Redtree Times

Twilight of Memory– Coming to the West End Gallery

Another cold morning here. It’s winter in these parts so this is just a statement of fact, not a complaint. As much as I dislike the cold spot that settles in the middle of my back on such mornings, I have no longings for warmer climes.

No, I chose this place, this life that sometimes tests your stamina, patience, and willpower. Not always easy. You sometimes feel like you have earned it when the cold of winter finally subsides. There’s a bit of gratitude when the green of the grass begins to show and you realize you made it through another winter season.

Maybe that’s why I chose to stay here, that feeling of being tested and the gratitude that comes from passing that test.

But I do have some warmth in this cold, even if it is a mere painted surface. Take the piece at the top, Twilight of Memory, which is a small painting from quite a few years back that is just now finding its way to the West End Gallery for the annual Little Gems show in February. For me, the warm colors in it represents the warmth that comes for me in good memories.

Perhaps the memories that carry us through these cold days of testing.

And maybe that’s the purpose of memories of the past, to serve not as a place to inhabit but as a reminder of what life has been. Perhaps as a template for what can be, even if it takes a different form in the present.

I don’t know. of course. Just thinking out loud on a cold morning.

Here’s a song from the late Long John Baldry that pretty much sums it up. Here’s It Ain’t Easy.

Such a day…– In the upcoming Little Gems show at West End Gallery

People give pain, are callous and insensitive, empty and cruel…but place heals the hurt, soothes the outrage, fills the terrible vacuum that these human beings make.

― Eudora Welty

I hesitated a moment before inserting the words above from author Eudora Welty. It seems a bit cynical at first glance, seemingly placing negative aspects to all people. But thinking more about it, I could see the sense in it.

After all, our emotional scars inevitably come from other human being, from their callousness and cruelty. As a result, we seek a place in which we feel safe and secure, a place in which we can heal and live beyond the wounds we carry.

We seek a place we can call home.

I see this as a recurring theme in my work. The new piece at the top, Such a day…, very much has that sort of feel for me. It reminds me of times and places in my life when I felt at ease and at peace. Content and safe.

At home.

I have a number of these days, those memorable times and places. But when I consider the number of days spent in my life to date, there are not really that many. Too few, actually. That makes the existing ones even more precious in my mind.

This little painting serves as a constant reminder for me. And that’s all I can ask of it.

Here’s song for this Sunday Morning that has some of that same feel. It’s a version of the Talking Heads‘ This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) performed by the Postmodern Jukebox featuring vocalist Sara Niemietz. They transform the song into a 1940’s Swing Band version and despite my affinity for the original, it somehow works, albeit in a different way than the original.

I also put up a version of the original with David Byrne. You can see what you think for yourself.

GC Myers–Strange Victory II

You can’t possibly judge your ability to control something until you’ve experienced the extremes of its capabilities. Do you understand?

― Richard Russo, Empire Falls

Relax. This post is not about politics or political movements though the excerpt above from Empire Falls could certainly describe the devil’s pact the GOP made with the far right many years ago whose fruition we are currently witnessing.

Anything taken to its furthest extreme takes on forms that we can never fully anticipate, some absurd, some dangerous and deadly. But invariably coming to a point that is unsustainable.

This came to me this morning as I stepped outside into the frigid air.

It was -18°.

I’ve been in these temps and much lower before. There is something dramatically different between these sorts of temperatures and even 0° or -5°. The extreme temps and their visceral effect on my eyes, my breath and my exposed skin ( I should have put on shoes and pants before heading over to the studio!) tells me that I am in a danger zone, that this is not something with which to be trifled.

This makes me move quicker and increase my focus. Everything sharpens visually and sounds pop and erupt in the icy air. The boards on our walkway and the bridges in the woods blast out cracking protests with each step, sounding like iced cherry bombs snapping in the dark. Even the crunch of the snow and leaves underfoot booms with electric crackles.

Getting to the garage outside my studio, I am relieved to find that the kerosene heater I have set up for the feral cats is still burning. It’s not warm in there but it is enough to make it bearable and they seem to understand and appreciate that.

This made me think about the extremes we experience, in temperatures as well as in ideologies. We best survive and prosper in moderate temps. Frigid or burning temps both strain and imperil us. We may think we crave heat or coolness but our tolerance is only a short bit either way from the median. Beyond that we  reach into areas where we may not fully anticipate or understand how we may be affected.

I don’t know that I have a cogent point here. Maybe it’s: Be careful what you wish for. All I know is that I am sitting here in the studio, pleased that all my systems and utilities are working and excited at the prospects of the temperature reaching 20° later.

The extremes often force you to lower your expectations, I guess.

Here’s composer Max Richter‘s reimagining of  Winter from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as performed by the New Ideas Chamber Orchestra. Some violin heat to warm up your morning.

The Choice— GC Myers

What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.

― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

I have been thinking and writing a lot about our ability to choose lately. Our life and all it encompasses consists of and is shaped by our choices. We even have, as Anaïs Nin asserts above, the ability to choose to alter our character and, therefore, our destiny.

It’s puzzling to me that having this choice hasn’t made the world a better, kinder and gentler place. We can choose to be better. Choose to be kind or gentle. Choose to be forgiving. Choose to be generous and fair minded.

Yet we often make none of those choices. Why?

Oh, I don’t have any answers. Plenty of guesses and half-baked theories, the most obvious being that people don’t want to have to choose, especially when it requires thought or mindfulness. Most will take what is placed before them because to do so alleviates them of taking responsibility. Without personal culpability, they feel free to moan and complain and place blame on others. And these are the seeds, the starting points, for hatred, greed and envy.

And these, too, are choices.

Mindful choice and the accountability that comes with it might well serve as a buffer, a deterrent against these darker choices.

That’s one theory but, f course, I don’t really know. I don’t even know why I chose to write this this morning. Probably for myself more than anything, to serve as a reminder that I still have the choice to be the person I wish to be.

A reminder to be alert and mindful.

Or just my way of cutting this world in two to see what is eating at its core, as the late poet Langston Hughes writes below.

Like the title, I too am tired. But do what you will with this world– it’s your choice.

Tired— Langston Hughes

And Dusk Dissolves – At the West End Gallery

I slept and dreamt
that life was joy.
I awoke and saw
that life was duty.
I worked — and behold,
duty was joy.

–Rabindranath Tagore

When I first read the short poem above from the great poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore some time ago, it struck a chord with me. It so simply, in just a few lines, put across an observation that takes most of us a lifetime to realize. That is, if we ever do realize it.

Duty was joy.

But what is duty? Is it in being a good parent? A faithful spouse and a loyal friend? Is it in what we do to make a living? Or is it in simply being a decent and caring human being?

Perhaps, it is how our lives touch the lives of others? Could that be a duty?

I don’t know for sure. Most likely, duty and joy is not a one-size-fits-all proposition.

My own feeling is that duty is much like having a purpose, a motivating reason for living that can be seen as a personal obligation or promise that we will finish the mission we have accepted as our own.

This reminds me of the transcendent book, Man’s Search For Meaning, from Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, which described his time in the Nazi’s Auschwitz death camp. Frankl observed that those who were able to survive the horror were those who somehow had a purpose for their life, who saw a future that they needed to reach ahead for. This purpose, even a modest one, often served as their given mission, providing the motivation needed for survival, creating a path forward for them into the future.

In the year after being liberated from Auschwitz, Frankl gave a series of lectures that were the basis for his book. In one he spoke of the poem above from Rabindranath Tagore and its final line: Duty was joy:

So, life is somehow duty, a single, huge obligation. And there is certainly joy in life too, but it cannot be pursued, cannot be “willed into being” as joy; rather, it must arise spontaneously, and in fact, it does arise spontaneously, just as an outcome may arise: Happiness should not, must not, and can never be a goal, but only an outcome; the outcome of the fulfillment of that which in Tagore’s poem is called duty… All human striving for happiness, in this sense, is doomed to failure as luck can only fall into one’s lap but can never be hunted down.

In short, lasting joy and happiness cannot be pursued as a goal on their own, without a responsibility to some higher purpose.

I am writing this because sometimes I need to be reminded of this. I have been struggling at times recently in the studio, seemingly fighting with myself to find something that just doesn’t seem to be there. The harder I tried to find it, the further away it seemed. It was like I was looking for something to quell my anxieties and bring me some form of easy happiness. To bring me effortless joy.

I should have known better.

Yesterday, I just put down my head and worked without thinking about the end result. I focused solely on my purpose in each moment, the task at hand. Concentrating on doing small and simple things with thought and care was my duty, as it were. As the day went on, my burden felt lessened and I began to feel joy in the work, joy in small aspects that I had been overlooking in prior days.

It was a satisfying day, one that left me feeling that I had moved in some way toward fulfilling a purpose. It may not be a grand, earth-shaking one but it doesn’t need to be.

It is mine. My purpose. My duty.

And that is enough to bring me a bit of joy.

I didn’t feel like writing this morning. I have lost a bit of the glow off my committed optimism and find myself more concerned than ever about the future of this republic as a result of last evening’s events in DC. So, instead of venting, I thought that I should focus on what I can do in a constructive way. This post from a couple of years back seemed to hit the mark for what I needed this morning, describing the link between duty and joy.

A lot of us believe that joy, like our rights or freedoms, is something that just comes to us without our input. But joy seldom comes without duty and sometimes duty may not be pleasant or easily accomplished.

But those difficult duties often yield the greatest joys.

Let’s keep that in mind.

Last Kind Words– Headed to the Principle Gallery

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

― Wendell Berry

I often wonder about our minds, how they work and how things move in and out of our consciousness. It baffles me.

Take this morning. I go through my process of dressing in the dark of the house, putting on my outerwear for my walk to the studio in the cold in a way that makes me feel like I’m an astronaut about to walk in space.

The morning is cold, though not as cold as the temperatures forecast for the next several days that will go down to around -10°, and the moon is full and now low in the sky. Everything outside is sharply defined in blue and yellow shades of moonlight. The snow sparkles.

It is gorgeous.

As I start walking a song comes into my mind. How Can I Be Sure? by the The Rascals from way back in 1967. I am soon humming and singing the parts I can recall as I trudge along the shoveled trail.

And I begin to wonder why this particular song entered my mind in this early morning darkness. What combination of subtle indicators or observations prompted its arrival at the front of my mind? Is it something left over from the nightly data purge that my brain undergoes while dreaming?

Why this song this morning?

Of course, I don’t know and maybe it doesn’t matter. After all, I enjoyed the song. It seemed to fit the emotional tone of the moment.

Maybe I needed to hear it. Maybe my mind was seeking it before I even knew that I needed to hear it.

Who knows?

Like I said, I am baffled.

Here’s the song. Maybe you need to hear it, as well.

Comforter – At the Principle Gallery

A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.

― E.B. White

The words above from author E.B. White, best known for his beloved Charlotte’s Web, struck a chord with me.

I have been having a hard time in the past year or two in simply sitting still and reading for more than few moments at a time. I have felt severely distracted by current events along with the tensions that come with them. It’s often hard to focus and as a result my reading had suffered mightily.

It has left me feeling unmoored and adrift, which certainly has added to the anxieties already in place.

Reading has always been my comforter. It has been a refuge, an enlightener, a mentor and a sage. It has made me laugh and cry.

And to think about those inner conversations I have had with those people, as White points out, who have stayed alive by hiding between the covers of those books.

So much is lost by the absence of my reading. Unfortunately, it’s one of those losses that come as you slowly drift further and and further from your base, that rock on which you have built the world in which you live. It comes in small, barely noticeable increments until you reach a point where you have drifted far from those solid shores and begin to notice things are missing.

You feel lost and even a bit panicky. If you’re lucky, you recognize the dilemma and begin to paddle back in the direction where you believe your little rock of being remains.

The unlucky of us are destined to drift even further out to sea, And that is sad and lonely as it sounds.

I think I have caught it early enough in my case. I hope so. I am trying to reconnect with my rock, to find company in that world of wonders that live in those books.

Excuse me while get to it…

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

– Martin Luther King Jr.

About 10 or 12 inches of snow overnight so I am spending most of this morning plowing and shoveling. Put in a couple of hours already but wanted to post one thing about today that celebrates and honors the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

This year might be one where his birthday and his legacy is legacy might be as pertinent as anytime in the past. We are facing a crucial time in the history of this country, one with choices that will determine the path we follow going forward. The two choices are not similar in any way from a human rights standpoint.

His words above speak to this moment.

Now more than ever.

Here’s U2 with their song in tribute to MLK, Pride (In the Name of Love). Good tune to have in my head while continue plowing.

Private Space— At the West End Gallery

I said, unthinkingly: “I should like to go back.”

It was a true statement. But then it came to me that I could not go back. One cannot, ever, go back to the place which exists in memory. You would not see it with the same eyes — even supposing that it should improbably have remained much the same. What you have had you have had. ‘The happy highways where I went/ And shall not come again . . .’

Never go back to a place where you have been happy. Until you do it remains alive for you. If you go back it will be destroyed.

― Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie: An Autobiography

-5° this morning when I headed over to the studio. Walking over the wooden walkway and the small bridges that span the runoff creeks in the woods make them pop and crack in the icy stillness. Two of the feral cats, the males Buttercup and Gary, wait for me and walk in front of me, halting every few feet so that I am forced to stop and give them a pet.

I call these two the Snow Leopards. They seem impervious to the cold, sometimes rolling and playing in the snow with a weird kind of glee. Even so, I have a heater set up in the garage for them so they can escape the cold and a heated water bowl so they can drink easily. Occasionally, they stay in the warmer garage for a long spell but more often than not, even in this cold, they want to be out and about.

Coming into the studio this morning, I began looking for a song to play for this week’s Sunday Morning Music. I went through a bunch of videos and ended up watching some live Bruce Springsteen performances from the late 1970’s. I watched several songs from his legendary performance at the No Nukes Concert at Madison Square Garden from 1979.

It was like seeing a wild colt suddenly feeling the power of its legs and then racing about with frantic, unleashed, joyfully giddy energy.

I remember those days, both in his performances and in my own life.

Those days now seem like ancient history.

Would I go back? I don’t know. I doubt it. While there were those moments of this giddy, unfettered joy and energy, it was not a perfect world in any way.

And while the world now is in turmoil and a constant source of anxiety, I certainly wasn’t any more happy or content with my lot in life back then.

Actually, much less.

But we always seem to want to return to some idealized past, one where we edit out the bad memories of unhappiness, darkness, and sorrow.

But the past can’t be resurrected. Things and circumstances change. We change. 

So I watch these performances from Bruce and get emotional at the memory of the joy of that moment, knowing that it was a moment then that can’t be replicated now. Having that moment must be enough for me.

And it is.

That brings us to this week’s song and no, it’s not one of the No Nukes performances. But it is a Springsteen song. It’s Waitin’ On a Sunny Day which has much to do with what I just wrote. The song is from his album The Rising which came out in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The song expresses the desire of a person wanting to go back to an earlier and supposedly simpler time, before the attacks and the accompanying losses.

But as we all know, you can’t go back.

I like this particular rendition of the song. It is performed by 200 local musicians assembled in the fields of Belgium as both an homage to Springsteen and an invitation for him to come play a concert in those field of Belgium. It was filmed in the late summer of this past year. Given what has taken place in recent years, who can blame them for wanting to play a song that expresses the desire to go back in time somehow.

It is joyful and optimistic. Nothing wrong with that…

Moonlight Sublime— Part of Little Gems at West End Gallery , February 2022

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There’s not the smallest orb that thou behold’st
But in his motion like an angel sings
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn:
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress’ ear,
And draw her home with music.

– Lorenzo, Act V, Scene 1 , William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

A very cold Saturday morning, hovering around 0°. But instead of focusing on that let’s move on to a trio of art, verse, and song. The theme today is pretty obvious.

The painting at the top is Moonlight Sublime which is a new painting that will be part of this year’s edition of the annual Little Gems show at the West End Gallery, opening in early February.

As I have noted here in the past, the Little Gems show in 1995 was the first time I ever displayed my work. It has been a favorite show of mine ever since. I think this particular painting, one that has many things in it that appeal to my own eye, is a good start for this year’s work for this year’s show, my 28th at the West End Gallery. 

Let’s add some Shakespearean lines and a favorite song from Neko Case to complete this triad so I can get to work on this icy morning. Here’s I Wish I Was the Moon.