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Oblivion

February 20, 2025 by redtreetimes

Uncertain Times— At the West End Gallery

Ignorance is not bliss — it is oblivion. Determined ignorance is the hastiest kind of oblivion.

–Philip Wylie, Generation of Vipers (1942)

As concerned as I am about the horror show taking place within our country at this time, I am even more worried about the apathy about it that seems prevalent among a majority of our citizens. Hoping for the best and other forms of wishful thinking are no better than ignoring it completely. And the only thing to be said for burying your head in the sand is that it might spare your head when it all inevitably blows up.

Even that little bit of protection is doubtful, of course.

Philip Wylie said it best with the words above from his 1942 book, Generation of Vipers, which was a scathing diatribe against the malaise, ignorance, and self-interest that he saw taking place in this country in the run up to our eventual involvement in WW II. In the paragraph that precedes this passage, Wylie writes that though you might try to build a wall around yourself to insulate yourself from harm or responsibility from the outside world, both will eventually make their way to you. Therefore, you have a responsibility for the fate of all men, in the same way that they are responsible for your fate.

It is very much in the spirit of John Donne and his Meditation XVII from 1624:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

This apathy has obviously been a problem throughout the history of mankind. Apathy has a strong foothold in who we are as Americans. We have been led to believe that we rose up en masse to fight for our independence during the American Revolution. The fact is that only about a third of our citizenry fervently desired our independence while another third wanted to remain loyal to the British crown. The final third didn’t care and didn’t want to be involved.

They would go in whichever direction the wind blew.

And that’s not always a good thing.

I submit a song as evidence of that. It’s I Don’t Care Much from the musical Cabaret, which dealt with people who turned a blind eye to the growing authoritarian regime that was taking over Germany in the 1930’s. The cabaret was a symbol for those people who just didn’t want to take a side, didn’t want to think about right or wrongs. People who just wanted to have a good time and hope that things would just work out without their participation.

Wanted to believe that they didn’t have to care much.

That belief, thinking that one could just ignore the coming atrocity without being touched, proved to be less than effective. Ask the 60 or 70 or 80 million folks who died in WW II. I am not saying that is where this all leads at this point, but I cannot say with any certainty that it isn’t the path we’re on. Especially with so many of us willing to say “Oh, well. It is what it is…”

Here’s the song I Don’t Care Much performed by Alan Cumming as the Emcee from the 2013 Broadway production of Cabaret:

FYI:  Philip Wylie wrote the book, Gladiator, on which the Superman comics were based. It’s a good read.

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Solitude and Reverence/ Being Alone

February 19, 2025 by redtreetimes

Solitude and Reverence

Perhaps the primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone. That all men are, when the chips are down, alone, is a banality — a banality because it is very frequently stated, but very rarely, on the evidence, believed. Most of us are not compelled to linger with the knowledge of our aloneness, for it is a knowledge that can paralyze all action in this world. There are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed. None of these things can be done alone. But the conquest of the physical world is not man’s only duty. He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.

–James Baldwin, The Creative Process (1962)

I’ve been looking quite often recently at the painting at the top which is here with me in the studio. It’s from about ten years ago and is titled Solitude and Reverence. It was an instant favorite for me when I finished back in 2015 so when it returned to me after its tours of the galleries, while I was surprised it had come back, I was pleased to have it back with me. I believe it’s a piece that says a lot about me and my work and the role solitude has played in it.

This morning, coming across an image of this painting used on the blog several years ago reminded me of a couple of things that I have shared over the years on the role of solitude and being alone for the artist. One is the passage at the top from a 1962 essay from James Baldwin and the other is below, from an early (2008!) blogpost where I wrote about advice I gave to young wannabe artists. I thought both worked well with this painting. At the bottom I am adding a song from Billie Holiday, at the peak of her powers, on the same subject. The song is Solitude from her 1952 album of the same name. Just a beautiful recording.

I’m showing the picture to the right to illustrate a bit of advice I often give when speaking with students or aspiring painters. This is my first studio which is located up a slight hill behind our home, nestled in among a mixed forest of hardwoods and white pine. This photo was from last February [2007]. It was a fine little space although it lacked certain amenities such as running water, bathrooms and truly sufficient heat. However, it served me very well for about a decade.

The advice that I give to aspiring artists is this:  Learn to be alone.

The time spent in solitude may be the greatest challenge that many artists face. I have talked to many over the years and it is a common concern. Some never fully commit to their art for just this reason. To be alone with your own thoughts without the feedback or interaction of others can be scary especially for those used to being immersed in people and conversation.

I like to think that I have been prepared for this aspect of this career since I was a child. For much of my youth we lived in the country, in houses that were isolated from neighbors. I had a sister and brother, 8 and 7 years my senior, and they were often my companions at times. But as they came into their middle teens, I spent more and more time alone. This is not a complaint in any sense. Actually, it was kind of idyllic. I lived a fairly independent life as a kid, pretty much coming and going as I pleased. I explored the hills and woods around us, going down old trails to the railroad tracks and old cove that ran alongside the Chemung River. I studied the headstones at an old cemetery tucked in the edge of the woods overlooking what was then a thick glen, filled with the family who resided at a late 1700’s homesite that had stood across the road from our home. All that remained of that place was a stacked stone chimney which served as a great prop for playing cowboy.

In the woods there were immense downed trees that served as magnificent pirate ships. There were large hemlocks with thick horizontal branches that were practically ladders, easy to climb and sit above the forest floor to watch and dream.

My life– and my work– would be very different without this time alone. Sure, maybe I’d be a bit more sociable and comfortable with groups of people, something which is sometimes a hindrance. But it prepared me for the time I spend alone and allowed me to create my own inner world that I occupied then and now. The same world that appears in my work, the same world that is my work.

This is only a short post on a subject I could drone on about for pages and pages. But, to aspiring artists, I say learn to love your time alone. Realize what a luxury and an asset it can be to you as an artist. It is gift that is available to us all if we only recognize and accept it as such. Learning to be alone will make your work grow and distinguish itself in ways you can’t yet see.

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Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

February 18, 2025 by redtreetimes

Passing Through Blue– At West End Gallery

This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
At this still hour the self-collected soul
Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank;
An embryo God; a spark of fire divine.

—A Summer’s Evening Meditation, Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825)

I had come across the short verse, taken from a much longer 1773 poem, above a few months ago and set it aside with the intent of using it in a blogpost at some point. I wasn’t sure how to use it or if what I was reading in it was the intent of the poet.

This raised a whole bunch of questions, beginning with: Does the author’s intent matter in what I was seeing in her words? Or does what I see in one of my paintings matter in how others see it? Is someone’s else interpretation of it equally valid even if it differs greatly from my own? 

Some tough ones there.

I often use quotes and short passages from literature to initiate a post. While I try to discover their original context and meaning and adhere somewhat to it with my use, I take liberties in my interpretation. I may read something into them that was not part of the original intent, just like you may look at a painting of mine and see something that speaks something to you that is different from or beyond what I saw in it. Something that speaks in a personal language that only you know, something drawn from your own life experiences and sensations.

I think it’s all appropriate so long as the differing interpretation is not employed as justification for anything harmful or denigrating to others. I worry sometimes about that, more so with the writing here than with my painting. Sometimes, in trying to not be too specific on a subject, I recognize the rhetoric of what I have written might be equally applied by those who have a viewpoint that is in complete opposition to what I meant. For example, the definitions of freedom or revolution I write about might not be the same as someone else.

And the vice versa applies here.  I check for the original meaning and context because many years ago I used a quote without checking. It’s been long enough that I can’t remember the subject of the quote or from where it came. Whatever it was, it seemed to serve what I wanted to say. I later found out from a reader that its original meaning was the complete antithesis of what I read into it and was trying to convey in the post, that it came from a person associated with hate groups and was meant to advocate some form of white supremacy.

I was mortified and deleted the post immediately. Since then, I try to find the context of anything I use.

But for the most part, the meaning and purpose one takes from a piece of writing, music, or art is theirs alone. I have often told the story of a lady approaching me at an opening. We stood before a painting of mine that was simple composition, sections of two tree trunks that intertwined around each other as they bisected the painting’s surface from bottom to top. I saw in it a certain human sensuality, one that spoke about how we depend on the assistance and affection of others. She hated the painting and let me know that she saw nothing but the subjugation of women and male dominance in it.

I was stunned. I didn’t see anything like that in that piece before she spoke. I saw it after even if it still didn’t register fully in the way she saw it. But I could see what she was seeing.

I didn’t try to tear down her viewpoint or justify my own. No matter how hard I might try to assure her that it was never intended that way, what she saw was what she saw. Her reading of it was as valid as my own. And I let her know that.

And I guess that’s the way it should be, in most cases. You do what you do, you try to express what you are as a human in a way that you hope comes across clearly to others and that whatever you do, it doesn’t harm or be used to harm others. For the most part, it works out okay. Sometimes, it doesn’t.

You just hope you’re not too badly misunderstood. Or worse than that, not heard at all.

Here’s song on that subject. It’s a fine interpretation of a favorite Animals‘ song, Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood from Cyndi Lauper. Good stuff.

At least, that’s the way I see it…

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Memory’s Arrow

February 17, 2025 by redtreetimes

Archaeology: The Future Looms– At Principle Gallery

Time’s arrow, we are told, is a one-way thing… Memory’s arrow, like the needle of a compass too close to a lodestone, spins in all directions.

–Russell Hoban, Amaryllis Night and Day (2001)

It’s President’s Day so there’s not much to say this morning, what with the idea of having a unifying presence in the White House being just a quaint notion now. A memory of bygone days.

Speaking of memory, I came across the passage above from the late novelist and American expat Russell Hoban and it reminded me of how memory has a strange way of laying with me when I work. I can’t tell you the thousands of hours I have spent working on paintings where my mind is recalling people and moments from my past that had seemingly little or no significance to me.

I will be focusing on a section of color and all that runs through my head is the vague remembrance some kid who I didn’t really know — or even want to know for that matter– who was just a passing acquaintance in high school. Or a single word or look from a stranger fifty years removed. It’s maddening as the harder I try to shake it out of my mind’s limited space, the more it expands to fill the space. It goes on for hours as I work and leaves me exasperated, wondering why it’s even there to begin with.

But it is. And there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to counter it. My memory’s arrow just spins out of control, unable to locate its lodestone, its true North. I would like to think that it serves some purpose, that it is some function that needs to occur. Maybe it is my mind calling for emptiness so that it can focus and this little nothing of a memory refuses to budge. 

I don’t know.

I would like to say that this occurs on those days when my work doesn’t come easily but, in reality, it comes on bad and good days, often occurring on days when things are going great with the work and I am in a deep groove.

For god’s sake, it’s happening right now. Aargh…

Okay, here’s a song that will hopefully clear out those strangers lurking in my memory. I thought I was going to share an acoustic guitar version of Time from Pink Floyd. But an acoustic version of their Us and Them from Guido Mancino came up right after Time finished playing. Goven what we’re going through right now, it seemed the better selection, even if it doesn’t completely fall in line with this post.

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Some Humans Still Ain’t Human

February 16, 2025 by redtreetimes

Some humans ain’t human
Some people ain’t kind
They lie through their teeth
With their head up their behind

You open up their hearts
And here’s what you’ll find
Some humans ain’t human
Some people ain’t kind

—John Prine, Some Humans Ain’t Human

I came across the post below from five years ago, in 2020, in February of that year. I had to laugh at the fact that I am basically in the same state of mind now. Some things never change, I guess. Bu tit fit so well with that I felt like saying this morning that it seemed foolish to not rerun it.

From February, 2020:

Maybe it’s just being tired from wrestling with a foot of fallen snow or maybe it’s just being sick of being sick about the state of affairs taking place here in this country. I can’t say for sure but whatever the case, it has made me a little misanthropic as of late.

It bothers me and it’s not something I embrace lightly. I’ve always resolved to follow the Will Rogers maxim of I never met a man I didn’t like, believing that I could always find common ground with anyone I came across, could find something, anything, that we could agree on. And that was generally the case for the better part of my life.

But the last three or so years have put that resolution to the test as so many of my fellow citizens have been suddenly liberated to openly express their prejudices, their hatreds, their conspiracy-based beliefs, their petty spitefulness and a whole litany of stupid behaviors that would crush my spirit completely if I were forced to list them all.

This morning, I just want to give up and embrace my angry misanthropy. Maybe walk to the end of my driveway and give the finger to the first passing car.

That’ll teach ’em, won’t it?

Oh, I know. That won’t happen. I will still try to find whatever good there is in people, still try to find even those small things we have in common. You like pizza? Me, too!

But be warned: my patience ain’t what it used to be.

So, for this Sunday morning music I have selected what I consider a fitting choice for this mood. It’s Some Humans Ain’t Human from John Prine. He wrote it in 2005 as political commentary on George W. Bush‘s decision to put us into the war with Iraq, that one we still can’t seem to shake free from. Prine said he didn’t want to die with people not being sure where he stood on Bush.

It might have been written for that purpose but it fits a multitude of situations. Actually, every situation.

Give a listen and if you want to sing along, go to this link for the lyrics. Then let yourself quietly. I’m telling you right now, do not slam that door.

And if you need me today, you will find me at the end of my driveway.

This post originally ran before John Prine died from Covid a short time later in 2020. I wish he were still around to comment on the world at this moment. The painting at the top, is Soul Boat is from 2019 and currently lives with me here in the studio just to remind me that some humans still ain’t human.

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Diversion With a Difference?

February 15, 2025 by redtreetimes

Infinity’s Call– At West End Gallery

“I don’t approve of novels mentioning actual issues and going on and on about politics,” she says. “I’ve never had any urge to put politics in a novel or to even mention that it exists.” But recent events have been too momentous to ignore. “It seemed so wrong to have any character going about normal life after that horrendous election,” she says. “I am worried and anxious and depressed and everything you can be. This is such an extreme, horrifying thing to happen. I always trusted our constitution.”

— Anne Tyler, The Guardian interview

There is an interview today in The Guardian with bestselling novelist Anne Tyler, author of The Accidental Tourist, Breathing Lessons and a bevy of other novels. 25 books, actually. She has had a long and acclaimed career producing intimate novels that by design seldom, if ever, deal with whatever is taking place in the wider world. While she has a new novel coming out that adheres to this design of hers, she is already at work on her next, set in this past summer of 2024.

In the interview, she admits to not being able to keep the current situation taking place here in this country from playing a part in the new book. As a quote in the headline for this interview states: ‘It seemed wrong to write about normal life after that horrendous election.’

I understand what she is feeling. I have tried to minimize mentions of a political nature out of this blog– seriously, I have– so that it serves as some sort of diversion from the beeline to Crazytown that we seem to be on at this time. I’ve tried to make that my aim in doing this.

It’s not easy. I find myself asking: Do we really need more diversion?

We are swimming in a vast sea of distractions and diversions. We are buffeted by media and endless opinion, disinformation, misinformation, and even a little information occasionally to the point we operate with the attention span of a tsetse fly. It sometimes feels as though this was the goal, a crucial part of some insidious, larger plot. In a prophetic 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman foreshadowed our current state of inattention, predicting the rise and influence of infotainment news, as well the flood-the-zone strategy of the current administration. In the foreword to the book, Postman compared the two most widely accepted dystopian futures, that of George Orwell’s 1984 against Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and how they might pertain to the then-future we now occupy:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared
was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who
wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information.
Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to
passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us.
Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared
we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial
culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the
centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited,
the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny
“failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In
1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New
World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that
what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

So, as I sit down early each morning, I ask myself a number of questions.  Is it right to add even more to our distractions?  Am I truly providing a service to anyone by creating a diversion at a time that demands our full attention?

It ultimately comes down to one question: Does what I do serve any function beyond diversion?

I don’t know the answer to that. Maybe if one or two people are inspired to change a view or a perception, that is enough.

Maybe it can be a diversion with a difference?

Again, I don’t know. Needless to say, there are no easy answers to anything during these anything-but-normal days. 

All I can say is thanks for sticking with this and reading along to my well-meaning meanderings. 

 

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Passionata/ Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2025 by redtreetimes

Passionata–Included in Little Gems at West End Gallery

There must be some other possibility than death or lifelong penance … some meeting, some intersection of lines; and some cowardly, hopeful geometer in my brain tells me it is the angle at which two lines prop each other up, the leaning-together from the vertical which produces the false arch. For lack of a keystone, the false arch may be as much as one can expect in this life. Only the very lucky discover the keystone.

― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

Valentine’s Day in the year 2025. Though there is a lot that could be said about both the Valentine’s Day type of love and the year 2025, the two seem incompatible. At this place and time–2025– writing about romantic love seems almost trivial. And that might be a mistake as it may be only love, in its many facets, that sustains us going forward. So, for this Valentine’s Day in the year 2025, I am going back to a post from the good old days– 2022 (yikes!)– that deals with the sustaining power of love. The only difference is the painting at the top from the Little Gems show, which nonetheless serves as well as the painting shown in the original post.

The lines above from the 1972 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Angle of Repose, from the late Wallace Stegner really jumped out at me this morning. To be honest, I haven’t read the book so can’t speak to its context but its concept of two vertical lines tipping together so that they meet and prop each other up to create a self-supporting false arch just seemed like the perfect imagery for today, Valentine’s Day.

Every lasting relationship depends on this arch. I hesitate to use the word “false” though I understand it is in reference to the distinction between “true” arches that have angled stones and a keystone at its apex that binds it all together and “false” arches that have the appearance and serve the same purpose but are constructed in a less sophisticated manner, sometimes haphazardly or by sheer accident.

Two trees falling against one another in the forest, for example.

Or maybe even two trees that grow together and eventually seem almost as one. a la the trees in my Baucis and Philemon based paintings.

I’ve been part of such a false arch for a very long time and as a result Valentine’s Day takes on a different look for me. Though it maintains a romantic aspect, it is more about a deeper recognition and appreciation of all the many aspects that make up that other vertical line that somehow fell my way all so many years ago to create our false arch.

And, as the Stegner lines above point out, this false arch might be as much as one can expect in this life. I certainly can’t ask for anything more.

Here’s one of my favorite Rickie Lee Jones songs, one that seems fit for this post. It’s a song that I never thought received the recognition it deserved. This is We Belong Together, from her classic 1981 album, Pirates, with its cover photo from Brassai of two Parisian lovers of the 1930’s.

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Sunshine Song

February 13, 2025 by redtreetimes

Sunshine Song- At West End Gallery

It is the artist’s business to create sunshine when the sun fails.

–Romain Rolland, Jean-Christophe, (1904)

I am generally a fan of winter weather. I like colder weather and snow and the quiet it brings. Even so, I have to admit that I am getting tired of it this year. Tired of slipping and sliding on ice, probably because I am still working off a slight concussion from a fall this past weekend that had me stumbling around like a middleweight boxer who had just been hit flush with a haymaker and is forced to take a standing eight count to regain his bearings.  Tired of the oppressiveness of the sky’s constant grayness which matches my mood or that of the country a little too much. Tired of wearing layers and layers of clothing and having to put on crampons (ice cleats) just to walk to the studio.

Even the beauty of the snow is compromised at the moment. Here in the woods, it has no fluffiness or moisture now. The thought of going out and perhaps laying in the snow to make snow angels is gone as the thin layer of snow is hard surfaced with sharp icy edges.

Just want some sunshine. Want some brightness. Something to burn away the grayness of the sky and my spirit. Want to feel its warmth on my skin again. That has been such a rare occurrence this winter.

There is some consolation in that I do, at the very least, have my work. I have the luxury of being able to go into it and make my own sunshine, much like passage above which the Nobel Prize-winning French author Romain Rolland wrote in his best-known work, Jean-Christophe.

It does help to have some capacity to create one’s own sunshine. But it only goes so far. It’s not a self-sustaining perpetual motion kind of thing. It needs some input, some help, some influx of outside energy every so often.

It needs to see and feel the real sun occasionally, even if to simply be reminded that it is still there. With it, the bitterness of cold, the trudge of snow, and the skeletal trees of winter are tolerable.

Okay, enough. The gray light of morning is coming through the studio windows. Barely. I have to go make some sunshine.

Here’s an old song from Donovan about a guy I could use right about now, Sunshine Superman.

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Do No Harm

February 12, 2025 by redtreetimes

Move On Up–At West End Gallery

We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won’t do harm – yes, choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.

–E.M. Forster, A Room With a View

Choose a place where you won’t do harm…

Man, that sounds like advice coming to us from a distant time and place. So much so that it seems almost quaint, almost to the point where many of us do exactly the opposite, choosing places where we can do nothing but harm.

I know this is nothing new. There has always been a streak of malice and vindictiveness within our character. We would often rather sacrifice to harm others rather than to help them.

That’s part of the dark shadow that follows us, obscuring what little remains of our empathy. Not sure why I am writing this this morning, outside of the utter disappointment I sometimes feel in the choice many make to turn away from the sunshine of compassion and live in the deep shadows that are devoid of it.

Actually, this all started when I came across an old blog post that had a Johnny Cash performance of a Loudon Wainwright song, The Man Who Couldn’t Cry. Simply put, it’s a song about a man who lived a life without feeling. This performance is from a time when Johnny Cash was just beginning to reinvent himself, having become irrelevant, seen as a relic of country music’s past. He couldn’t get airplay for his music. He decided to make music that was out of the box.

It is written that though he was a legendary performer, he was terrified for this show as it was one of the first times he had played alone on stage without a backing band. Just a man and his guitar. I like that story, that this man who headlined around the world and had throngs of adoring fans felt the need to move ahead with deeply personal work that was meaningful and often raw. That it meant so much to him that he felt exposed, that he was nervous and afraid.

He chose a place where he wouldn’t do very much harm, and stood in it for all he was worth, facing the sunshine.

A good way to go.

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Why Do It?

February 11, 2025 by redtreetimes

Little Gems Now at West End Gallery

Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me — the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art. The artist is the only one who knows the world is a subjective creation, that there is a choice to be made, a selection of elements. It is a materialization, an incarnation of his inner world. Then he hopes to attract others into it, he hopes to impose this particular vision and share it with others. When the second stage is not reached, the brave artist continues, nevertheless. The few moments of communion with the world are worth the pain, for it is a world for others, an inheritance for others, a gift to others, in the end. When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.

We also write to heighten our own awareness of life, we write to lure and enchant and console others, we write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth, we write to expand our world, when we feel strangled, constricted, lonely. We write as the birds sing. As the primitive dance their rituals. If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write. Because our culture has no use for any of that. When I don’t write I feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in prison. I feel I lose my fire, my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave. I call it breathing.

― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin

Why do it?

Even after nearly 30 years of doing what I do–which is paint, if you were still wondering– I still often find myself asking why I do this. There are certainly easier and more lucrative ways to make a living but they normally don’t offer the autonomy, solitude, and non-financial rewards that this life offers.

However, I don’t think it’s as simple as putting everything on a spreadsheet and comparing columns of pros and cons, of which there are plenty of both. I don’t think any single line item on such a spreadsheet would justify doing or not doing what I do. 

No, I think it’s something beyond quantification or even justification. It’s something that I know is there, and have known for some time, from a point in my life where I was yet to fully live this life. It’s something I often struggle to put into words. That’s probably why I often find a rationalization for what I do from writers who struggle with that same question. Though they are writing about the act of writing, their observations carry cross all creative disciplines. 

I have recently read two wonderful books that deal with this question. One, Art & Fear from David Bayles and Ted Orland, touches on it while dealing broadly with art and creativity while the other The Writing Life from Annie Dillard, gives deep insight into the essential part of the writing impulse which moves, as I said above, across the creative spectrum. Annie Dillard’s book, by the way, was a gift from the Great Veiled Bear this past Christmas and ranks as one of my favorite gifts and reads in a long, long time.

It scratched my itch. 

Reading it right after Art & Fear came at a time when I was truly struggling. The two books clarified a lot of issues that had been plaguing me. As a result, I felt that I was less alone in my struggles, that my questions and issues were much the same as other people in the creative fields, even those who appear to be at the top their fields. 

I came across the passage at the top from The Diary of Anaïs Nin which neatly sums up much of what I had pulled from these two books. It also lined up well with my view of the need to create one’s own inner world or inner vision, a setting is built on your own beliefs and truths. Perhaps new and inhabitable planet? 

Whatever the case, this Passage from Anaïs Nin struck a chord with me and I will be filing it along Annie Dillard’s book, Art & Fear, and Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, so that I can pick it up at any time when I need an answer to that question.

Here’s a favorite song that I have only shared a couple of times over the many years I have done this blog. It seems to make sense with this post and for those of us who are struggling with the time we are now experiencing. This the great Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy with an acoustic version of You’re Not Alone.

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