.

I am just knocking this off the top of my head early this morning so bear with me a bit. I can never be sure if these things make sense when I am writing. But I have reread it a couple of times and it still makes some sense. That is encouraging.

One observation after doing so is that this reminds me very much of how an artist distills their concepts and thoughts. Keeping a foot in both chaos and order, they take in source material– words and thoughts, images, sounds, emotions, movements, etc– then incorporate this information into something that is hopefully unique and of itself.

It has influences and a basis in what lies beneath and above it, yet it is now something unlike and beyond those influences.

It thinks and feels freely of its own accord.

So, maybe that is a higher way. Hmm…

A Higher Way is 24″ by 24″ on canvas and is included in, Chaos & Light, my annual solo exhibition at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY. The show opens Friday, July 22, 2022.

All things are ready, if our mind be so.

― William Shakespeare, Henry V

Last day of preparation before packing up the show and delivering it to the West End Gallery tomorrow. Things have progressed well thus far, even with the broken foot, so while it promises to be a busy day, it should not be a hectic one.

And that’s a good thing.

MY mind is ready…

Riding Rhythm– Soon at the West End Gallery

Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can’t use the wrong words. But on the other hand here am I sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can’t dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm. Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than any words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it.

— Virginia Woolf

I’ve pointed out more than once that I know nothing about boats nor sailing nor the waves in the ocean. But that lack of knowledge doesn’t take away any of the enjoyment and satisfaction derived from painting the boat pieces such as the one at the top.

It’s called Riding Rhythm and is a 10″ by 20″ piece on aluminum panel that is part of my show at the West End Gallery that opens next Friday, July 22. As the title infers, I see this as being about being in rhythm with the elements– the waves, the winds and the light.

I think it’s the idea of this rhythm that makes me enjoy painting the boats pieces so much. I see painting, and all other art, as the capturing of the rhythms that surround us.

Art makes those rhythms apparent.

And painting a boat on the waves is perhaps as direct a form of representing rhythm as one can find. It is all motion and light. Throw in the symbolism of our smallness set against the grand powers of nature along with the sense of control versus chaos and contrasts of light and dark, and you’ve got yourself a painting.

And Riding Rhythm is what I believe is an excellent example of this. There’s a lot in this piece that I like that isn’t fully captured in the image of the painting above.

You’ll have to come to the West End Gallery to see that.

Here’s a musical piece to go along with this painting. I came across the music of the Yoshida Brothers who are a duo playing the traditional Japanese shamisen which is a three-stringed that sort of looks like a square banjo. It is played by plucking or slamming the strings with a plectrum that looks kind a scraper. The Yoshida Brothers have a very eclectic sound that mixes traditional Japanese music and sounds many other musical influences. I sometimes hear Celtic or Bluegrass influences in some of their pieces and hard rock and electronica in others.

This is a piece called Storm. As I said, I think it pairs well with this painting.

Time & Patience— Coming to the West End Gallery

The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.

― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I struggled with the title for this new painting, a 10″ x 20″ piece on aluminum panel, that is part of my upcoming solo show at the West End Gallery that opens on Friday, July 22. Though it is a simple sparse composition, there is a lot to be gleaned from it.

I am drawn to its soothing calmness and sense of stillness. At first, I thought it had the feel of waiting but it doesn’t. Those crows in that tree aren’t waiting for anything, aren’t anxious for answers or solutions. They are just patiently being crows, knowing that the sun will rise, the clouds will pass, and the world will turn as it always has before. They will fly when the need to move, seek food when they are hungry and drink when thirsty.

They are the epitome of time and patience.

There’s a lot to be said for setting aside anticipation and expectation, to just let the world turn. It will often eventually turn to you. And when it doesn’t, don’t fret. Be patient and take in the colors of the sky, the bend of the path, and the rise of the distant hills. Let the sun warm you and feel the dirt beneath your feet.

The world is still turning…

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.

― Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, 1907

Whenever I come across this little experiment from back in 1994, I linger over it for a few minutes and smile a little. There’s a lot going on with plenty of bright colors and sharp angles but with a narrative element within it where I saw a person watching a Kabuki performance on their television. But more than that I am reminded of the decision to move away from this experiment and continue in the direction that eventually led me here.

You see, I enjoyed doing this work, enjoyed the process and the final product. I could have easily followed this path and been fairly happy. But it lacked something that, while I couldn’t really put a finger on it at the time, was found later in the work that I eventually produced in later years.

Heart? Soul? I can’t say. But it was fun at the time and makes me smile now. Plus, the lesson in learning what you can and can’t be is beyond value.

I wrote a bit more on this subject, also set off from this little painting, back in 2010:

Just looking through some old things, mostly little pieces that are from the time when I first started painting, and I came across this. At the time I was playing around with color and masking, where you put something such as tape on the painting surface and paint over it then peel it away to reveal the unpainted surface underneath. It can be a big part of traditional watercolor painting and I wanted to see if it fit with the way I thought and wanted to paint. It didn’t. But I did come up with this little abstraction that always catches my eye and makes my mind’s gears turn.

It’s always interesting to see these little pieces because it inevitably triggers memories of that time when every day was bringing new discoveries as I tried to learn more and more about color and different mediums. Sometimes things clicked and it was revelatory to discover my strengths. Other times, it was a struggle, and the end product was muddled, labored. But there was still something to be learned there. Like identifying my weaknesses and learning how to strengthen these areas or, at least, downplay them.

I guess that this is the process for development in any area of your life, playing up your strong suits and trying to cover your weaknesses. Perhaps that is why I like to see these old experiments, to be reminded of my growth, artistically and personally, through the years. 

At least, what I perceive as growth.

This a replay of a replay of a post from 2010. When I came across this post with the 1994 Kabuki TV experimental piece earlier, it made me smile, as it always does. Figured that it would be an acceptable match for today’s Sunday Morning Music which is The Way It Goes from a longtime favorite of mine, Gillian Welch, along with her husband, David Rawlings. I put in two versions of the song– the 2011 album track and an audience filmed live version from 2018.

Chaos & Light— Show Opens July 22 at the West End Gallery

It partook … of eternity … there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the window with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; so that again tonight she had the feeling she had had once today, already, of peace, of rest. Of such moments, she thought, the thing is made that endures.

― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

My yearly exhibit at the West End Gallery opens two weeks from today, Friday, July 22. I am calling this year’s show Chaos & Light. The painting above, a 16″ by 40″ piece on canvas, carries that same title.

Chaos has been a theme in my work in recent times, showing itself in the random slashing brushstrokes that make up the skies in many of my works. It is above and around us all the time and we try to find some sense of order, some means of tolerating it, in our lives beneath it.

This theme of chaos is most likely a result of my perception of the times in which we live. I say perception because maybe chaos as a state of being is based more on one’s tolerance and resistance to it. Maybe chaos is the natural state, and we have internal mechanisms that keep it at bay, that keep it barricaded away, unseen, from that part of us that allows us to live and even thrive in some orderly fashion in this world.

The broken irregular rhythms of chaos go unheard and unseen and we live our lives, simply and naturally.

Perhaps sometimes chaos, like a virus, gets past those internal barricades. Chaos becomes apparent, visible and heard. Its rhythms disrupt, infect, our own. Life then becomes more and more filled with chaos. Finding order and simplicity becomes more and more difficult.

Maybe that is the purpose of art, to serve both as a vaccine and a curative to hold chaos outside our selves.

I don’t know.

I know that it makes some small degree of sense to me. I sometimes feel like chaos has infected me, that it runs rampant through my system and my own rhythms have been replaced by those that seem unnatural to me.

But then a dose of art, simple paint on a surface or the sound of a simple tune or the arrangement of words in a book or even the image of light breaking over the horizon in the morning, restores me for at least a short time.

I am sure this sounds crazy to some. That’s okay. They most likely have kept chaos away their whole lives and can’t even begin to understand the plight of those infected by chaos.

This holding off of chaos is what I see in this painting. In many of my paintings, actually. I can’t say that it works as art, that’s not for me to say. But as a soothing balm, it serves the purpose.

In the High Country– At the Principle Gallery Exhibit

I don’t believe anyone ever suspects how completely unsure I am of my work and myself and what tortures of self-doubting the doubt of others has always given me.

-Tennessee Williams

My yearly solo show at the Principle Gallery has ended and I am in the final weeks of painting and prepping for my annual show at the West End Gallery that opens July 22.

This quick turnaround between these two shows is a routine that I have lived with for over twenty years. I know the routine and, for the most part, how to deal with the ins and outs and the ups and downs in what I guess you could call phases in the process.

These phases in this timeline for these two shows are pretty much the same for every other show. I think I can say that with some authority as I’ve done my share of solo exhibits. Probably more than 60 solo shows by now but I’ve lost count.

Right now, as I near the end of prep for the upcoming show, I am in my least favorite phase, one of extreme self-doubt. I’ve detailed it here many times in the past, probably because it hits me the hardest and is therefore closest to the surface when I sit down to write this blog.

Every show has had this period that finds me calling into question every piece I’ve done, every creative decision I’ve made, every strand of my ability and my overall judgement. Maybe I am delusional about how I see my work?

The funny thing is that the depth of the crater created when this doubt hits is usually directly and inversely related to how satisfied and confident I have felt about the work in the prior phases of this timeline.

The better I feel about the work, the deeper the crater of doubt.

I am in a pretty deep crater at the moment. Maybe I should feel okay about that since it means the work has already sparked great satisfaction in me.

And it has. I feel strongly about the work in this show, much as I did about the earlier Principle Gallery show.

But I don’t feel okay at the moment. The doubt is like a banshee with a hammer that comes to beat on the back of my brain. I know that it will pass soon, maybe as early as today when I am at work on the current piece on my easel, and I will return to my normal, more manageable, levels of doubt and uncertainty.

But at 5 AM I find myself with a miserable knot of doubt in my gut.

I don’t know why I am sharing this aspect of what I do with you. It doesn’t necessarily have a lot to do with what you might see in the work, so I wouldn’t be surprised if most folks don’t give a hoot about this. I guess I just want to give a little glimpse inside this job, this life as an artist.

Like most jobs in which you express or give of yourself, it has its highs and lows. The lows of this moment are simply the price to be paid.

At least, in my version of this life.

Okay, got to go climb out of this crater and the only way to do that, for me, is to get to work.

Here’s a song that kind of works for me this morning. It’s All That You Dream from Little Feat and their classic live album Waiting For Columbus.