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Inness’ Spiritual Nature

October 8, 2018 by redtreetimes

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The true use of art is, first, to cultivate the artist’s own spiritual nature.

–George Inness
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I am always thrilled with the paintings of George Inness, an American painter who lived from 1825 until 1894. He died in Scotland where it is said upon viewing a spectacular sunset, threw his hands in the air and said, “My God! oh, how beautiful!” He then fell to the ground and passed away a few minutes later. 
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He obviously lived and died for the spiritual nature of his landscapes.
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I believe he was perhaps the most influential American painter of the 19th century. His work was groudbreaking at the time and his use of light and color created landscapes filled with a powerful spiritual element.
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I feel a sense of spiritual awakening in much of his works. He moved beyond mere depiction, adding poetry to his landscapes. They feel imbued with an inner light, one that hints strongly to the spiritual.
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You be the judge. Here are just a few of my favorites.

Working Title/Artist: George Inness: Autumn OaksDepartment: Am. Paintings / SculptureCulture/Period/Location: HB/TOA Date Code: Working Date:
photography by mma, Digital File ap87.8.8.tif
retouched by film and media (jnc) 8_30_12

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Bad Moon Rising

October 7, 2018 by redtreetimes

Thought I’d keep it simple today. The song for this week the classic Bad Moon Rising from Creedence Clearwater Revival. Feel free to read any symbolism into this that you feel is needed. It had meaning in 1969 and it might be different circumstances, but the warning is still relevant today.

I worry that there is a reckoning of sorts coming soon and I know I am not alone in this, even when I look over to the right wing. I have read several things in the past few days from conservative thinkers, people who you would think might be gleeful for the changes of the past two years and the far right swing of the Supreme Court, who are experiencing this same ominous dread, who sense this is coming to a head soon.

There are too many omens and too many events falling into place to ignore.

I fear that it ain’t gonna be pretty, folks.

And no matter how deep those among us bury their heads in the sands of distraction and try to ignore what is happening, none of us will come out untouched. We all will lose something before it’s all over.

Like the song says:

I hope you got your things together
I hope you are quite prepared to die
Look’s like we’re in for nasty weather
One eye is taken for an eye

I will leave it at that and promise to be more uplifting tomorrow. But for the time being, have a good day.

Posted in Current Events | Tagged | 1 Comment »

Watching Fire

October 6, 2018 by redtreetimes

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On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world. 

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

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You know you feel bad when you take to the awful beauty of Cormac McCarthy for comfort. But when you get the sense that the world is about to be set on fire, if it is not already ablaze, he seems like a natural choice.

I would much rather be referencing another book, like JFK’s Pulitzer Prize winning Profiles in Courage. that describes the brave stands taken by Senators which changed the course of our history. But as we now know Senatorial courage is only a myth now, some form of mythical quality from a long lost time.

The idea of someone with the power to affect change stepping forward to so without regard to their own personal benefit is something we may never see again. And what a lost opportunity it has been for someone to cement their place in history, to speak truth to the rampant dishonesty and corruption we are witnessing.

Instead we see cowering and mealy mouthed half explanations or full-throated deceptions that are disingenuous at the very least. No, there will be Profiles in Courage written from this time about those who sit in the majority. So long as they believe they have shelter, they would rather see the world burn than stand against the illegitimacy they helped create.

Like the fools they are, they somehow think that the flames won’t reach them, even as they stand among the fury of the fire.

And the world begins to smolder…

 

 

 

 

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

Control!

October 5, 2018 by redtreetimes

I so much want to comment on what is happening right now. Comment is not the right word.

Vent. Spout. Bellow.

But, unlike the Supreme Court nominee, I will maintain my composure.

Alice from Dilbert’s office shall be my role model today. 

Hope you can control your fist of death.

If not, use it responsibly and effectively.

 

 

Posted in Current Events | Tagged | 4 Comments »

Ten Years

October 4, 2018 by redtreetimes

In the hubbub of the last few weeks, I lost sight of the fact that this past late September marked ten years that I have been writing this blog.  The first Redtreetimes showed up on September 19, 2008. It was very short and featured two of my earliest paintings. The first contemporary piece of mine from that time to debut here was the 2008 painting above, Coming to a Realization, on the next day.

There have been almost 3000 posts in those ten years. Occasionally I riff back through the online archives and am proud of some of the posts and disappointed by others. But the one thing I think it has been is consistent. I don’t cringe at the opinions I have expressed and am not embarrassed or ashamed by the personal flaws I sometimes expose. If anything, the blog has served in much the same way as my work in giving voice and form to the fact that I exist, that I am here in this place at this time.

Has it been worth the time and effort? I think so but there are days when I really can’t be so positive about that. It might look like there should be little effort in throwing this together each morning but that is an illusion. If there are 3000 posts then I figure I’ve spent at least 3000 hours. Most likely much more when you factor in the posts that are written only to be sent to the trash, never to see any other screen but mine. There have been plenty of those.

Or the many posts that takes multiple hours to write. Writing is real toil to me and it often takes much longer than you would think for me to squeeze out a couple of hundred words. And I can’t help but think how long it might take if I took the time to reread and edit them before posting them.

But overall, I think this blog has been a great supplement to my work. It has exposed a lot of people in far flung locations to my paintings and the stories and thoughts behind them.

In the past, the gallery system provided the background stories and ideas behind an artist’s work to the public. I am fortunate in that I have worked with galleries that still do much of that for me. But that is a rarer quality today as many brick and mortar galleries struggle. So more and more, it is important for an artist to be proactive and take matters into their own hands and do things like social media and blogs.

I can’t say if this increased exposure on the net has increased the sales of my work. I believe it has. More importantly, it has helped shape the way in which I see my own work and how I want it presented to the outside world. It has introduced me to many folks who provide valuable feedback and sometimes thought provoking opinions. This has no doubt shaped the work as well.

I want to send a hearty Thank You to those of you who still pop in and out after all these years to check out my work or the work of others. I try to keep it interesting and show a broad range of material without becoming too esoteric or deep. I think fully it reflects the thought I expressed here years ago, that like a river I may appear to be a mile wide but am mostly only inches deep.

Take that for what you will. And thanks, again.

 

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings | Tagged , | 5 Comments »

In Matters of Expediency

October 3, 2018 by redtreetimes

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We have become a nation of expediency.

Virtue, benevolence, and doing what is right has been set aside in favor of choosing to do what is easiest in the short term, even if that very thing is known to be harmful in the long run.

Theft. Corruption. Lying. Intolerance. Ignorance. Injustice. Inequality. Cruelty. Selfishness.

I think most of us agree that all of these things are bad. Except when it serves our expediency.

We are normalizing these things, accepting them because they somehow address some short term concerns. But once accepted, these things are hard to shake off. They become part of who we are, become identifying markers by which we are known to the rest of the world.

We are soon– if not already– going to be widely known for our cruelty, our selfishness, our injustice and intolerance. We soon shall be seen as a nation of corruption, where our promises no longer hold any weight and we are not to be trusted. Soon to be known as the nation that ignores facts and science. A nation that turns it back on the suffering of our neighbors and mistreats those who seek our help.

And all this lost for mere expedience. We have known what is right through the years and have generally moved forward with the promise of a more perfect union, as our Constitution describes it, as a goal.

But we stand at the crossroads now. We can either move straight ahead as a nation of virtues or continue on our current detour that is leading us to corruption, ignorance and intolerance. That path may look rosy now but the final destination may very well break our souls.

The current ruling party has become the party of expedience. They are displaying that they only care for what is right for them for the next election cycle. Every day, they normalize behavior that chips away at our national identity and show that they are willing to sacrifice all virtue for their own selfish, short term purposes.

We still have an opportunity to get back on that higher road on which we once traveled but only if we all band together and demand a return to virtues like truth, equality and justice. Like education, the rule of law, benevolence and righteousness.

But it will take a mighty effort. No expedience here, folks. No excuses. You can’t take a pass this time unless you are willing to admit your complicity when the whole thing burns down. And if history teaches anything, that is the where the current road leads.

So, just vote. And like Willie says: Vote ’em Out.

 

 

 

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Les Diableries/Redux

October 2, 2018 by redtreetimes

We are into the month of October and it’s very dark and gray here this morning which has me thinking of Halloween. I thought that since I was in that mood I would run a post from back in 2010 about some macabre images from France in the 1860’s. Guitarist Brian May of the band Queen spent decades researching and assembling the most complete collection of these stereoscopic plates, which he published in a book a few years back. I’ve added a few images and a video featuring some of the plates as well.

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I came across these photographic oddities and thought they would be fitting in this week that ends with Halloween.  The stereoscope was invented in Paris in 1850 and became a worldwide sensation over the next decade.  In 1861, a series of 72 of these stereoscopic photos were printed anonymously in Paris that consisted of macabre scenes of Satan and various aspects of Hell.  Called Les Diableries, these plates were a drastic turn away from the often mundane photos seen in early stereoscopes and were quite the sensation in 1860’s Paris.

The photos remained anonymous in that time because they were viewed as politically satiric of the French government of the time, the Second Empire under Napoleon III.  To openly chide the Emperor at that time could bring dire consequences but the images circulated freely, nonetheless.  I think they are a remarkable set of images from that time and I can imagine how they must have resonated in the minds of people who weren’t exposed to the mind-boggling array of imagery that we often experience in a single day in our time.

 

Posted in Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, Photography | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

Max Ernst/ Painting

October 1, 2018 by redtreetimes

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Painting is neither decorative amusement, nor the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.

–Max Ernst
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I like this quote from Surrealist painter Max Ernst. It seems that a painting that follows this described route– invention, discovery, revelation— takes on the sense of timelessness that makes it art.
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The invention comes in the actual composition and the initial execution of the painting. Discovery comes in allowing the painting to build in itself, to follow directions that arise during the process. Revelation is recognizing something more in the painting than the subject itself suggests.
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There’s a lot more that could be said on all three of these elements but the shorthand version suits me at the moment. Take that for what it’s worth.
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Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Quote | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

Ave Maria

September 30, 2018 by redtreetimes

It’s a cool and wet morning here with a soft rain falling that I wasn’t expecting. The ground around the studio is saturated like sponge and when you walk through the grass there are spots where the green of the tall grass– my lawn needs mowing– is overtaken by the brown of the muddy soil.

It sets a quiet tone within me. The last several days have been so busy that I haven’t had the chance to just spend the time in the studio to which I have been accustomed for the past decade or so. It’s not just time spent painting but, more importantly, time spent mulling things over and trying to set things in an orderly way that allows me to more fully function.

Not having that time makes me uneasy, like I am on the verge of losing my balance.

So the quiet of the cool air and the soft rain and the muddy steps in the grass feel good this morning. This quiet allows me to slow my thoughts, to abate the tensions of those things which I can’t control.

Oh, they’ll be back soon enough but for  a short time I recede into this quiet. And that is a good start.

For today’s Sunday morning music I am featuring a group that flew under my radar until this week’s painting workshop. One of the attendees, Frank who has been with me for three of these workshops, excitedly told me that he had discovered that one of his most favorite groups was performing at the Smith opera House in nearby Geneva. Frank normally drives in to these workshops in from about an hour or so away. This year he and his wife were staying in Penn Yan  and would be able to see the performance. He was ecstatic.

The group is a renowned, Grammy Award winning male vocal classical ensemble from San Francisco called Chanticleer. They have been performing with a revolving roster of voices for 40 years and this performance was part of their anniversary tour. The clip below is the group performing one of their better known selections along with another elite male ensemble, Cantus, in a bar where the two groups had met up.  The song is Ave Maria from the 20th century composer Franz Biebl.

It’s a stunning display and, unlike Thursday’s judiciary hearing, there are no red-faced mean drunks anywhere to be found. That in itself is refreshing. Give a listen and have a great Sunday.

Posted in Biographical, Music, Video | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

Painting Workshop 2018

September 29, 2018 by redtreetimes

Like most Americans, I have found the last couple of days have been exhausting. My reasons are most likely different than most other Americans. I was fortunate in not being able to watch the proceedings surrounding the Supreme Court and instead spent the last two days leading a painting workshop up in Penn Yan.

Tiring but not maddening. I feel so fortunate.

It’s a two day workshop and these people do an amazing amount of work in a very short time. Probably too much. Working off a piece that I am painting in front of them, they basically finish two decent sized paintings in two days, start to finish. The last half of each day is a flurry of activity as each of them moves quickly to bring the painting to state of completion.

There is little time to consider each movement. Just paint.

At the end of each day I am always stunned by how well they have adapted to techniques that are not easy and require a bit of practice, more than the short time in this workshop affords, in order to have any degree of mastery. I look at the work completed and realize that what they have done is much more than I do normally do in any two days in my studio. I am not sure they even realize how much they have done.

Hopefully, they take some small bit of the experience with them. Maybe look at the pieces they’ve done and say Wow, I did that!

It was great group and I feel fortunate to have gotten to now each of them a bit more. I am sincerely proud of each of them and how much they have done in the short time we worked together.

But like I said it’s exhausting, a lot of work and anxiety for a guy whose real comfort zone is in my studio tucked away from the rest of the world. I am not sure if I am going to do it again but if I do, it will be because the folks who come each year treat me so well. I think if I do opt to do it again, we would only work on one painting and work at an easier pace where they can take more time to consider what they are doing.

But that is the future. As to the present, many thanks to to the great folks I spent the last two days with. It was my pleasure.

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