Redtree Times

Cool and Composed– Part of my West End Gallery show-Opening July 16, 2021

The new painting above is included in my new solo show at the West End Gallery, opening in just over two weeks, on July 16. It’s the first piece from the show that I am showing and I thought I would use this particular painting because of its title, Cool and Composed.

Something to which I aspire.

You might think I am referring to the heat wave that has struck much of the nation. Yikes! It has been ungodly hot. But while I do often yearn for colder temps and a bit of snow, it is a different kind of heat that has me on edge.

As I mentioned yesterday, I am scheduled for an appearance on a local morning show, on our NBC affiliate WETM between 6 and 7 AM tomorrow. And it has me nervous.

Now, I have a lot of experience speaking in front of people about my work. I’ve done thirty or forty gallery talks and other speaking engagements and have been interviewed a few times on camera.

And I am always anxious. But this time even more so. With the pandemic and events of the past year and a half which restricted so many interactions, I am very much out of practice in talking with anyone about anything. Even now, I feel the urge to prattle on, vomiting out a word salad that never quite expresses what I want to say.

I’ll spare you that, as much as I can.

You might ask why I would do such a thing if it bothers me so much. That’s a good question.

For me, I don’t think it’s ego. I will no doubt watch the tape afterwards and cringe and agonize over every moment, feeling revulsion at my every word and movement. I take absolutely no pleasure in seeing or hearing myself.

No, I do it simply because promoting my work is an important part of being a self-sustaining artist. I wish it weren’t but that is just the way it is. I wish the work spoke for itself and would miraculously sweep the nation without the need for a single word from myself or any advocates I might have for my work, such as galleries, museum folks, or collectors.

But it doesn’t work that way for any artist.

The work needs to grow in an organic manner, with continued exposure and talk about it. Like throwing a handful of pebbles into a pond where the ripples move out and join together in ever-expanding rings.

It doesn’t sound like fun. It can also be exhausting, this constant drumbeat one has to produce. Especially when you put it on top of the effort required in creating a body of work that you feel is worthy of being promoted.

But, as an artist, I want my work to be seen. Its purpose is to be seen, to have an effect beyond myself. And to do so it must be tossed out into the world much like my pebbles into the pond. It has to be allowed to make ripples, even tiny ones.

And if that means I have to be uncomfortable for an hour, if I have to feel nauseous and self-loathing afterwards and wanting a shower, so be it.

I think my work deserves it. And if I don’t do it, who will?

So, if you’re up tomorrow morning between 6 and 7, take a look at WETM. I hope to appear as cool and composed as the painting at the top.

All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.

“In Rhapsody”- Now at the Principle Gallery

And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we’re apart

–Stardust, Hoagy Carmichael

I wasn’t going to write this morning but Stardust came on my playlist and I couldn’t help sharing it. It felt like a decent way to start the day, with a gentle breeze. Not a boomboom– I don’t need that today. The song is an American classic written by Hoagy Carmichael. Besides Stardust, Carmichael wrote songs that have become part of the musical fabric of this country– Georgia on My Mind, Up a Lazy River, Rockin’ Chair and many others. He also wrote a song with what is considered the longest title–  I’m a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin’ Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-On-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues.

But Stardust performed by the inimitable Nat King Cole is what stirred me this morning as I get ready for my upcoming show at the West End Gallery.

I also am readying myself for an appearance on our local morning news show this coming Friday. The morning show from WETM has recently been doing a series live each Friday from 6-7 AM called Mornings in Corning which features artists based in the Southern Tier. The artists appear in several short spots throughout the hour to talk a bit about their work and their career. This Friday is my turn to be uncomfortable while doing that in front of a camera.

If you’re up and able to watch WETM, please tune in. I’ll try not to do anything that might embarrass either of us.

Edward Hopper- Box Factory, Gloucester 1928

So many people say painting is fun. I don’t find it fun at all. It’s hard work for me.

–Edward Hopper

Boy, this sentiment from Hopper sure rings true this morning. I have never thought of painting as fun, at least in any way that I define fun. I mean, I have enjoyed painting. I have been gratified and fulfilled by it. I have learned and grown with it.

But fun?

Oh, there have been times when parts of it are fun. The interaction with people at openings and gallery talks, for example. Or with the folks who have taken workshops with me. There are usually lots of laughs and moments of real jo joy but even that fun is tempered with hard work and a certain amount of angst.

Right now, I am in the period between my two annual shows at the Principle Gallery and the West End Gallery. Every year, there is a lot of tension for me in finishing and reacting to one big show while painting and prepping for the next within a short time frame, usually about 6 weeks.

I have been doing this stress test for the last 21 years or so, so you would think I had it mastered. But the truth is that it never gets easier. In fact, it seems to get more difficult with each passing year. There are times of feeling creatively blocked which triggers a sense of panic because of the time limitations. Plus there are more downswings of mood in this intervening period, more anxiety and vivid imagery in my dreams at night, and even greater doubt ( if that’s possible) built up within myself that brings on a withering sense of fatigue.

I’ve done a lot of heavy manual labor in my life and this is a fatigue that rivals any felt at those times.

Certainly not my definition of fun. 

But inevitably, hard work and perseverance carries the day and I get through this period.

I know there are some out there who would say What’s the big deal? It’s just some guy smearing paint around. And they’re right in a way. This carries no more weight than any other thing done by anyone else. Nor is my job any harder or more important than most other jobs. Maybe in the end, it will turn out to be less important. Who knows for sure?

It’s just happens to be what I do. It’s the only thing I do relatively well.  Plus it pays the bills, fulfills my psychological  needs and keeps me somewhat isolated from the general public, which protects both parties involved.

It’s my thing so I take it seriously. I would be the same way if I was still waiting tables, selling cars or wheeling concrete.

But fun? Ask me tomorrow, maybe the answer will be different. Tomorrow might bring a whole new perspective including some actual fun.

But hard work is on the menu today. Eddie Hopper knows what I mean.

“Standing Proud“– Now at the Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA

Short on time this morning but heard this Nina Simone song just now and felt like it might be good to share. Not a bad way to kick off what promises to be a too busy week.

“Private Song”– GC Myers, 2006

I’ve shared hundreds of songs here over the past thirteen years — omigod, it’s been that long!?– that I have been writing this blog. Some were new to me and some were favorites of mine. Sometimes I will think I have played a particular song since it means a lot to me and do a search to discover that it somehow has been overlooked, that I have never shared it here.

Such is the case for the song I am sharing today, I’m Not Like Everybody Else from the Kinks. I was positive I had played it here at some point but that is not the case. I mentioned it once, when I was writing about the use of music in TV and film and how I thought this song was used brilliantly to end an episode of The Sopranos. But I never played it here.

It’s a song that certainly speaks to our desire to be uniquely seen, to not be clumped in and labeled along with everyone else. That’s the attraction for me, outside of the fact that I just like its sound. This iconoclastic desire to be seen only as myself is probably the reason I do what I do.

If everybody else is doing it, then I don’t want to do it.

That can sometimes be a valuable asset in art but in real life it doesn’t always work out ideally. There’s generally an aloofness that comes with this attitude, a distance put between yourself and others. It can be off-putting and isolating to some folks, I suppose. 

But it becomes a way of being after awhile and you don’t see things as being or not being like everybody else. You just do what you do and that’s that, whether you or anybody else likes it or not.

The ironic part of this song is that we all want to be unlike everybody else and, as a result, end up being just like everybody else. Maybe the subtitle of this song should be I’m Just Like Everybody Else.

I don’t know. I’m yammering on now and I have work to get to right now. Without further ado, here’s a favorite song from the one and only Kinks– they really are not like everybody else.

“Crossroads of the World”- Now at the Principle Gallery

I’m standing at the crossroads
There are many roads to take
But I stand here so silently
For fear of a mistake
One path leads to paradise
One path leads to pain
One path leads to freedom
But they all look the same

–Crossroads, Calvin Russell

I am in the middle of getting work ready for my next show, Through the Trees, which opens July 16th at the West End Gallery in Corning. So, I find myself super busy this morning with not a lot of time to write. But my Principle Gallery show is still in progress and I wanted to showcase a piece from that show today along with a song that reminded me of it.

The painting, shown above, is Crossroads of the World, and the song is the aptly titled Crossroads from the late Calvin Russell, a Texas based blues/roots rock musician who died in 2011 at the age of 62. I recently came across him and didn’t know much about him.

He lived a pretty rough life– you can see it in his face– and his music never gained much notoriety here in the states but found more receptive audiences in Europe, most notably France where he achieved his greatest success. I’ve liked much of what I have heard from him including this song.

Thought it might make for a nice paring this morning before I get to work. Give a listen.

David Hockney- Mulholland Drive 1980

It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his work.

–David Hockney

An artist only has so much control over how their work is seen and spoken of by others. The creation itself speaks loudest for the artist, of course. But it is also represented in words by gallery personnel, museum staffs and others. Each individual interpretation adds to or detracts from the work. The artist has little say unless they make an effort to control the narrative with their own words.

I know that I have tried to do this, with varying degrees of success. I felt that in order to do this I would have to try to be honest with my own assessments of the work and what I was seeing in it so that the viewer’s experience might be honestly enhanced. Hopefully, a little more depth into the work would be provided.

Whether this matters in the long term, I do not know. But for the time being, it gives me the feeling that I am somewhat in control of my narrative. Below is a post from a few years back that speaks a bit more about artists speaking about their work and the difference between doing so with words that actually say something substantive and those that are mere fluffy word clouds.

When I first read this quote from the great British artist David Hockney, a painter whose work I admire and always find interesting, I wanted to be offended. After all, I am an artist who has said plenty about his work through the years– this blog and gallery talks being evidence of that– and have tried to be always transparent and forthcoming when talking about my work. But even so, I nodded in agreement when I read his words.

Part of my own desire to be honest and open about my work came from the frustration I felt in reading other artist’s writings that were filled with ArtSpeak, that way of seeming to say something important and meaningful without really saying anything at all. The words danced around all form of meaning and never fully jibed with the images that accompanied the words, leaving me with a single word resonating in my mind:

Bullshit

And I know bullshit. I was a longtime bullshit artist. I sold swimming pools and automobiles– yes, I was even a used car salesman! – to the public for quite some time. I knew that you could sell by focusing on the strengths of the product and by dancing around questions about its drawbacks. Fill any voids with words that sounded like they were filled with meaning but really made no commitment to anything.

For me, there came a time when I was determined to not deal anymore in that manner of speaking and when I finally came to painting, I knew that I did not want my work to fall into that pool of bullshit. I wanted to tightly control how I represented my work and to be completely open about it. Its whole purpose for me was my own honest expression and I wanted people to be able to witness that without a crap filter between them and the work.

For the most part, I feel that I have been able to maintain that through these last several years. Oh, occasionally I feel myself straying off the path. But I simply remind myself that the product I am representing is the core of my self and once I cross that line I would be betraying everything art has provided for me.

But these are just words and maybe you should take them with Hockney’s advice in mind.

---

---

David Hockney- Arranged Felled Trees

---

---

This post ran several years ago. I just didn’t have the energy to write anything new today without it turning into something I didn’t want. And here we are.

---

---