Redtree Times

For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply. I alone do not exist.

― Vladimir Nabokov, The Eye

The painting shown here, Mirrors and Windows, hangs here in the studio and I pass it several times a day–it’s on the way to the bathroom. But even though it’s been in this spot for several years now, it usually draws my attention. It’s been that way since it was painted back in 2013.

As I wrote back then:

I found myself looking at this piece quite often in the studio, trying to ascertain what it was that was pulling me in. As I looked, I began to be more aware of the road running through which signified to me our life’s journey. We spend our lives looking in mirrors and out windows, living in reflections of ourselves and the outer world.

There must be some perfect balance in this. Somewhere, somehow, we hopefully reach a point where we know who and what we are and turn away from mirrors and begin to look for windows in which we can expand our vision of the outer world and gain greater wisdom.

Years later and it has carried the meaning well that I gleaned from it back then, that real art serves as both a window and a mirror, giving the viewer insights and views into the world and reflecting their place within it.

Just this morning, I stood in front of it and wondered if was looking at it as a mirror or a window.

I came to the conclusion that it might be both.

“Show’s Over, Folks“- At the Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA

The patient cannot remember the whole of what is repressed in him, and what he cannot remember may be precisely the essential part of it.. He is obliged to repeat the repressed material as a contemporary experience instead of remembering it as something in the past.

― Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle

I am sharing what might seem like an odd triad this morning– a passage from Sigmund Freud on compulsion, a Red Chair painting of the aftermath of what looks to be a wild party and a song, Can’t Let Go, from the odd and wonderful pairing of Alison Krauss and Robert Plant.

I think there’s a connection in there somewhere. Just can’t be sure if anyone else will see it.

A compulsion to repeat ourselves is an underlying theme in my work. I sometimes think I know there is something more in these familiar forms and colors and lines and icons –the omnipresent Red Tree, for example– than meets the eye and that if I keep delving into them, they will at some point reveal their secrets to me.

Some tidbit of wisdom, an iota of truth, that will make it all make sense.

That must be close to a definition of compulsion. Probably much in the same way that we– both individually and collectively– seem to constantly repeat ourselves, making the same missteps and covering the same ground as though we have some sort of short term memory dysfunction that prohibits us from seeing the patterns we have followed all along, that keeps us from learning from our mistakes.

I am hoping there is some constructive effect in my own compulsion. I would hate to think that the decades of work that have came with it are a matter of me making the same mistake over and over again.

Maybe I should stop contemplating my navel this morning and get to work. Who knows? Maybe today will be the day I figure it all out, the day that bit of long sought wisdom is finally revealed.

Or not. Doesn’t matter. My compulsion would most likely blind me to it and keep me at it even if I find it now.

In the meantime, enjoy Alison Krauss and Robert Plant‘s version of Can’t Let Go, from a soon to be released album. It’s a song famously covered by Lucinda Williams on her great 1998 album, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

Good stuff.

“Basepaths“- Now at the West End Gallery

I have been pretty open about my dislike of the month of August. There is a past of negative incidents and events in it that definitely taint it for me. I don’t know if it’s one of those deals where past performance creates an environment that continues to produce similar results or what.

Just not a fan of this time of year. Let’s just keep it at that.

But from past Augusts, I know that the key to getting through to September is to find something to hang your hopes on, something on the horizon to shoot for.

In July, I didn’t think it would be baseball and the Yankees, to be specific. They had went through a host of injuries to key players, some lost for the season or the better part of it, and their performance was mediocre to say the least. They looked like hell out there, nobody playing up to anywhere near their average level of performance and  they sometimes  were forced to field a team with several untested minor leaguers called up to start games in different positions. Hardly the mighty Yankees with unlimited resources.

In July, they had a bad stretch, blowing several games including being swept by their perennial nemesis, the Red Sox. They simply looked plain sloppy and distracted. That I could identify with but one of the reasons I watch baseball is to get away from that feeling.

They were what seemed a country mile back in the standings, way out of playoff contention. The season looked like it was almost time to start saying, “Wait ’til next year!”

It looked hopeless.

But it wasn’t. As long as there is a grain of hope and effort to sustain it, there’s a chance. They rebounded, got a few key additions from the trade deadline and some players returning from injury. Their level of effort  increased dramatically and there seems to be a renewed sense of purpose and enthusiasm in the dugout. They have made mad rush in the past few weeks, culminating in a sweep of a doubleheader yesterday with the Sox that catapulted the Yanks past them in the standings and back into playoff contention.

They have finally shown some heart and hope springs out of that.

There is still a long way to go and maybe they will stumble later in the season. But for now, it was a needed elixir for a guy mired in the morass of August. It was good to have this small thing to hold on to, something in which to find a grain of hope.

Some heart.

Because, as the song from the play and movie Damn Yankees goes, You Gotta Have Heart.

Van Gogh- Interior of the Restaurant Venissac in Arles, August 1888.

There is something intimate about painting I cannot explain to you – but it is so delightful just for expressing one’s feelings.

–Vincent van Gogh

I came across the above Van Gogh painting online yesterday. It was one of those pieces that I couldn’t recall ever seeing, even in the books with his collected works. It probably was in there somewhere but just didn’t register with me like it did yesterday.

I immediately liked this piece and just seeing it made me feel better in some small way. It was like stumbling across one more cookie when you thought the cookie jar was empty. You savor this newfound delight a bit more.

Or maybe it has to do with the intimacy that Van Gogh mentions above. He’s right, there is something intimate about painting. Every piece offers some small secret or aspect that comes from the mind and soul of the artist.

So, this morning I am greatly enjoying a morsel from Van Gogh. Not a bad way to spend a few minutes on a dark morning with torrential rain pounding the roof for the time being here in upstate NY.

Now, what’s old Van Gogh trying to tell me here?

“Fire and Ice“- At the West End Gallery

Slow getting around this morning. In August, I dream of the gray coolness of fall and winter. Feels like a good moment for a short Robert Frost poem– Fire and Ice.

“Sequester’s Moon“- At the West End Gallery

The things that I loved were very frail. Very fragile. I didn’t know that. I thought they were indestructible. They weren’t.

― Cormac McCarthy, The Sunset Limited

Tired and achy this morning, the result of a recent lower back injury/issue, whatever you want to call it, that kept me from sleeping much the last couple of nights. Though I think ( and hope) this will pass within a week or so, it brings to mind a thought that has been rolling around lately.

Life turns on a dime.

I have seen it recently with friends and loved ones whose lives change dramatically from the sudden onset of illness or world rattling events such as wildfires. One day your world seems to be cruising into the future as well as could be expected and the next it is turned upside down. The future that was right in front of you yesterday seems much further away today, with a lot more complications and hurdles between you and it.

It might not even be the same future.

It makes one realize the fragility of our existence in this world. We can plan and visualize our futures but sometimes as the old Roberts Burns line goes:

The best-laid schemes o’mice an’ men Gang aft agley.

Or as you may better know it, without the Scottish intonations: The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

So we adapt. We attempt to heal or strengthen our defenses. We learn to do things in a new way. We try to fight back to that original future we foresaw.

It’s what we do. It’s all we can do.

And it’s worth the struggle because as dark and ugly as the world is on many days, it can be far more beautiful and bright on others.

So, if you’re feeling great and your future seems certain, enjoy it now because the world changes quickly. Don’t be surprised if your tomorrow is much different that your today.

For this Sunday Morning music, I am playing a song from singer/songwriter Nanci Griffith who died this past Friday at the age of 68. I don’t know what took her life, if it was an extended illness or if her life just turned on that dime. She was a wonderful songwriter best known for From a Distance, which was a giant hit for Bette Midler, as well as this song, Once in a Very Blue Moon, which was a hit for Dolly Parton. She was also an effective performer with her distinctive trilling voice. She did a marvelous cover of Townes Van Zandt‘s tragic Tecumseh Valley.

She will be missed. I thought Once in a Very Blue Moon was appropriate for today.

Please enjoy the day you have at hand.

Marsden Hartley (1877-1943)- “Cosmos: The Mountains“

All things that are living are expression and therefore part of the inherent symbology of life. Art, therefore, that is encumbered with excessive symbolism is extraneous, and from my point of view, useless art. Anyone who understands life needs no handbook of poetry or philosophy to tell him what it is.

–Marsden Hartley

I think this is an important point from a favorite artist of mine, Marsden Hartley. Trying to paint work that is pointedly symbolic, that tries to force meaning that doesn’t naturally flow from the subject, often feels flat and lifeless to me. Or extraneous and useless as Hartley put it.

Generally, the subject evokes its own meaning and feeling and the best the artist can do is enhance it with their own skills and style — the artist’s tools for storytelling– to make it apparent to the viewer.

Sounds easy. It’s not.

We often add symbology or clutter that either clouds, alters, or detracts from the inherent meaning of the subject.

We complicate when we should simplify.

It’s the story of communication throughout time. Simplicity always triumphs.

I hope that makes sense. I am tired this morning and it sounded okay halfway through my first cup of coffee. A couple of hours from now I might have questions about this.

Here are a few more of Hartley’s landscapes, most from his home state of Maine.

Marsden Hartley- ” An Evening Landscape”

Marsden Hartley- “Hall of the Mountain King”

Marsden hartley- “Strom Clouds, Maine”

Marsden Hartley-“The Ice Hole”

The mind gets distracted in all sorts of ways. The heart is its own exclusive concern and diversion.

–Malcolm de Chazal

I had a whole thing I meant to write here this morning but August, my annual nemesis with its heat and anxiety, has stripped me of my willpower to do so. I am distracted and sapped of energy this morning.

So, I guess the quote I was going to use fits anyway.

By the way, Malcolm de Chazal was a writer and painter from the African island nation of Mauritius, which is east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. It is a former colonial outpost that now has a highly diverse ethnic mix, a high income economy, and is a welfare state with universal health care, free education and free public transportation. It is considered one of the best economies and the most peaceful of the African nations. Just so you know.

Anyway, I am shucking my earlier plans for this post and just playing a song. It’s Who By Fire from the late Leonard Cohen. Goes with the painting.