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The Morning Dew

March 17, 2020 by redtreetimes

Ah, another St. Patrick’s Day.

No parades this year with the drone of pipe bands and local fire departments showing off their freshly shined trucks while kids aboard them throw fistfuls of candy at the yelling crowds. No raucous drunk buses trekking from pub to pub filled with folks in plastic Kelly green derbies and Kiss Me I’m Irish t-shirts. No restaurants, firehalls or Hibernian Centers packed with revelers chowing down on their corned beef and cabbage and pints of Guinness.

No, this is not a year that will be tipped toward the louder side of this holiday. Instead, it will be one that leans toward the more somber and melancholy side of the Irish character, which is never far from the louder and more sociable part.

For me, moving to this more melancholy part is not a challenge. It usually brings memories of my mom, who has been gone nearly 25 years now, to the forefront. This would have been her 88th birthday. St. Patrick’s Day and her are permanently connected in my mind, down to the color green that I associate so much with her memory.

It’s the cool green of damp ferns, bright and vibrant in the yellow of the sun yet more fully beautiful and rich in the blue darkness of the shadows.

I stopped for just a moment now and a flood of memories came over me. That made me even more melancholy because they were so many of the same memories that I have been relishing for years now while I know there are so many more that are deeply tucked away in the folds of time and mind, hidden so that they would most likely be forever lost to me.

So, try your best to enjoy your St. Patrick’s Day this year, be it with a pint and a song or a tear and a memory. Or both.

Here’s a bit of Irish from the Chieftains, who we lucky enough to see at Carnegie Hall on St. Paddy’s Day many years ago.  Wonderful show. These are two songs with Morning Dew in their titles that are distinctly different. The first is the instrumental The Morning Dew which has the feel of march and the second, the wistfully sad song of memory, May Morning Dew.

Have a good day.

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Posted in Biographical, Music | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

Social Distancing: Approaching Storm

March 16, 2020 by redtreetimes

I do a one-man show every June at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA and have done so since the year 2000. This year’s show, my 21st such show, is slated to open June 5. I am keeping hope alive that the current situation will have subsided to some degree and that the show can go on by that time but the experts’ projections, based on what little data they can obtain from our inadequate testing, make it look a little shaky.

But I am continuing to work on this show on the premise that the show will go on.

It’s what I do. All I can do.

That being said, I have determined that this year’s show should reflect this time. At least, my take on it. To that end I am calling the show Social Distancing. It’s a term that, while it has really taken hold in this world in recent times, I don’t think I have encountered much before now.

I have practiced it and painted it in many ways but just didn’t know to call it that.

From my earliest days, much of my work has dealt with the duality that runs along that line between solitude and alienation. The yin and yang, the joy and the sorrow, that comes from being apart from others. Many of my series have focused on this separation, the Exiles and Outlaws series jumping to mind.

But even my most used archetype, the Red Tree, usually concerns itself with distancing.  It almost always is alone or at least apart from other trees. Most of the time, it is about finding strength in recognizing those things which makes us unique individuals but occasionally it is about feeling alienated from the rest of the world.

Some find empowerment in their solitude. I believe that’s been the case for myself as I have seldom felt loneliness, especially in my adult years. But for many, that line between simply being alone and lonely is a thin one.

Solitude and silence can be frightening to those unaccustomed to it.

This being the case, there will be a pretty substantial nod to my earlier work, such as the painting at the top. It’s a 14″ by 24″ piece on paper that I call Social Distancing: Approaching Storm. I guess it’s a timely title.

For me, this return to that earlier method which focuses on sparse landscapes and big blocks of transparent color is like comfort food to me. The more I immerse myself in this work the more I understand what its appeal was to myself and those folks who were drawn to it in the early days. Working on this group over the past week or so has been steadying in the face of the great uncertainty we face.

I could say more but I think I want to stop. Hopefully, the show will go on, at least in some form.

I am going back to the solitude of my work now.

It’s what I do. It’s all I can do.

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Social Distancing, this year’s edition of my annual show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria opens June 5.

Stay tuned for further details.

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Little Wing

March 15, 2020 by redtreetimes

I am going to be hopeful this morning. But first, let me make share one short analogy about the current situation. After looking at the charts that show the projected curves for this pandemic, I see that most show us not reaching our peak infection rate until sometime in June or July.

That means we are still in the opening phase of this whole episode. It’s unfolding, not like 9/11 where within hours our world was shocked and forever altered, but in slow motion. We are left to wait and for those among us who are young and feel healthy, or just feel young and healthy, the idea of having to put these lives on hold seems ludicrous in the face of what seems a like crawling threat. Why shouldn’t we go out to the bars and restaurants? Why should we do anything differently?

Here’s the analogy: It’s like the hours before a tsunami, when the ocean waters begin to recede to gather further off shore. Those on shore who recognize the danger that’s ahead react. They begin to move away from the shore toward higher ground. But those who are sitting in the oceanside cafes sipping drinks with umbrellas and chunks of pineapple in them, seem not to notice.

They see the waters pulling back and they think that the sea is simply calm today. They can’t understand why those people are running away from the shore. They ask their waiter, who is heading out the door himself to run inland, what the problem is, why is everyone reacting this way? The waiter says that the tsunami is coming and they should move.

Some will move. Others, will after a bit grudgingly and slowly move inland. But others will say that this is ridiculous. The water is fine, the sun is shining bright, my drink is tasty, and I am young and healthy. What could possibly happen? You others are just crazy.

But the waters are coming back. Lots of water. It’s not a matter of if but when and how many of us get swept away. Maybe it won’t be as large a tsunami as we fear. Maybe. But to stand on the shore in ignorant defiance simply because you can’t yet see its approach is a fool’s gambit.

Alright. That was a little longer analogy than planned but hey, what else do I have to do?

here’s the hopeful part. Ten or twelve or fourteen days ago, I was putting out some sunflowers seeds for the birds that feed outside our house. I tossed a handful and realized I had almost pelted a small goldfinch that was standing on the ground only a few feet away. This was unusual as most birds retreat to the surrounding trees until I am done. But his little guy, its drab yellowish coat telling me it was a female though it could be a nonbreeding male, just stood its ground. I spoke to her for a moment and she stayed put, pecking at the seed that surrounded her. Looking closer, I could see that something was amiss with one of her wings.

We watched her from the window for quite a while and she couldn’t fly. She hopped well and kept feeding throughout the day, staying in place even though all the other goldfinches had flown away for the day. The next morning I located her in the woods just behind the feeder resting in a small dip in the snow. I went towards her and she stayed in place, not trying to fly away so I left a little seed just a foot or so from her.

I thought that she surely couldn’t last long sitting in the snow with a broken wing. But we decided to give her a little time. Late that day she was back around the feeder hopping a bit and pecking at seed. Still no sign of being able to fly at all.

The next day she was gone. We kept looking and couldn’t locate her. Perhaps she had been swooped up by a hawk or owl or some other nocturnal predator. A fox? We just hoped that she was safe.

But  a few days passed and as I was putting out seed one morning, I almost threw seed on a goldfinch in another feeding spot across the yard. But his finch lifted up and haltingly flew away, bobbing up and down as its injured wing tried furiously to lift it. I went inside and we watched  her for a while. It was our goldfinch. She was able to fly just enough to get up into the trees and onto the feeder where she would sit for hours at a time., eating seed every so often and basking in the sun.

She’s here every day now. Her flight is still limited but it’s better and he moves with confidence. She stays on a nearby limb when we are putting out seed. I smiled like a fool the other day when she retreated from me and flew awkwardly  but competently high up into the white pines, some 50 or 60 foot above me. I think she knows she’s safe and has a pretty good gig even with her little wing.

That’s my little bit of hopefulness. Here’s Jimi Hendrix and his classic Little Wing. It’s surprisingly hard to find an original version online so if the Amazon Music box doesn’t appear I have included a version from Sting that I also like. It ain’t Jimi but there times when you have to make do with what you have, right?

Have a good day and be hopeful. And be careful.

 

Posted in Current Events, Music | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

“I Don’t Take Responsibility At All”

March 14, 2020 by redtreetimes

“I don’t take responsibility at all.”

Ah, the words of a true leader. The most beautiful words.

Another entry for the next Profiles in Courage.

While Harry Truman kept a sign on his desk with The Buck Stops Here, our great leader, the Hon. Horatio Q. Buckpasser ( the Q. stands for Quisling), most likely has business cards with his credo — “I don’t take responsibility at all”– emblazoned in a psychopathic scrawl across it in Sharpie.

This is just another great moral lesson from the great leader that we can pass on to the kids. If they follow his lead, there’s nothing to worry about for the future, right?

Who would have thought that a guy with all the moral fiber and intellect of a used car dealer with a lot filled with rusty Yugos would not be up to the task of steering a large nation through what might end up being the largest pandemic in modern history?

But, as my father, who suffers from dementia and is in a nursing facility that is now in lockdown with no visitation allowed, always said: We’re the most gullible people on the face of the Earth. Even now, in his current state of confusion, he makes more sense than the idiot charged with the responsibility of reacting to this crisis.

And the idiot’s response: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

Hmmm…

That’s not a thoughtful Hmmm.

It’s a growl.

Sorry for not being more uplifting this morning but I’m angry.

Check back tomorrow. I’ll try to be more hopeful then. Promise.

Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , | 4 Comments »

Keep Your Distance

March 13, 2020 by redtreetimes

It seems a little silly to write about my work while what is happening in the outer world beyond my studio goes on. I would prefer to give air to my anger at the gross incompetence and irresponsibility displayed by our government in its handling of the current crisis. Or to voice my anxiety for the health of my family and friends, as well as my own. Or my fears about the almost certain loss of the better part of my livelihood for at least the near future. And maybe well beyond.

Who knows how this ultimately shakes out?

So, writing about painting seems grossly insignificant, even trivial, at the moment.

But it’s what I do.

I am painting diligently now with the hopes that soon there will be a return to normalcy.

It’s what I do.

It also keeps me from thinking too much about the current situation, keeps me as sane as I can be. Now, where that falls on the sane to insane spectrum, I can’t tell you. But while it provides me with an escape route, the outer world often finds its way in.

Take the piece at the top, a new painting on paper that’s 18″ by 24″. It’s a real throwback to my earlier work with transparent color washes with hard edges and a sparseness of detail. Painting it was a joy, like meeting an old best friend once more and recognizing all those things that made that person important to you at one time. There was an inherent comfort in it for me, one that allowed me to forge ahead, finding focus even though my mind was still partially distracted.

The sky in these works always seem to dominate whatever element I choose to serve as the central character in the composition, here the house and the adjacent Red Tree. This domination provides evidence for me of our frailty, our relative smallness in the greater scheme of things in this world, in this universe. But at the same time it provides affirmation of my own existence, standing alone under the dome of the sky.

It just felt good. Feels good. The image above is not perfect, needs a little tweaking as I just noticed a shadow on the foreground. But for the moment, it’s good enough. But even though it, for the most part, takes me away from the now, the current situation always seems to creep back in. When I was finishing this piece the idea of social distancing as a way of mitigating exposure to the virus was on my mind. This piece, like much of my work, has a sense of isolation.

I decided to call it Keep Your Distance, the title taken from a Richard Thompson song from one of my favorite albums, Rumor and Sigh.

Here’s the song. Give a listen and keep your distance, okay?

 

Posted in Current Events, Favorite Things, Music, Painting | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Social Distancing

March 12, 2020 by redtreetimes

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Through vigilance, restraint and control the wise will construct an island that no flood will overcome.

—Gautama Buddha

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Being stranded on this island is looking pretty damn good right now.

Be careful out there, folks.

Posted in Painting, Quote | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

Pragmatist

March 11, 2020 by redtreetimes

One of the memories that I carry from the 2016 election season that haunts me is that of a forum with delegates that was broadcast from the Democratic Convention at the end of its first night. One of the delegates, a Bernie Sanders supporter, said that if Hillary Clinton was the party’s nominee she would never, under any circumstance, vote for her.

She went on to say that if that caused the GOP candidate ( you know how I’m talking about– don’t make me use his name) to win the presidency, so be it. They would simply come back four years later and get what they wanted then. Simple as that.

The sheer naivete and shortsightedness of her words made me quake. The GOP candidate’s agenda was already revealing itself to anyone who really looked hard. Those who did look could see that his election would mean an unraveling of many of the progressive strides made by this country. The nation under this person would head back toward a time without environmental protections or the regulation of financial institutions. You could even then see that he would try to persecute his rivals and would stack the courts with judges with the most radically right views possible. His implicit racism would curb any steps for social justice or equal footing for people of color that had been put in progress and his views on immigration were xenophobic and downright frightening.

To believe that we could allow this type of governance for four years then simply push him out in the next election and go right back to where we were was irresponsible madness.

In less than four years, he has stripped away many protections for our land, our air, our water and our people. He has attempted to make the Department of Justice his personal attack dog. How many children has he caged at our borders? Does anyone really know how many of them are still imprisoned there and for how long? He has weakened our longstanding alliances around the world, instead opting to cozy up to despots and totalitarian regimes who he fawns over. He has blown up our national debt, even without a crisis like a war or a pandemic, which is going to add even more. He has dismantled many of the gears of good government, including sacking the Pandemic Response office in  2018 for no reason at all.

This is just an off the cuff recall of his time in office and doesn’t even go into the damage he has done to our press freedoms or his incessant lying or the openly corrupt manner in which he stuffs his pockets and those of his friends and family from the public trough. If you give me a few more minutes, I am sure I could fill several more pages with all the ways in which he is negatively affecting this country.

So, to think that we would just let him be and then calmly take him out in 2020 was ridiculous.

Everything changes and does so quickly.

If, by the grace of some god somewhere, we do elect him out of office, we are not looking at the same country that we saw four years ago. There is a lot to be cleaned up and a lot more that we must rebuild once again to even get close to where we were before the 2016.

And if we somehow allow him four more years, all bets are off on where will be in 2024. We may be looking at a country that is totally unrecognizable to most of us. We will have elected an unfettered monster who unleash all his wrath on anyone who has wronged him or speaks out against him.

I do not believe I am speaking in hyperbole here.

I like Bernie and would love to see some of his ideas come to fruition. But I also know that unless we steady this ship, all is lost. This is not the time for the absolutism of many of his followers, like that delegate four years ago. The problem with all or nothing strategies is that you often end up with nothing.

No, this is a time of pragmatism. Would I like Joe Biden to be even further left? Sure. But I also know that he is, by virtue of the progressive changes that have taken place over the past thirty or forty years, further left than most Dem presidential candidates in that same time frame.

Joe Biden is not a perfect candidate. He is flawed and has made mistakes. He will make more. In the words of a rabbi that I recently read online, he is an imperfect mensch.

A mensch, for those who don’t know, is the Yiddish word for a person of honor. A good and caring soul. A real human being. A Holocaust survivor that I knew once called me a mensch and of the few accolades I’ve garnered in this world, that might be the one that I hold closest to my heart.

Biden is not perfect and won’t take the Bernie Bros all the way to where they want to be. But he will get them closer, setting our course in the right direction. Maybe even building a bridge in that direction that they can someday cross.

I trust him to try to do the right things. To be steady. I believe he will listen to the experts, will trust scientists, and will seek advice from the best minds. I believe he will not willfully hurt this country or its people and will try repair the damage done to our house and maybe build something better, even if it’s only incrementally better.

To continue this house analogy, Joe Biden might just be the firestop that keeps the whole house from burning to the ground.

That kind of pragmatism might not be exciting. Might not be the stuff of legend.

But it’s what we need in this moment.

And sometimes doing what is needed rather than what you want is, in itself, heroic.

To my Bernie Bro friends, think about that, please.

 

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The Exile’s Wilderness

March 10, 2020 by redtreetimes

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“For the first time in years, he felt the deep sadness of exile, knowing that he was alone here, an outsider, and too alert to the ironies, the niceties, the manners, and indeed, the morals to be able to participate.”

― Colm Tóibín, The Master

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Another new cityscape, this one a 36″ high by 24″ wide canvas that I am calling The Exile’s Wilderness.

I’ve written a couple of times here about these new pieces and the anonymity provided by the looming buildings, shadowy streets and empty windows. It’s the perfect environment for the Exile, one that allows a person to slip by unheeded, almost as if invisible.

Like a ghost.

There but not really there. Constantly observing but never engaging or participating. Just as the words above from Colm Tóibín point out– the outsider who is so aware of the manners and niceties of this place that they are never comfortable enough to participate.

The odd thing about this form of exile is that the exile becomes comfortable in their isolation, their separateness. It becomes their comfort. And I think that level of comfort is what I see in this piece. It represents a feeling of estrangement yet it also feels warm and familiar with little menace. The mountains looming in the background represent the Exile’s desire for solitude and distance. They are hope.

The moon looking down on it all, for me, represents a spirit companion of some sort for the Exile, a distant presence that observes and enlightens without passing judgement. It, too, is a comfort for the Exile.

It’s a striking piece here in the studio, with the dark warmth of its colors and the Morse code-like feel, dots and dashes, of the windows’ lights. I have it in a central spot where I can see it most of the time I am at work at the easel or at my computer.

I find it comforting.

But, then again, maybe I am the Exile here.

Posted in Painting, Quote | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

The Viral March

March 9, 2020 by redtreetimes

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“Life” is of course a misnomer, since viruses, lacking the ability to eat or respire, are officially dead, which is in itself intriguing, showing as it does that the habit of predation can be taken up by clusters of molecules that are in no way alive.”

― Barbara Ehrenreich, Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever’s Search for the Truth about Everything

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It’s interesting how things reveal themselves to you in different ways.

The painting above, The March, was painted about a year ago and was part of my Multitudes series. It’s a piece that always made me uneasy and even a little frightened. There was something ominous in the massed figures and the way they were marching forward.

It was not a parade of celebration.

No, it had a purpose and intent that felt to me like it was skewing toward the darker side of our nature. It was like it portrayed some evil force marching towards us. In fact, when I wrote about this piece last March, I used a line from the Ray Bradbury book, Fahrenheit 451, as the introductory quote: “Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.”

And looking at this piece this morning, I stand by those initial feelings but they seem even stronger and more prescient given the march of the Covid-19 virus around the globe. I look at this painting now and see the faces and green coats as personifications of infection. There is a zombie-like pallor to the faces, the color of death. And as author Barbara Ehrenreich points out in the quote at the top, viruses are not truly living organisms. They are undead predators waiting for a host to further their march.

So, this painting has become more focused and narrowly defined for me personally. It’s like it has been waiting for the proper moment to reveal itself and its meaning. It doesn’t make me feel any better but at least I know what I see in it now.

It’s a scary time, these late winter days in March. There are certainly rough times ahead, both from the virus and the hardships created by it that we are going to face. I would like to say that I have confidence in those people who we have entrusted to lead us through times like this. But we are led by a person who lacks all empathy and is only concerned with his own situation. He has greatly weakened the agencies needed to face these situations, slashing budgets and even dismantling the Pandemic Response team back in 2018. He has filled his administration with inept and corrupt political lackeys, not with capable professionals in their fields who would dispassionately respond to crises like this. They would act with the public’s best interests foremost in their mind, without having to first worry about offending the childish sensibilities of the egomaniac in charge.

We are not confronting this with what we would consider an A Team leading us.

I am worried. Worried for my family and friends, Worried for my nation. Worried for this world.

And as the month of March slogs forward, the viral march moves on, as well, with an orange faced idiot in a red hat acting as the drum major.

Be well, my friends. Good luck to us all.

 

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“Criminally Underappreciated”

March 8, 2020 by redtreetimes

Garnet Mimms

When I was about eleven, I remember getting the posthumous album, Pearl, from Janis Joplin. This was pre-boombox and Walkman, the era where vinyl still ruled the musical roost and eight-track and cassette tapes were the new pretenders to the throne. My copy of Pearl was on tape cassette and I listened to it incessantly on a little personal tape recorder, the kind someone might have used for dictation. Even with the limits of the technology, Janis’ album was a revelation, especially for a kid living out in the country who spent much of his time alone.

What I didn’t know until yesterday is that a couple of tracks from that album were songs that were originally performed by one artist, an early Soul and R&B artist by the name of Garnet Mimms. I was listening to a quirky local channel that plays a weird mix of old music, a station that I sometimes jokingly call Offbrand Radio because they often play versions of hit songs performed by artists other than the hitmakers. I often find myself scratching my head wondering why a certain song that I’ve heard and enjoyed a thousand times before just doesn’t sound right. Or is suddenly downright awful.

But every so often things go the other way and I am thrilled with what I am hearing.

Such was the case yesterday. The song Cry Baby which Janis immortalized on Pearl with a scorching rendition came on the radio but it was man’s voice. I prepped myself to laugh or yell “Why would you do that?” at the radio. But it was good. Really good.

I Shazammed the song to find out who it was because this channel almost never identifies the singers or bands it plays and found that it was a name I was not aware of– Garnet Mimms. I did a quick search on him and was shocked and a little ashamed that I had never heard of him. Along with Cry Baby, Mimms also did the song My Baby from Pearl. Several other songs were minor hits in the early 60’s and later were covered by the Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin and many others.

Listening to many of his songs, I was really pleased with the high level of quality in his performances and in the songs themselves. Great stuff.

Reading his bio, Garnet Mimms, who is 86 now, had a lot of success before retiring from music in the 1980’s and turning to a life of ministering the gospel to incarcerated prisoners. But even with his success and the fact that he is often cited by those familiar with his work as the first Soul singer, the equal of legends like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson and an influence on singers the likes of Janis Joplin and Otis Redding, his name is not well known. As one pop music critic wrote, Garnet Mimms is “criminally underappreciated.”

As someone who works in a creative field, that is something I can understand and appreciate. Being criminally underappreciated may be the next best thing to being celebrated at the highest levels. There’s evidence for people to find. The work is still there and it is consistent and timelessly strong enough to still turn heads.

“Criminally underappreciated.”

I can only hope that someone will someday say that about my work.

So, while I am ashamed that he has been off my radar for so long, it is my great pleasure to play a couple of songs from Garnet Simms here for this Sunday’s morning music. First up is his version of Cry Baby and then A Quiet Place, which is a title that meshed well with my own work.


Posted in Favorite Things, Music | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments »

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