I like this line from poet Carl Sandburg. I think any artform acts in that way, as an echo of the person who formed it trying to bring that created remembrance forever to life. I often write about trying to see that sense of life in my work, that quality where the work has a feeling of movement–life— and seems to speak with its own voice.
What it is saying is an echo of what I was feeling in the moment it was created. And if I have done my job well, it sets these echos, these shadows, dancing. A reverberation from the past, the creators own echo sent into the future. A voice that will continue to speak, to echo, long after its creator has gone.
Or as Victor Hugo similarly stated: What is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future on the past.
Maybe it’s too early on a Sunday morning to try to work on logic that is somewhat circular. I think I’ve said what I want to say here but the better part of it might still be in my head. Alas, that’s the way it will have to stay.
For this Sunday morning music here’s a fittingly titled song, Echo, from the celebrated British folk trio, Talisk. It has a building intensity that I very much like. Give a listen.
The painting at the top is a new piece whose title is A World of Mystery, an 18″ by 24″ on canvas. It is headed to Alexandria with me next Saturday, September 22 for my annual Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery. The talk, which starts at 1 PM, features a drawing for a painting of mine as well as several other goodies. Hope to see you there.
Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age. Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. It’s more than just a matter of laughing. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack.
I am not going to go into detail here about his theories and how they have been behind many of the economic and political moves that have brought us the vast economic inequality and burgeoning corporate oligarchy present today. I will say that it definitely made me see things as being out of whack and I had a real need for some Dr. Seuss style humor and nonsense.
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I believe he is correct in saying that nonsense wakes up the brain cells. Just the imagining of absurdity causes one to take different perspectives, to try to see things in different lights. That is the basis for empathy and altruism, things that are in short supply in world that seems to be more and more running according to Buchanan’s theories.
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Give me The Lorax or Green Eggs and Ham any day. Then maybe I can see the world back in whack.
This is a new painting that I am calling Culmination. It is 36″ by 12″ on canvas and is headed to the Principle Gallery in Alexandria next Saturday, September 22, where I will be giving my annual Gallery Talk.
This painting satisfies me on many levels. First, there is a density in its color and composition that I find very appealing. Now, density is not always a quality I seek. Sometimes, I am looking for a lightness or an airiness. But here there is a denseness and weight that gives the piece its presence. I believe this comes from the deep red color ( that perhaps symbolizes the blood that has flowed through us since time immemorial?) and the compacted composition that dominates most of the picture plane.
I also am drawn to the meandering path that wends its way to the top to the top of the hill. The shorter paths that branch off on either side give it the feeling of a tree making its way toward the sky or an artery going up through one’s body.
The tree analogy is important for me. I see this painting as being about how each of us is a culmination, an end result of all our ancestors who have come before us. I often think about that when I am looking over genealogy charts that show the generations spreading out behind the present generation. It makes me think how amazing each of our lives really is when you consider how many obstacles had to be overcome for us to be here in this moment.
Looking at those charts, I think about treacherous childhoods of earlier times when families often lost multiple children to illness. My own grandmother had three siblings who died before she was born. Or the many long and treacherous trips and voyages, over land and sea, that it took to place us in our present locales. Or I think about the many great-grandfathers and great-uncles in my line who fought in the many wars of this country or in those of their original homelands many generations before, many who died far from their native soil. Or the many who worked in dangerous conditions. Doing my wife’s and my own genealogy, I am struck by how many relatives were killed by logging accidents.
These are just a few examples but the fact that a life force somehow wound its way through the pitfalls of life through hundreds of generations to create us is, in many ways, a miracle. Each of us is the result, the culmination, of a journey from the beginning of time. I think we sometimes take this life for granted– both our own and the lives of others– and don’t see the sheer beauty in the miracle of our mere existence.
And that is what I see in this painting. The Red Tree at the top is at the terminus of its journey, standing at the convergence of the past, present and future. It owes a great debt to those who persevered to bring this miracle, a debt that will be hopefully paid through living a life of honor and respect.
I could go on but I think you get the point.
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As I said, this will be at my Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery next Saturday, September 22. The Talk begins at 1 PM and there will a painting, Deep Focus, given away along with some other neat things. It has all the earmarks of being a good time. Hope you can make it!
.Each painting has its own way of evolving. When the painting is finished, the subject reveals itself.
–William Baziotes
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William Baziotes is another painter you probably don’t know. He had a relatively short life, dying at age 51 in 1963 from lung cancer. His work has garnered a following over the years with some of his work approaching the million dollar pricetag at auction yet his name most likely is not known to but a few.
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He was born in Pittsburgh and worked throughout his career in NYC. He started as an abstract expressionist but transitioned into primitivism and automatism, which is attempting to paint completely detached from conscious thought. I like that idea but don’t think one can ever fully separate the mind and the work.
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There’s a lot I like in his work, especially the quality and complexity of his color. As for the quote above, it’s a thought that I firmly believe. Sometimes, even when starting with a goal in mind, you have no idea what a painting is truly about until the final stroke has been placed and you step back. Only then does it reveal what it has to say. Sometimes it is quite different than you thought it might be while working on it.
I ran this post about five years ago. It’s running again because the painting featured is a favorite of mine. But more than that, it seems to fit this time as well as any current artwork. I have added a quote from John Updike commenting on some of the works of the artist, Martin Johnson Heade. He points out attributes in Heade’s landscapes that I hope to find in my own work.
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“Heade’s calm is unsteady, storm-stirred; we respond in our era to its hint of the nervous and the fearful. His weather is interior weather, in a sense, and he perhaps was, if far from the first to portray a modern mood, an ambivalent mood tinged with dread and yet imbued with a certain lightness.The mood could even be said to be religious: not an aggressive preachment of God’s grandeur but a kind of Zen poise and acceptance, represented by the small sedentary or plodding foreground figures that appear uncannily at peace as the clouds blacken and the lightning flashes.”
― John Updike, Still Looking: Essays on American Art
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I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned Martin Johnson Heade here. This is really an oversight on my part as some of his work was really influential on the direction of my work early on, even though to the casual observer it may not seem apparent. After all, our styles and methods of painting were wildly different. The intensity of the color and contrast in his paintings of the floral subjects and tropical birds that he completed during his long and prolific career (born 1819 and died in 1904) really made me want to push my own color ahead. There is a site, Martin Johnson Heade- The Complete Works, that has his complete works online where you can see the great quality of his color and use of contrast.
But the painting shown at the top, Approaching Thunderstorm, from the Metropolitan Museum is my favorite Heade painting. The forms of the black water of the lake set against the vibrant color of the shoreline is striking and a most ominous storm cloud churns toward the boaters who have not yet fully heeded the signs of the oncoming storm.
It was painted in 1859, in the years before our country exploded in civil war. This painting was part of a cultural movement of the time that depicted the tension gripping our nation in metaphorical terms. The metaphor is strong and obvious in this painting with the dark band of the river symbolizing the division between the pro-slavery/states rights factions and the abolitonist/republican side. Several prominent abolitionist preachers of the era owned versions of this painting, many often referring to this coming storm in their sermons.
Knowing this makes me appreciate the painting on a different level. But it is still about the sheer emotional impact of the color and forms that hit me long before I knew its history. There is a tension and that feeling of stillness that occurs in the moment just before action occurs, something I have tried to capture in my own work at times. I still find this piece brilliant and inspiring.
As far as the weather, we’ve been pretty fortunate for the past 15 years holding my annual Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery in conjunction with the King Street Arts Festival in Alexandria. There has been a light shower once or twice and one year there was one large storm with a tornado touching down several miles away that hit late Saturday afternoon of the weekend festival. But overall it has normally been excellent weather.
Well, this year is bucking the trend. Hurricane Florence seems to be setting a direct course for the east coast of the US and when a hurricane of the size they are talking about is coming your way, it’s best to pay attention. They were already sandbagging the blocks below the gallery along the Potomac River this afternoon in preparation for the storm and the possible surge on the river. As a result, the King Street Arts Festival has postponed this year’s event, rescheduling it until the following weekend, September 22 and 23.
The Gallery and I agreed that it wouldn’t make sense to try to give the talk in a possibly raging storm. The storm scene in the movie Key Largo comes to mind. Not a good time. So we have moved this year’s Gallery Talk to the following Saturday, September 22,at the same 1 PM time.
Sorry for any inconvenience and I hope you’ll still be able to make it to the gallery on the 22nd. I promise it will be one week better!
I have finally chose the painting that will be given away at this coming Saturday’s Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery. It is called Deep Focus and is 18″ by 18″ on canvas. It has been around for several years now and each time it returns from a gallery I am surprised because it is a real favorite of mine, hitting the mark for me on so many points. I think you can see my feelings for this painting in the post below that I wrote when it was first painted.
So, if you would like to have a chance ( decent odds, too!) at taking this favorite of mine home with you, come on out to the Principle Gallery in historic and beautiful Alexandria, VA this coming Saturday, September 15, for my annual Gallery Talk that begins at 1 PM. There will be some other surprises as well.
Hope to see you there!
Meditation brings wisdom; lack of mediation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what hold you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.
–Buddha
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This new piece, 18″ by 18″ on canvas, is titled Deep Focus. This was one of those pieces that just seemed to fall out with very little inner wrangling or consternation. Once I started, it was off and running with what seemed very little assistance from me.
It was immediately clear that this painting was going to be about focus, about looking deeper and deeper into the canvas. Built from the bottom, each layer pushed the eye further inward. About halfway into this I began to think of the title for this as being AutoFocus, just for the ease with which it was emerging. But I finally opted for Deep Focus because of the depth I was seeing in the picture and the way everything seemed to gravitate toward the central point of the sun that is peeking over the distant hill.
This piece seems to have a very meditative quality, a placid feeling that goes well with the ease of the piece. Or at least, the ease that I felt in its creation. Sitting here now, taking it in, its construction seems simple, almost naive. Yet there is a feeling of opulence that I think comes from the colors and curves of the landscape that sheds this naivete and gives it a feeling of deeper knowledge. Or a way to deeper knowledge. Far from naive.
Years ago, I had a hard time trusting the validity of pieces that fell so easily from my hand, believing that struggle must be part of making a painting come alive. I was almost embarrassed by the ease with which some pieces came. But over time, I have come to believe that it is this effortless work that is the goal, the work that is true and has the authenticity that I seek. This piece is a testament to the trust in my intuition that has come with time.
I spent some time yesterday at an event that I would have never thought of going to before I started exploring our family lines a number of years back. This was the dedication at the Colonel Lindsley Burying Grounds in Lindley, NY by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) of a plaque honoring the service of an ancestor, Samuel Lindsley. I believe he is my 6th or 7th great-uncle.
Kitty Pierce Speaking at DAR Plaque Dedication
Samuel was a young soldier in the Revolution fighting for his local militia out of New Jersey. After the war a number of his family members headed into the new western frontier and settled on a very large tract in a fertile valley containing the Tioga River in what now is currently the towns of Lindley and Presho. His father was a man I have mentioned here before, Col. Eleazer Lindsley. A bit on that later.
I had no idea to expect when they invited me to attend this event as one of the Lindsley descendants. I thought it would be a group of 10 or 12 folks and there would be a few words then we would all take a look at the plaque, shoot a couple of photos and chat a bit. Done. But coming on the scene I saw signs for parking and men in Revolutionary era garb climbing out of their cars.
It turned out it was a real event.
A History of the Flags of the Revolution
There were about 60 attendees, including members of the DAR, local historians and several direct descendants of Samuel Lindsley who came from as far away as San Antonio, Texas and Columbia, South Carolina. There were also members of the Sons of the American Revolution in full period garb. One brought a part of his collection of Revolutionary era flags and gave us a lesson on the history an meaning of each. They then proceeded to raise their muskets and give a resounding salute to honor Samuel. There were several speakers including Kitty Pierce, the Lindley town historian who is a walking encyclopedia of the genealogy and history of that town.
Another speaker was Phil Cirulli, who is a direct descendant of Samuel and whose research and persistence was responsible for the event. Phil, who now resides in South Carolina, told abut his journey in getting Samuel this recognition, about the long process involved in attaining documents and certification. Our paths have crossed a number of times while doing our respective genealogy so it was great to meet and talk with Phil along with a number of other newly discovered distant relations.
I wouldn’t have been at this event if it weren’t for a painting I did a couple years back. It was from my Icons series which were my imagined images of how I thought some of my ancestors might look. There was no research or source material. Pure imagination. One was of Eleazer Lindsley, the patriarch of the Lindsley family that came to this area around 1790. The blogpost about Eleazer, a most interesting character, came to the attention of historian Kitty Pierce and soon spread to Phil and other members of the family.
I was surprised how many people mentioned the painting. But even more surprising was that upon meeting Phil, I saw a striking similarity between Phil and my imagined image of Eleazer. Similar bald head, similar nose and chin. Even the ear looked familiar. Here’s a photo so that you can make your own determination.
Phil Cirulli and his Ancestor, Eleazer Lindsley
All in all, a most interesting event and one that further confirmed my ties to this area and this land. It was pleasure to meet these folks and send them good wishes from their newly found distant cousin.
For this Sunday music, I have fittingly chose the song Ode to My Family from The Cranberries. Have yourself a good Sunday.
My Artist Talk ( or Gallery Talk or Art Talk or whatever you want to call it!) at the Principle Gallery is next Saturday, September 15, beginning at 1 PM. I will be unveiling the prize painting and maybe a few other details in the next few days so please check back.
To desire and strive to be of some service to the world, to aim at doing something which shall really increase the happiness and welfare and virtue of mankind – this is a choice which is possible for all of us; and surely it is a good haven to sail for.
-Henry Van Dyke
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This is a new painting that is part of a group of new work that will be going down to Alexandria with me next Saturday for my annual Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery. I call this 16″ by 20″ painting Striving on the Wind.
I really enjoy painting these pieces with sailboats even though I must confess that I know practically nothing about sailing or boats in general. But the nature of the compositions with the bands of horizontal color and the lure of the wide open sky along with the captured movement of the boats on the waves and in the sails makes it a tremendously appealing subject. Billowing sails on the waves under a big sky is a thing of beauty, even to this landlubber.
Plus, these pieces come with the inherent concept of the journey, the idea that there is an intended goal toward which the boat is headed. They have a built in sense of purpose. I can only imagine that sailing to a far destination is an act of total purpose, requiring the sailor’s complete focus and unwavering attention to keep the boat on course and afloat.
A sinking boat has lost its purpose.
And that sense of purpose is important to me, something I have always wanted to recognize in my own life. I think it must be equally important to many other folks out there. And I think that symbolism comes through in these pieces. Hopefully, the words at the top from author Henry Van Dyke align with that sense of purpose.
As he said: …surely it is a good haven to sail for.
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Striving on the Wind, along with a number of other new paintings, will be at the Principle Gallery next Saturday, September 15, where I will be giving a Gallery Talk beginning at 1 PM. As is now tradition, there will be a drawing where one of my paintings will be awarded to someone in attendance along with some other neat prizes and plenty of good conversation. Hope to see you there!
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