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I see the words of James Stephens, an Irish poet who lived from 1882 until 1950, in the painting above, Native Voice.
The sun and sky represents the first condition, Chaos.
The fields represent the first law, Order.
The direct line that runs from the sun and ends at the Red Tree represents the first reflection, Continuity.
The still reflection of the Red Tree is the first happiness, Quietude.
Something to shoot for…
Posted in Poetry, Quote | Tagged James Stephens, Painting, Red Tree | 3 Comments »
Don’t like to mention my dreams too often here but I woke up this morning from one where I had just put on an album on an old record player and the first song was Frank Sinatra singing the Aretha Franklin classic Chain of Fools, a song I am pretty sure Sinatra never covered. He did a pretty good job with it in my dream.
I didn’t have to think too much about where this dream originated. Watching the craziness that goes along with this completely dysfunctional White House and everything that is related to it, especially the ongoing Russian investigation, is mind-boggling. The ineptitude, greediness and sheer ignorance that reveals itself on a daily basis is totally nuts, especially yesterday’s manic meltdown on national television by Sam Nunberg, a former aide to the person some folks still consider to be the president of these United States.
You can see it all beginning to crumble and fall apart before your eyes. It’s like sitting in a huge stadium where the entire field is filled with standing dominoes. As you watch nothing seems to be happening for the longest time. Nothing is moving. Then at the edge you notice a tiny shift and suddenly dominoes are falling in what seems to be large chunks in every direction.
As all of this is happening, the obnoxious stadium announcer is yelling over and over, “Fake News!”
And in the blink of an eye, it is over.
I have a feeling that is what we are watching at the moment. The tiny shift at the edge of the pattern has taken place.
The dominoes are tumbling.
So, first thing this morning, I get into the studio and find a version of Aretha’s Chain of Fools with the lyrics shown. As it plays, I am struck how the words of the song could apply to the people who thought this was a good idea in the first place, those folks who voted to turn this country into the world’s largest dumpster fire. Fools backing a fool and a liar.
The chain of fools- and I think I am being kind to say that they are just fools- has been broken.
Couldn’t find a Sinatra version so give a listen to Aretha and pay attention to the lyrics.
Posted in Current Events, Music | Tagged Aretha Franklin, Current Events, Dreams, Frank Sinatra | 2 Comments »
Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.
—Pablo Picasso
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Many of my favorite artists worked and produced their greatest works in times where the world was under great stress. World wars and– in the case of Picasso’s painting, Guernica, shown above– Civil Wars. The Great Depression. Times of social transformation. Even when the work didn’t overtly deal with the events of the day, much of the work reflected on the collective consciousness of that time.
I think that is so because art is, just as Picasso so succinctly states, a lie that makes us realize the truth.
Artists fabricate, often creating work that is on its surface pure fantasy with little relation to the world as others might observe it. But their fabrication is made up from everything that impacts them– their knowledge, their observations, their opinions and emotions. Artists take in the world and create something that seems like a pure fabrication.
A lie.
But what seems the lie often proves to be built of ultimate truths, just constructed in a manner that allows others to see this truth clearly.
I don’t know that we artists always succeed. I certainly don’t feel that I do as often as I would like. But so long as we feel deeply and create our lies, we will at some point reveal a truth.
Got to get to work now…
Posted in Advice, Motivation, Opinion, Quote | Tagged Artists, Pablo Picasso, Quote | Leave a Comment »
Woke up late this morning, at least by my standards. I bolted awake directly coming out one of those weird dreams that seem like something out of a dystopian novel like 1984 or Brave New World.
Or taken from any recent newspaper.
I wanted to go back to sleep just to try again, maybe come out this sleep with something better. Second times a charm, you know.
But I couldn’t so I headed over to the studio for my morning rituals. But that feeling from my dreams lingered, like a foreboding prophetic omen that is always at the edge of my thoughts and my vision.
I have a floater in my right eye that sometimes, when I am looking straight ahead, will dart across the far right periphery of my field of vision. It’s been there a while now but I often still finding myself jerking my head reflexively to see what is there. Of course, there is never anything there yet its continued presence gives me an unsettling feeling as though something could be there when I look the next time.
Uncomfortable dream or terrible omen? I’m rooting for uncomfortable dream but who knows what our subconscious is up to these days. So much of the info, the indicators, the patterns it selects to process from the outside world enter without our knowledge.
It all reminds me of the image at the top, a painting from back in 1996 or thereabouts. I can’t locate a slide of this piece but came across an old photocopy yesterday and was really taken with it. It’s called Strange Victory II designed as a kind of companion to Strange Victory which was an early painting that I showed here and was based on a favorite poem of mine with that title from Sara Teasdale.
There is a lot that I like in this painting– the subtlety of the colors, the textures and the contrast of the figure and the tree against the backdrop. It is so simply constructed but has a fullness that is often elusive to me as an artist.
I think it’s a great companion piece for this week’s Sunday Morning Music. This week I chose Don’t Give Up, the Peter Gabriel song from back in the 1980’s. This version is from Willie Nelson accompanied by Sinead O’Connor, from his 1996 album, Across the Borderline. I think it’s a first rate cover of the song and I can envision the image of this painting when I listen to it.
Take a listen and have good day and better dreams.
Posted in Early Paintings, Influences, Music, Painting, Poetry | Tagged Early Painting, Peter Gabriel, Poetry, Sara Teasdale, Sinead O"Connor, Strange Victory, Sunday Morning Music, Willie Nelson | 2 Comments »
I came across this post below from back in 2012 about my first encounter with the artist LS Lowry. Since then I’ve looked at a lot more of his work and read more on his life, all of which has made me realize how much I was missing before then. He was an interesting figure, providing me with one of my favorite responses when once asked what he was doing when he wasn’t painting: Thinking about painting. I know all too well what he was saying.
Anyway, I thought I’d repost this if only to once again play the song about the distinct figures that populate his world, Matchstick Men. Take a look and give a listen.
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I feel sort of embarrassed to admit this but I had never heard of L.S. Lowry until I stumbled across him the other day. I am most likely not alone in this but would have thought he would have crossed my radar screen at some point, especially given his prominence in the British art world and in British culture. Not that I know a lot about British art or pop culture. But this is a beloved painter there who has sold many works in the multi-million dollar range, one selling for a record $9+ million last last year [2011]. This is not an anonymous artist.
I am still discovering more about this painter with a most individual style but here is a very short summation.
He was born in the north of England in 1887 and died in 1976, having spent most of his life as a rent collector for a property company. Although he is often referred to as a self-taught artist, through much of his working life he studied art in the evenings at various schools. He used this study and the environment around him to find the distinctive style that marked his work, one that is populated with matchstick figures walking through urban scenes, often heavily filled with images of the English industrial landscape.
His work has permeated British popular culture as well. His matchstick figures were the basis for a 1967 rock song, Pictures of Matchstick Men, from Status Quo that was later became a hit here in the States when covered by Camper Van Beethoven in the 80’s. And more recently, the British group Oasis had a video, The Masterplan, featuring the band members as matchstick men walking through animated scenes from Lowry’s paintings. In fact, Noel Gallagher, one of the leaders of Oasis, has joined a growing chorus of fervent Lowry fans in Britain who have been calling for greater displays and recognition of the late painter’s work there. As a result, the Tate is mounting a major retrospective of Lowry’s work for 2013.
There’s a lot for me to like about Lowry which makes just finding him now more puzzling. But I have found him and will continue to learn more. For now, here is the both the Status Quo song and the Oasis video.
Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Quote | Tagged LS Lowry, Music, Oasis, Status Quo | 4 Comments »
“Writers remember everything…especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he’ll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar.
Art consists of the persistence of memory.”
― Stephen King, Misery
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Never thought I’d be quoting Stephen King here but that final sentence above– Art consists of the persistence of memory-– rings so true for my work. Like the writers he references, I depend on my memory of every scar, every failure, every triumph, every moment of lucidity, every small revelation to give my work some meaning, if only for myself.
That’s what the piece at the top is really about. It’s a painting that has never been available for sale and only showed it in my 2012 show at the Fenimore Art Museum. It’s a keeper and hangs in my studio. The title is Persist (All That We Know) and was the winning entry in a contest I held on the blog back in 2010 when it was painted. There were a lot of great titles submitted for that contest but this one, it turns out, was dead on perfect.
At least as I see it.
I can look at that painting now as I write this and it acts as a centering device, at once bringing me back to what I am truly trying to convey in my work– my scars and how they have shaped me.
Time to get to work.
Posted in Biographical, Quote | Tagged Fenimore Art Museum, Quote, Stephen King | Leave a Comment »
I have been living with this painting, Introspection, for several months now in the studio. It’s been in a spot where my eye regularly falls on it and it never fails to make me pause for a second or two to give it some consideration. It fulfills its title very well for me, reminding me to look inward on a regular basis while trying to shut out the noise of the world of man.
It’s leaving the studio today, heading out to California to hang at the Just Looking Gallery in San Luis Obispo. I think I am going to truly miss its gentle reminder.
Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings | Tagged Albert Camus, Just Looking Gallery, Painting, Quote | Leave a Comment »
It’s a busy morning with much to do so I am running the post below from several years ago that deals with the indifference that so many of us exhibit about so many things. If something doesn’t impact us directly, we tend to shrug our shoulders and say “Oh, well.” The passive acceptance of this sort of indifference has been the great enabler of many of history’s darkest eras. We live in a time where we cannot afford to be indifferent or we will again find ourselves in another dark place sometime soon. The anecdote I share below is no doubt trivial in the greater scheme of things but indifference is an insidious thing at any level.
A little indifference can lead to greater sorrow…
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”
-Elie Wiesel
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I’ve been sitting here for quite some time now, staring at the quote above from Elie Wiesel. I had planned on writing about how my work evolved as a response to the indifference of others but now, looking at those words and putting them into the context of Wiesel’s experience, I feel a bit foolish. Wiesel, who had survived the Holocaust and crusaded so that it might never happen again, was eyewitness to indifference on a grand scale, from those who were complicit or those who did not raise their voices in protest even though they knew what was happening to the personal indifference shown by his Nazi guards, as they turned a blind eye to the suffering and inhumanity directly before them on a daily basis, treating their innocent captives as though they were nothing at all.
The indifference of which he speaks is that which looks past you without any regard for your humanity. Or your mere existence, for that matter. It is this failure to engage, this failure to allow our empathy to take hold and guide us, that grants permission for the great suffering that takes place throughout our world.
So you can see where writing about showing a picture as a symbolic battle against indifference might seem a bit trivial. It certainly does to me. But I do see in it a microcosm of the wider implications. We all want our humanity, our existence, recognized and for me this was a small way of raising my voice to be heard.
When I first started showing my work I was coming off of a period where I was at my lowest point for quite some time. I felt absolutely voiceless and barely visible in the world, dispossessed in many ways. In art I found a way to finally express an inner voice, my real humanity, that others could see and feel a reaction. So when my first opportunity to display my work came, at the West End Gallery in 1995, I went to the show with great trepidation.
For some, it was just a show of some nice paintings by some nice folks. For me, it was a test of my existence.
It was interesting as I stood off to the side, watching as people walked about the space. It was elating when someone stopped and looked at my small pieces. But that feeling of momentary glee was overwhelmed by the indifference shown by those who walked by with hardly a glance. That crushed me. I would have rather they had stopped and spit at my work on the wall than merely walk by dismissively. That, at least, would have made me feel heard.
Don’t get me wrong here– some people walking by a painting that doesn’t move them with barely a glance are not Nazis. I held no ill will toward them, even at that moment. I knew that I was the one who had placed so much importance on this moment, not them. They had no idea that they were playing part to an existential crisis. Now, I am even a bit grateful for their indifference that night because it made me vow that I would paint bolder, that I would make my voice be heard. Without that indifference I might have settled and not continued forward on my path.
But in this case, I knew that it was up to me to overcome their indifference.
Again, please excuse my use of Mr. Wiesel’s quote here. My little anecdote has little to do with the experience of those who suffered at the hands of evil people who were enabled by the indifference of those who might have stopped them. The point is that we all want to be heard, to be recognized on the most basic level for our own existence, our own individual selves. But too often, we all show indifference that takes that away from others, including those that we love. We all need to listen and hear, to look and see, to express our empathy with those we encounter.
We need to care.
Maybe in that small ways the greater effects of indifference of which Elie Wiesel spoke can be somehow avoided.
We can hope.
The painting at the top is a new piece [at the time this was written] that I call Memory of Night, inspired by Wiesel’s book, Night.
Posted in Biographical, Motivation, Opinion, Quote | Tagged Elie Wiesel, Indifference, West End Gallery | Leave a Comment »
I will give a proof to demonstrate with facts that there are no rules in painting and that oppression or servile obligation of making all study or follow the same path is a great impediment for the young who profess this very difficult art.
–Francisco Goya
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The great Spanish painter Francisco Goya (1746-1828) is one of those artists whose work doesn’t always move me, especially that work that came before he was fifty year old and was serving as a Court Painter to the Spanish Crown. That work is fine but remains, for me, unremarkable. It feels academic and restrained and not unlike the work of any number of other Master painters.
It adhered to all the rules.
But with an illness in 1793 that left Goya with the deafness that profoundly affected him, his work began to move in an altogether different direction, one that would mark him as one of the great transitional artists in the move from the Old Masters to the modern era.
The work began to grow darker and was not centered around portraiture and genre paintings that would please the upper classes. The work from this time dealt with themes based on mythology, superstition and witchcraft, and the wars and political upheaval in the Europe of that era. It is often disturbing work that often eschewed the traditional rules of painting and created a new art form would come to define his name. One of his most well known paintings, The Third of May 1808, shown at the top, is considered a groundbreaking work in that it left behind many of the ideas that had ruled painting before it.
No Rules is an idea I have tried to embrace throughout my career. It’s nice to know that someone like Goya was one of the first painters to embrace it.
Here’s another thing that Goya said that strikes close to home for me:
Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.
Reason in painting is a quality that is not often discussed. But I believe that there has to be a sense of orderliness– reason— in painting that allows the viewer to connect with it, even if they don’t always fully understand why. Even the seemingly most chaotic abstractions usually possess a rhythm and sense of reason that allows an interaction.
I have really come to admire Goya’s work more and more over the years. The more I look the more I like. His work has directly– my Outlaws series came about as a result of seeing a group of his miniatures– and indirectly, with his words and thoughts, influenced my own work. Here are a few of my favorites. I encourage you to look on your own. Here is a link to a site with 700 images of his works.
Posted in Favorite Things, Influences | Tagged Francisco Goya, Influence, Quotes | 2 Comments »
I was looking for something to play for this week’s Sunday morning music and I saw a song that I hadn’t heard in many years from an artist that I seldom even think about, Melanie. Most of you who remember Melanie most likely immediately think of a couple of her hits from the early 1970’s that were close to being novelty songs.
Most notably, there was Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma and Brand New Key. You know that last one: I’ve got a brand new pair of rollerskates/ You got a brand new key.
Pretty lightweight stuff. But she had chops, being one of only three solo women to perform at Woodstock. In fact, this song, Lay Down (Candles in the Rain), was written about her experience at that festival. It’s a song that completely fell off my radar, to the point where I had forgot that this was a Melanie song.
This is the full version with lyrics. It has a lead in that you probably never heard on AM radio back in the day. Give a listen and have a great day.
Posted in Music | Tagged Melanie, Music, Sunday Morning Music, Woodstock | 2 Comments »
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Redtree Times 