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I Misunderstood

March 16, 2021 by redtreetimes

Short on time this morning. Things are swinging along well in the studio and I feel like I need to be at it before that momentum says “see ya’ later” as it heads out the door. But I thought I’d share an old piece from around 1995 that I am pretty sure I haven’t shared here yet.

Not that it’s a great piece. It’s one of those pieces that never made it out of the studio, never even titled, so I obviously had determined at some point that I didn’t want to put it out there. I guess I am comfortable enough in what I am that I don’t figure it can hurt my reputation now by sharing it.

Actually, it’s a piece that I always stop on in order to take a better look. I always thought that it lacks something but there seems to be something in it, some intangible feeling to it, that I like. Maybe it’s just for me, in my own secret language that only I recognize.

I don’t know. But it felt good pondering it for a moment this morning.

Here’s Richard Thompson song, an acoustic take on his I Misunderstood. That might be what the guy standing in the doorway is thinking. 

Who knows?

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Music | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

A Little Encouragement, Again

March 15, 2021 by redtreetimes

“Home In Sight”– Now at the West End Gallery

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

— George Santayana

As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, which was also my mother’s birthday, I gave some thought to my parents this past weekend, thinking about how they influenced me early in my life. It reminded me of a post that ran many years back, in 2009.

It was a brief recollection of that time as a child when I had not idea what was or wasn’t possible in my life. Oh, I had an idea that I would never be roaming the outfield for the Yankees or taking one small step on the surface of the moon but for the most part, everything seemed in play.

To an 8 year old everything is still attainable, anything is possible. My parents never pushed me in any one direction or tell me what I should try to accomplish, mainly because they most likely because they themselves didn’t know what was possible. They simply didn’t have the knowledge needed to direct me in any way. At the time, it seemed frustrating because of the lack of direction given.

Kind of like being told that you should build a cabinet but you’re not given any materials or instructions. You had to figure it out for yourself. You had to design and build it on your own. Except it wasn’t a cabinet, it was your life.

But to their credit, my parents never discouraged me or imposed any limits on my imagination or aspirations. They gave me free rein to explore and a little help when the opportunity to do so arose. That was their form of encouragement. 

It worked out in the long run. It took a lot more trial and error but the independence gained in those early years got me through the difficult times. I overlook their flaws now and focus on the appreciation I have for the things they did try to do for me, knowing that they were grasping at straws in the dark. They didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what was possible. They just wanted to help. And I am forever grateful for that expression of their love.

Here is what I wrote back in 2009:

When I give gallery talks, generally there is a part at the beginning where I run through how I came to be a painter. I usually tell how I somehow came across the idea that I wanted to be a painter when I was a small child, maybe 7 or 8 years old. Don’t know what made me come to that idea.

My parents didn’t know how to foster this idea but they did react, buying me an oil painting set from the old Cardinal Paint store in Elmira, where they sold art supplies alongside their house paints. I remember standing on the street looking at the display of art supplies in the window of their store on Water Street. I think I was only there because it was next door to the S&H Green Stamp Redemption Center, the place where you traded in your books filled with those green stamps for household items. I guess S&H Green Stamps may have had something to do with me becoming a painter.

Of course, I didn’t have the first idea how to use the paints and the canvas panel ended up covered with a smear of a color that could best be described as looking like gray and brown puke smeared on a board. Unfortunately, that was not what I was hoping to see. Discouraged, I put the paints aside and moved on to other things. Many other things through the years.

Now, that might seem, at first blush, like a sad little story but it always touches me. My parents didn’t know how to go about helping me but they did what they could and never discouraged me from whatever avenue I chose to follow. I was never told I couldn’t be this or that I should be that. They didn’t know what was possible and never tried to put limits on my hopes.

In high school, I harbored dreams of being a writer and for Christmas one year they gave me a Remington Rand office typewriter. It was a reconditioned monster of a machine, must have weighed 75 pounds. I had it for years, hefting that monster from place to place, and when I did finally get rid of it, it was with great sadness. It remains one of the best gifts I’ve ever been given and is forever a symbol of my parents’ desire to encourage me. 

The point of this is that my parents allowed me the freedom to discover what was possible for me in my life. Did they always go about it in the best way or guide me in any way? Probably not but that didn’t seem as important as the freedom they gave me to search for what was possible for me.

And being able to find what was possible, as the saying above says, is the beginning of happiness…

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Time

March 14, 2021 by redtreetimes

We sprung forward in time tonight. An hour just swept away which for me at this time of the year always gets me a little on edge, especially on this first morning. Actually, to be fair, anything that gets me out of my routine gets me a little on edge but losing time of any sort affects me the most. It’s one of those tics that seem to get more and more pronounced with each passing year.

Time!

Came in this morning an hour later and wanted to write the blog quickly to save a little of this precious stuff, this time. Of course, my computer is running oddly and my internet connection seems to be an hour behind still, it’s running so slow. So, my time-saving has gone awry as I reboot this and reboot that. 

Darn you, time!

This is still not going well, technology-wise. Everything is glitchy as I write this so instead of fighting it and getting even more frustrated, I am going to wrap it up and introduce this week’s song for Sunday morning. It is, of course, Time from Pink Floyd off of their classic Dark Side of the Moon album. I realized this morning that I never play anything off this album, as much as I like it, or from Pink Floyd at all.

It’s probably a deep reaction to how ubiquitous this music was in the 70’s and 80’s. You couldn’t go a half hour on any FM station that played rock music without hearing a song from Dark Side of the Moon— or Hotel California, Free Bird, or Stairway to Heaven.

After awhile, you develop an aversion to even those things you like when you are exposed to them all the time. It’s like I really enjoy hot fudge sundaes but I wouldn’t want to have that same thing every hour of the day. Bad example. I could totally eat hot fudge sundaes day in and day out. 

But now I am excited to hear these songs again since time– yes, time– has cleansed away that stench of ubiquity.

So, if you have time, give a listen. If not, get to it. You have time to make up.

I know I do. See ya’.

 

Posted in Biographical, Current Events, Music | Tagged , , | 11 Comments »

What the beeple?

March 13, 2021 by redtreetimes

Beeple- “Everydays: The First 5000 Days”

“I’ve crossed some kind of invisible line. I feel as if I’ve come to a place I never thought I’d have to come to. And I don’t know how I got here. It’s a strange place. It’s a place where a little harmless dreaming and then some sleepy, early-morning talk has led me into considerations of death and annihilation.”

― Raymond Carver, Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories

I don’t know about the death and annihilation part but somedays I wake up and feel as though I have stumbled into an alternate reality where there are things going on that baffle me completely, that don’t have any basis in the world from which I come.

Like I am a goat farmer from the late 1700’s who has suddenly been thrown through time and ends up in the middle of a Times Square with huge walls of lights flashing, cars whooshing by and jets thundering overhead. 

The place and everything associated with it  just doesn’t line up with anything I know or have ever seen. I am confused, to say the least. Maybe even a little scared because if I don’t know what the hell it is, I have no idea if it can hurt me.

That is exactly the feeling I had when I read that on Thursday a piece of digital art, an NFT— a non-fungible token— had sold in auction at Christie’s for $69 million. The artist’s is Mike Winkelman who goes by the name Beeple and he is a digital artist from Charleston, SC who until October of 2020 had never sold a print for more than $100.

Then came NFTs. Those cuddly non-fungible tokens.

Here’s where I fall through time and space.

I wish I could explain it to you but it feels like the translation of a language I’ve never heard of translated into a language that was just invented and is, yes, unknown to me.

The only thing I understand is the concept of attaching value to an object that is not contained in the value of the raw materials or labor that made it. That is the definition of art and most collectibles. For example, a painting is a token in that it has value attached to it.  But a painting that sells for $100 million dollars is not much different in real world terms from one that sells for $10,000.

The difference is that there is a higher value attached by the market– the potential buyers– that reflects its history, the artist’s reputation, its rarity and provenance and whatever the heck makes a painting worth $100 million. But even then, after the huge piles of cash have been exchanged, the buyer still has a tangible object in their hands.

Probably a closer analogy to NFTs is collectible cards like baseball cards. They are nothing more than a penny’s worth of cheap cardboard with an image printed on one side and some stats on the back. But value is somehow added to them to the point that some are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars while most end up propping up off level tables.

I still don’t know if I am explaining this well. Remember, I just got into this century from the 1788 with goat dung on my boots. Which makes the next part even more difficult to explain.

These NFTs are attached and sold via blockchain technology. Like cryptocurrency. Bitcoin. Ethereum. You know what I’m talking about, right?

I think Yogi Berra would be better equipped to explain this.

I tried at one point a couple of years ago to better understand cryptocurrency but I just couldn’t fully grasp it. It seemed so much like a giant pyramid scheme. But what made it even harder to grasp was that there are actually bitcoin mines.

Yeah, bitcoin mines.

I am standing here with goat stink still on me and I am trying to grasp the idea that bitcoins are mined — created, actually– by people around the world trying to solve the same mathematical puzzle using very large and powerful computers. About every 10 minutes, someone solves a puzzle and is rewarded with some bitcoins. Then, a new puzzle is generated, and the whole process starts over again. As more people become involved around the globe trying to solve this puzzle, it is made more difficult so that it is estimated that it will take ten minutes to come up with the new solution.

Every ten minutes. So, in order to be the first to solve this puzzle and get the bitcoins, one has to have computers that use enormous amounts of electricity. We are talking something on the order of 72 terawatts expended to create a single bitcoin. That is 72 trillion watts of electricity. Every ten minutes.

This first came to my attention when I learned that there was a proposal for a bitcoin mine to be built on nearly Seneca Lake. If I am not mistaken, it would use the water from the lake to run a hydroelectric generator to produce the huge amount of power needed for its computers. 

I still am in the dark on this and can’t even begin to explain blockchain technology. Remember, I am from a time when the Snickers Bar was still a 150 years from being developed and marketed. That’s a technology I can understand and maybe even explain.

So, here I am wondering how a digital file that anyone can download and display is somehow valued by its owner, a person who shelled out $69 million bucks. I really am confused and have all sorts of questions. 

Can this affect my own work? Might my work be stolen– this has happened to other artists– via these NFTs? What does this mean for the future of art? With all due respect to his talent, Beeple is now one of the most valuable artists in the history of art. I think that’s a statement even he would find laughable. Granted, its a lot easier to laugh with $69 mil in the bank. Or is it in cryptocurrency?

Good for Beeple. But the real question is: How do I do this?

The price for goat feed is a lot higher than it was in 1788.

I think I will go outside and bang my head against a tree. Now that I understand.

 

 

Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , , , , | 13 Comments »

Loco Amor

March 12, 2021 by redtreetimes

I am on the run this morning. Busy. That painting that I mentioned yesterday is still cooking on the easel and calling out for more. It’s a piece that will play a part in my annual June solo show— my 22nd there— at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA. More details to come.

So, I need to get other stuff done as I am in the midst of prepping for that show. Plus I am a little giddy since I get my first dose (or only dose if it turns out to be the Johnson & Johnson shot) later today. It doesn’t seem like something like a shot should raise one’s spirits but it feels like it marks the coming end of the pandemic, at least in its severest and deadliest phases.

So, I am getting right to work this morning. But I wanted to share a song to go along with the old painting from back in 2001 — that seems a lifetime ago now, so many consequential thing having occurred– that runs alongside this post. I don’t paint as many pieces in this tall, skinny format as I once did. Might have to revisit it soon. Anyway, this one feels like it goes with the song.

The song is called Loco Amor and was featured in an episode of the The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, the very funny series from Amazon about a burgeoning female stand-up comedian in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. If you haven’t seen it, it has great comedic writing and a terrific cast including Alex Borstein’s hilarious portrayal of Susie Meyerson, Mrs. Maisel’s agent. 

I didn’t know anything about the song when I decided to feature it so I looked up and found out a bit about it and Pedrito Martinez, the Cuban-born musician who does the modern version featured in the show. In doing so I also discovered that the Mrs. Maisel episode used the song in a way that directly mirrored, in a shot by shot way, its use in a a 1964 Spanish language film titled Soy Cuba. That film version was performed by Los Diablos Melodicos, a Cuban rock group of that era.

Cuban rock is not well known here, understandably, but group likes Los Diablos were heavily influenced by American rock and roll of the 1950’s that was popular in Cuba before Castro and the revolution took place. Rock music was banned there in the early 1960’s, though it survived via performance. The ban was eventually lifted but there was always a close watch on the lyrics and message of the music.

I am sharing both the modern version below from Pedrito Martinez and the original as it was performed in Soy Cuba by Los Diablos Melodicos.

Now, to work I go.

Posted in Music, Neat Stuff | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Brilliant Determination, Again

March 11, 2021 by redtreetimes

 

Brilliant Determination

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.       

– Samuel Johnson

Running this post below from back in 2009 because I am working on a new painting and am eager to get at it. It’s one of those piece where the first few forms painted set it off perfectly and it begins to come to life immediately. These kind of pieces are sometimes both the easiest to paint and the hardest because there is always a fear that I will somehow make it go bad and lose all that beautiful potential, all the life that is already coming through. But every day in the studio is not filled with enthusiasm like this. It is often hard and I am filled with doubts most days. It seems like I have been waiting for the last twenty years, long before the post below, for the next shoe to drop and my career to evaporate before my eyes. But I keep on keeping on despite that and that’s the theme here. – March 2021

I’ve been thinking about determination a lot lately. There are times when nothing seems to come easily and it seems like there are any number of things that would be more enjoyable than struggling forward with your chosen endeavor.

But in the end you force yourself ahead. There’s a greater satisfaction in struggling with that which you have chosen and feel is meaningful than in doing something that means little to your inner self even though it is easier and, in many cases, more entertaining.

This is something I keep in mind when I’m in the studio. There are many days when nothing comes easily, every stroke is like lifting a heavy weight and inspiration seems to have left the building long ago. In these moments self doubts begin to stir and I seriously wonder if I have reached an end to my creative life. It’s like a dull pain that seems like will be with me forever and there are points I want to stop.

But I remember that this is the path that I chose to follow.

With that recognition I am reminded of other times when I have been at this point before and I know, I just know, that if I steel my mind and force myself to move ahead, one small step in front of another, that I will come to a point where all this forced energy builds and builds and suddenly breaks free.

In this moment of release, everything suddenly seems effortless and inspiration is everywhere. It’s like going from the dark depths of a stifling mine to the top of a cool mountain. And the memory of the toil that it has taken to reach this point fades into the distance.

Until the next time.

And that’s where determination is needed once more.

 

Posted in In the Studio, Quote | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments »

Darwin’s First Mardi Gras

March 10, 2021 by redtreetimes

I came across this old piece the other day. I was sure I had shared it here before but after a couple of searches, discovered that I had not. This surprised me because this little piece never fails to make me smile. Just kind of goofy. Maybe not Dracula Hates Killer Icicles level goofiness but it’s on the scale.

This piece is titled “I Don’t Feel So Good”- Darwin’s First Mardi Gras and was painted on or about September 1, 1994. This is one of those pieces that started as just blocks of color, most likely with the intention of eventually becoming a landscape. I can’t remember what happened that set it off in a whole different direction but at some point I began to see an almost abstract figure. It looked to me like someone on their hands and knees, perhaps wearing a colorful cape, a pointy cap, and a mask, one of those half face things. 

With that info in mind all I could think was that someone in that getup on their hands and knees was either looking for a lost contact or was perhaps feeling the effects of a night that was a wee bit too wild for them. The background easily transformed from a sky to a city wall with cracks and stains. The perfect milieu for an epic knees-to-the-pavement hurl.

Thus, the title, “I Don’t Feel So Good”- Darwin’s First Mardi Gras, was born. 

I like this piece a lot, as I said, mainly for its goofiness. But I also like it for its semi-abstract qualities and look. There are forms and colors within it that really draw my eye and remind me of things I wish I was still using but have long neglected. 

As I have said before, there’s almost always a lesson in there somewhere.

Here’s a song that also a  forgotten throwback in time. It’s Nervous and Shaky from The Del Fuegos in 1984. I mentioned them in a post a few months back but most likely they are not a name many of you remember. That is a great commentary on potential and the difficulty of really making it. The Del Fuegos were a hot band from  Boston in 1984, a favorite of a wide swath of critics. Their first album was acclaimed, they had one of their songs used on  nationally distributed TV ad for beer, and they looked like a can’t-miss act. But the two brothers that were at the core of the band had an uneasy, contentious partnership which eventually blew up the group by the end of the decade. As one of the brothers said, “The ’80s were over, we were over.”

I was an early fan of their first album and this song comes and goes in my consciousness every so often, especially when I am little nervous and shaky myself. Give a listen, if you’re so inclined. I bet Darwin felt a little nervous and shaky back at his first Mardi Gras. Could have used some Del Fuegos to get him through the rough spots.

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Music | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

The Magic of Beginnings

March 9, 2021 by redtreetimes

“Greenie’s Barn”– GC Myers, circa 1994

And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.

― Meister Eckhart

The magic of beginnings…

That is such an elegant phrase. Poetic. Leave it to Meister Eckhart, who last showed up here just a week or so back. 

The advantage of these using these short maxims is that they can often possess meanings apart from those that were intended by the original speaker. Meister Eckhart was most likely talking about some sort of religious awakening or changing one’s life in a positive manner.

I don’t really know.

But I am pretty sure that the meaning I attach to his adage might divert from his own.

For me, the message in it rings true in regards to going back to look at work from when I was first painting, when I was just gaining a toehold on whatever direction my painting might go or what form it might take. It was a time of finding voice, as I have said many times here.

It was also a time that possessed the magic of beginnings.

It’s that time when there is a blank slate before you and you are standing there with the few tools that you have brought with you– your own experiences, your observations of the world, some desire to create something of your own, an affinity for the visual, and maybe a little time spent doodling in the columns of newspapers and journals.

But beyond these things, you are a clueless, empty vessel. Everything is new. Every day is at least one new lesson learned. Each new piece has some sort of revelation, pointing out those things that resonate and those things that most definitely do not.

Every new stroke or color was an epiphany, like discovering the “open sesame” that unlocked the door that opened to new and wide horizons of possibility.

It truly felt like magic at the time.

Now, it still feels like magic– at times. Sometimes I find myself feeling like the wizened old magician who has pulled his rabbit out of his hat day after day for twenty five years. Yeah, it’s still a great trick for those who haven’t seen it before but it has lost the thrill for the magician, has lost that excitement that came with first learning that trick, on first wanting to display his newfound feats of magic to a crowd.

So, I sometimes go back and look at these old pieces from that time, those pieces that represent the magic of beginnings for me. And I almost always find something that I have lost over time, a small thing that somehow was set aside through a conscious choice or simply forgotten.

And finding these little things reignites that magic that came in the beginning. It changes my perspective, allows me to get out of the ruts of time that have been blocking my vision.

There is inevitably something from these forays into the past that I bring back with me to the present. A reminder to do something a bit different than the way I have fallen into the habit of doing it over a long period of time. Maybe even something as basic as how I start each new painting. These old pieces may not be gems in their own rights but they have raw material whose potential I can use.

But more importantly, they have the magic of beginnings within them.

And that is what I am seeking anew…

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Quote | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

Dracula Hates Killer Icicles

March 8, 2021 by redtreetimes

Got to be honest, this wasn’t the blog entry I thought I’d be writing this morning. Had something completely different in mind.

I was going to talk about an old piece from my earliest painting days. Not the one above, which is a pretty early painting from around 1996 or 1997 that is called Faust’s Guitar. I did several versions of this painting in the first few years that I was showing my work publicly. I’ll save the other older painting for another day.

I came into the studio early this morning, about 5:30 AM. Still dark outside. And cold, only 10º. After flipping on the computer and hooking up to the interwebs, I went to the YouTube to look for a song that might accompany the other older painting. As I scanned down the list of various titles their algorithm had selected for my viewing pleasure, one title jumped out at me:

Dracula Hates Killer Icicles.

I couldn’t resist. had to click on it. I mean, come on– it’s Dracula Hates Killer Icicles. If it was Dracula Loves Banana Bread, I most likely don’t watch. But this has Killer Icicles, folks” Killer Icicles!

I watched and laughed at the sheer goofiness of it. I decided that something that had me laughing aloud at 5:50 AM deserved a post of its own.

This song, Dracula Hates Killer Icicles, is from a surf band  from St. Petersburg, Russia called Messer Chups. They play 1960’s style surf/ psychobilly instrumentals with a lineup that feature Igor Gitaracula (yeah, that rolls off the tongue)  on the guitar and Zombierella on the bass. The drums are provided by Rockin Eugene who is not seen in the video.

They also have featured the theremin, that electronic device that made that weird sustained woo-ooh sound was a staple of old 1950’s horror films, in several of their songs. I wrote about the theremin here many years back. It fits their profile well.

All in all, it’s just goofy, stupid fun. Nothing more. And on a cold Monday morning, is there anything wrong with listening to a Russian surf band playing a kitschy tune?

So, without any further ado, here’s Dracula Hates Killer Icicles. Who doesn’t? 

PS The video is from a video show Domino’s Batcave which is hosted by Domino Barbeau, a burlesque queen turned horror show host. That’s a career path every parent desires for their child, right?

Posted in Early Paintings, Music, Neat Stuff | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Lola

March 7, 2021 by redtreetimes

Had a really good day of painting yesterday and am eager to get back to the easel this morning. I made some changes in my process, altering how and where how I begin painting on a new piece. It doesn’t seem like a big deal but for me, a small alteration like this changes everything about how the painting proceeds. Where it ends up.

In this case, the changes seem as though they unleashed the momentum I have been futilely seeking. Feel like I am close to falling into that deep groove again where the momentum gained from one piece carries you deep into the next. It creates an immersive environment for me, one where ideas and concepts are forming instantaneously, cracking and popping like fireworks inside me.

It’s a good feeling, one on which my creative life depends. And one that I assume will always return even when I am going through periods of inactivity or frustrating and distracted efforts. So far, I have been fortunate and it has returned every time I fully devote my time, effort and focus.

So, this morning excuse me for being short but I know that this feeling can retreat as quickly as it shows up.

I need to get to work. Now.

For this Sunday Morning Music, here’s a classic from The Kinks that was always part of the soundtrack of my life, from the time it was first released in 1970 until now. It’s Lola. The video below features is a new comic book telling of this song and its wonderfully ambiguous wordplay. 

Okay, go to run. This feeling won’t last forever. Enjoy.

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

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