Redtree Times

Self Determination

July 11, 2017 by redtreetimes

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The painting above, a 24″ by 18″ canvas, shares its title with that of my solo show, Self Determination, which opens this Friday, July 14, at the West End Gallery in Corning.

That title, Self Determination, refers to a thought that came to me some years ago. It was that we have a choice in deciding what kind of person we want to be. While we can’t always change circumstance, we have the ability to change our course, our outlook, our reactions and so many other things that pertain to how we are defined.

It’s not an original idea, as Emerson’s concise words above attest. I’m sure I could dig around and come up with the same idea from the time of Socrates or Plato.

No, it’s a universal truth. But it is one that, while seeming self evident, is overlooked by the majority of people. We often live our lives with little consideration given to our actions and reactions as we stumble through our precious time in this world.

We just accept who and what we are as a given, even when we are less than pleased by what we see.

I know that was the case for me for much of my earlier life. Not that I didn’t think about my choices. No, I just never thought about what my decisions might be if I were the person I wanted to be. Instead I often opted for short-sighted and expedient answers, usually those that required little effort or sacrifice on my part.

I didn’t often like or respect the person I was at those times.

But once I realized I could decide what type of person I wished to be, I began to ask myself conscious questions that set a new course for myself. Gradually, I began to move toward the person I chose to be. Oh, I am still quite a distance from that destination and I still find myself disliking the person I am at times. But I know now that I am headed in a direction that is of my design and not simply living life in a default setting, letting circumstances and the desires of other people dictate my actions.

And maybe that is why I am so drawn to the painting above. I feel it is a great example of what I have been trying to express with my work– that we have an ability to move beyond expectations and circumstances to become better versions of ourselves.

For me, I want to be that Red Tree, simply satisfied with its place in the world.

Posted in Biographical, Motivation, Painting | Tagged GC Myers, New Painting, Quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Red Tree, Self Determination, West End Gallery | 1 Comment »

With Nothing to Hide

July 10, 2017 by redtreetimes

“You are not the oil, you are not the air—merely the point of combustion, the flash-point where the light is born. You are merely the lens in the beam. You can only receive, give, and possess the light as the lens does. If you seek yourself, you rob the lens of its transparency. You will know life and be acknowledged by it according to your degree of transparency—your capacity, that is, to vanish as an end and remain purely as a means.”
― Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings

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Transparency is an issue that has had a lot of buzz in public discussion lately. I am not going to get into that today.

But I do have to say that it troubles me as I am someone who has become ever more transparent, more honest, through the past few decades. I used to view such openness and honesty as a weakness, as a vulnerability that would allow myself to be exploited in some way. But at a point about twenty five years back, I came to the realization that I wanted to live an open and transparent life, one with nothing to hide.

It meant admitting weaknesses and vulnerabilities, taking responsibility for my many shortcomings.

It’s a scary thing and I wasn’t sure that it was the right thing for me. But I felt it was my only option if I were going to proceed through the reminder of my life.

And it was perhaps the best decision I ever made. Sparing you all the details, I have to say that that the transparency, the vulnerability that I chose at that point, has transformed my life. It has not always been easy or perfect but it is certainly better.

The effect of that transparency is what I was seeing in the painting at the top of the page, With Nothing to Hide. A 15″ by 11″ painting on paper, it is part of my show, Self Determination, that opens Friday at the West End Gallery.

It expresses the willingness to make oneself vulnerable, to allow the world to see how you see and react to the world. I think that might be the quality that made my career as an artist possible. In fact, I think that is the quality that many incredibly talented artists suppress, which sometimes keeps them from meshing that transparency of emotional feeling with their physical talent. Which means they often don’t reach the potential that might lay within them.

For me, I was lucky in having my painting assist me with my transparency and, in turn, that desire for vulnerability aided me in my painting. It was hand-in-hand. I didn’t know it at the time but looking back I realize how fortunate I was.

And I mean that honestly.

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings | Tagged Dag Hammarskjold, GC Myers, New Painting, Quote, Self Determination, West End Gallery | 4 Comments »

Reaching Out

July 9, 2017 by redtreetimes

If I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it – keep going, keep going come what may.

― Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

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Like many of my paintings, this new piece, Reaching Out, a canvas measuring 36″ by 18″, is concerned with the Search.

The search for something that we think is missing or that we need.

Love. Friendship. Knowledge. Wisdom. Fame. Fortune. Peace. Acceptance. Truth. God.

Answers to those needs and questions that never rest within us. Those things that define us as who we truly are and what place we occupy in this universe.

I think that this searching will always be with us, that we shall never find all of the answers we seek. I know that I will never find all of the answers that I desire. But finding just a few answers, even if only a glimpse of an answer, satisfies me for a time, giving me a prod to continue scanning the horizon even when I am most content in my life as it is.

So, I maintain my own personal search.

As, I am sure, you do as well.

For this Sunday morning music, I have chose a song that meshes nicely with the idea of the Search, written by one of my favorites, Richard Thompson. Titled She Never Could Resist a Winding Road, this version is a duet between Joan Baez and Thompson. It’s a lovely song and nice way to begin your own seeking this morning.

Have a great day.

Oh! The painting above, Reaching Out, is part of my solo show, Self Determination, that opens at the West End Gallery this coming Friday, July 14.

Posted in Music, Quote, Recent Paintings | Tagged GC Myers, Joan Baez, New Painting, Quote, Richard Thompson, Self Determination, Vincent Van Gogh, West End Gallery | 1 Comment »

The Gratitude

July 8, 2017 by redtreetimes

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.

–John Milton, Paradise Lost
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Here’s another piece from my show, Self Determination, which opens next Friday at the West End Gallery. This 8″ by 8″ painting on panel, titled The Gratitude, is one of those pieces that just seemed to flow out on its own with little thought or effort from me.

I just had to hold the brush and make sure I didn’t drop it.

Those paintings, rare enough that they are a true delight when they do appear, seem to be in the end about transcendent moments, about coming to peace with one’s place in the world and being thankful for it.

It seems it’s as though during the process I am able to clear away everything –my fears, my trivial concerns, my inner biases and all those pesky things that haunt my waking mind — for that short period of time when I am at work on the painting. And the gratitude I feel for being rid of those things, if only for that short time, comes through in the painting.

And while I would like that feeling to stay with me for a longer time, I treasure that short moment of gratitude.

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings | Tagged GC Myers, John Milton, Self Determination, West End Gallery | Leave a Comment »

Ask the Night

July 7, 2017 by redtreetimes

Well, the work for my show, Self Determination, has been delivered to the West End Gallery where Jesse and Lin will hang the show within the next day or so for previews until next Friday’s opening reception.

It’s always a big relief in the day or so after getting the show out of the studio and into the gallery, just in getting the task done and out of the way. Earlier in my career that relief was short lived as I would be extremely nervous in the time between delivery and the actual show. I would always second guess my decisions and fret over things over which I had no control. Any confidence I had built up during the actual painting process would evaporate completely.

But time and experience have mellowed that feeling. I don’t think I am any more confident or certain about the work that I do than I was in those earlier days. But I know now that once the work is done, the die is cast so there’s little I can do about anything from that point on. It is beyond me so I must accept whatever comes.

And that makes the time before a show much easier to tolerate, allowing me to do other things and reexamine the work for the show.

Take for instance the painting at the top of the page, Ask the Night, which is part of the show. It’s a piece that has a great meditative quality for myself. Maybe it is the calming effect of the blues and purples. Maybe it’s the cool placidity of moon and the gentle rays emanating from it. Or maybe it is the way in which the waterway opens itself to the sky above.

The title comes from the idea that we are surrounded each night by the sheer mystery and magnitude of the universe. It is a daunting thought, one that puts us in our place, exposing how little we really know beyond our limited reach. We like to think that the universe revolves around us but in the night we realize that it barely acknowledges us except for the veiled promise of answers to all our questions, if only we could somehow ask.

And in this painting I see that lone house on horizon holding an inhabitant who looks out on the sky with an existential desire to know, to have their questions answered. And in that sky, in that calming moon, they see the possibility of an answer.

So they summon their courage and they ask the night.

Posted in Biographical, Painting | Tagged GC Myers, New Painting, Red Roofs, Self Determination, West End Gallery | 2 Comments »

Xaipe

July 6, 2017 by redtreetimes

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e e cummings

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I was struggling to come up with a title for this new painting, a 24″ by 30″ canvas that is included in my upcoming solo show, Self Determination, at the West End Gallery which opens next Friday, July 14.

It is a piece that really resonates with me and I wanted to have a title for it that captured what I was seeing in it. At first, I wanted the title to point out what I perceived to be the richness of the land and its colors. At first, I called it The New Cornucopia but it just didn’t sit right. There was more to what I was seeing in the painting than that particular title captured.

So just this morning I went seeking and came across a poem that I had read long ago from the late poet e e cummings. Shown above, i thank you God for most this amazing is more prayer of thanks than poem with an emphasis on seeing the yes in all things surrounding us. It has a lovely transcendental feel to it that, for me, jibed with what I was seeing in this painting.

This poem was originally included in cummings’ 1950 collection of poems, Xaipe. That title intrigued me. It wasn’t anything I had seen before and I wanted to know how it might connect to the poem above. I found that it is a Greek word, pronounced zape, and translates as rejoice or be happy.

That was perfect for what I was sensing in this painting- the joy in just being alive and recognizing, with the opened eyes of my eyes, the wonder of the natural world around us. The yes of everything.

Posted in Painting, Poetry | Tagged Corning, e e cummings, GC Myers, New Painting, Poetry, Red Tree, West End Gallery, Xaipe | 2 Comments »

All Come to Look For America

July 4, 2017 by redtreetimes

Really busy today, getting ready for my upcoming show. Like so many working Americans, there is no holiday for me today. But I wanted to run a redone post from several years back. It tries to get across my thought that the strength of America is not as a place but as an idea.

Jasper Johns “Flag”

Another Fourth of July.

Parades. Picnics. Fireworks. Red, white and blue. That’s the shorthand version of this day. The actual meaning of this day is much harder to capture, probably more so for Americans than for those from other countries who view us from a distance. I think we sometimes lose sight of the idea and ideal of America in our day to day struggle to maintain our own lives. But even that struggle is symptomatic of the basis for our nation, a constant reminder that anything worth preserving requires work and maintenance.

For me, America is not a static thing, a credo written in granite that will always be there. It is vaporous and ever changing, like a dense fog. What seems to be there one moment is something completely different in the next. But it is an inviting fog, one that is warm on the skin and invites you in with hazy promises of possibility.

And maybe that is what America really represents– possibility.

Maybe it is the sheer possibility of a better and safer life, the potential of remaking one’s self, that defines our ideal America. We are at our best when we are open and inviting, offering our opportunity and empathy to all . When we understand that America is by nature in a state of change. It has never been one thing for long. We are a long way from our ideal when we close our doors and try to capture the vapor that is America all for ourselves.

It is not ours to hold– we only get to hold it for but a fleeting second and then it wafts away to some other fortunate with their hands out in acceptance of that gift.

Maybe this doesn’t make any sense. Since it is such a hazy ideal, we all see it in different ways. This is just how I see it.

Here’s the song America from Simon and Garfunkel. This is not a flag waving , chest thumping anthem but it speaks as much to the thought of America as an idea in that simple chorus — all come to look for America— as the very best Sousa march. Plus, if you think that America is just a place, it has some of our most scenic landscapes to take in.

Have a good 4th.

Posted in Current Events | 1 Comment »

Beyond Distraction

July 3, 2017 by redtreetimes

The activity at this very moment must be the only thing that matters, to which one is fully given. If one is concentrated, it matters little what one is doing. The important, as well as the unimportant things, assume a new dimension of reality, because they have one’s full attention.

—Erich Fromm

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I am easily distracted. Oh, I don’t think it’s anything like ADHD or anything really to do with a deficit of attention. There are just so many things close at hand waiting to grab my focus.

For instance, the instant access to information and a myriad of media such as music and film that the internet provides has destroyed my patience. I can spend an inordinate amount of time just trying to decide what I want to hear or see. And if I have a question now, I demand an answer immediately because I know there is one just waiting somewhere online. No waiting, no spending time going through my books to find the answer.

Now.

So every thought, any inkling of a question, has the possibility of becoming a distraction which, in turn, changes the focus of the moment. And for me, the focus of the moment should always be about finding meaning in that present moment in my work. And that meaning comes with finding the extraordinary in the ordinary with my painting. That is done by cutting away details that distract the mind and the eye, creating a setting where the viewer ( or myself, because I am forever the primary viewer) can find focus in the moment, to clearly see what I am presenting or trying to say in the piece.

The painting above, Beyond Distraction, captures this feeling for me. The bottom 3/4 of the picture is filled with color and details in the form of rolling hills, road forks, trees and houses. But the focus of the painting is on the single Red Tree that placidly basks in the light of the sun, unaffected by all that is going on below it.

It lives in the moment and is concentrating on that moment.

Hopefully, the viewer’s eye follows the central path up through the painting, looking past the distractions to see that moment. My eye does but, hey, this was made for my eye.

Judge for yourself.

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Beyond Distraction is a 30″ by 20″ canvas that is part of my show, Self Determination, which opens next Friday, July 14, at the West End Gallery in Corning.

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings | Tagged Erich Fromm, GC Myers, New Painting, Red Tree | 2 Comments »

Let’s Work Together

July 2, 2017 by redtreetimes

We’re in the Fourth of July weekend here but I am pretty busy, with still much to do to finish up work on my show, Self Determination, for the West End Gallery that opens in less than two weeks, on July 14.

I’m pretty locked in and didn’t even realize until just the other day that the holiday was approaching. I probably will work through the holiday but that doesn’t bother me. It’s my choice, my preference, my freedom to choose to do so.

Maybe that’s what the holiday is about, after all.

I was reading from David McCullough‘s book, 1776, earlier today. His description of our citizen soldiers at the onset of the American Revolution made me feel closer to that spirit of independence. He described them as unkempt and undisciplined, displaying little or no respect for taking orders from anyone but willing to work tremendously hard toward a goal.

I can identify with that.

I thought for this Sunday I would share another favorite song, one that contains some good advice for this divided nation on it’s most unifying of holidays. It’s Let’s Work Together from the seminal 60’s blues-boogie band, Canned Heat. Words to heed and a great rolling rhythm to carry you through the holiday.

I love this video from 1969 on a German music show of the time, Beat-Club. It’s kind of cheesy with bad angles and an audience that seems like they were instructed to under no circumstances show any reaction to the music. And the band is hardly the most photogenic. But it shows the band in its original glory, with lead sing Bob “Bear” Hite and guitarist Alan “Owl” Wilson, both of who died much too early, Wilson a year later in 1970 and Hite in 1981.

Give a look and a listen and have a great day.

Posted in Favorite Things, History, Video | Tagged 1776, Canned Heat, David McCullough, Music | Leave a Comment »

Flags for the Fourth/Hassam

July 1, 2017 by redtreetimes

This is a compilation of a previous post with a few more images and a video showing the breadth of the work from artist Childe Hassam.

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We’re quickly moving into our most American of holidays, the 4th of July. It brings to mind images of fireworks, parades and picnics. And flags, plenty of American flags, that familiar red, white and blue.

I am a big fan of the flag paintings of Childe Hassam, the American Impressionist painter who lived from 1859 until 1935. His flag series was the most popular work in his long career.

He started this series of paintings in 1916 as the buildup to our entry in World War I was reaching a crescendo. In many cities around the country there were Preparedness Parades that displayed the general population’s escalating enthusiasm for entering the fray. The most famous of these was in San Francisco where, at one such parade in July of that year, a bomb was exploded by radicals of the time that killed 10 bystanders and injured many more. However, Hassam was in NYC and the displays on the avenues of multitudes of flags among the canyons of the growing city inspired him to produce a number of powerful paintings, not bombs.

I think these paintings say a lot about America, especially at that time. The cityscape shows an expansion of urban growth brought on by the influx of an immigrant population and a prospering, industrialized economy. The flags represent a unifying bond that ties together all these diverse groups, a simple symbol that speaks easily to the wants and desires of the population. Their dream of America. Perhaps it also covered up many of the injustices and inequalities rampant then. And now.

But I tend to think of it in the better light, as a call to our better nature and to a society of choice and opportunity. An image of possibility and hope. And Hassam’s paintings do that for me in a beautiful, graceful manner. The flag in its best light…

So, as we prepare for this year’s Fourth of July, I think of these paintings and the symbolism that they hold for myself and hope that we find a return to being that nation of possibility and hope, a society of choice and opportunity. Have a great Fourth!