To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him.
–Denis Diderot, Pensées Philosophiques (1746)
I think I am going to take some time off from writing this blog for at least a few days. Maybe more. I am feeling a bit shaded. Opaque and not willing to be as open as I need to be in this context.
If I can’t write with the same degree of openness and expression that I find in my painting, this becomes difficult and feels pointless. And that’s what it has become in recent weeks. I feel out of rhythm in many ways and need some time to get my timing back.
And it will come back. Probably sooner than later. I haven’t learned a lot in this life, but I know the value of patience when this psychic arrythmia comes around. Just recognizing and understanding how it works often expedite its passing.
So, let me sign off for a bit with this song from Lyle Lovett off his wonderful album Pontiac. This is Simple Song.
Know whence you came.If you know whence you came, there is really nolimit to where you can go.
— James Baldwin, My Dungeon Shook / A Letter to My Nephew, 1962
Juneteenth Day. Though the Emancipation Proclamation officially went into law on January 1, 1863, it took the advance of the Union troops into the furthest reaches of the Confederate South to enforce and put it into effect. At Galveston, Texas, on June 19th,1865, two and a half years after the Proclamation, Union Major General Gordon Granger proclaimed freedom for the enslaved people of Texas. This was the origin of the holiday.
As we all know, it has not been easy sailing in the intervening 150-some years. But it is our history and as James Baldwin points out above, you can’t make progress without knowing where you have been. Knowing one’s history, no matter how painful it might be, is the route to freedom. And nobody is free unless all are free.
Here’s to greater progress for our collective future.
Below, is a recording of the letter, My Dungeon Shook, that James Baldwin wrote to his young nephew in late 1962. It is a remarkable letter. The last three paragraphs are powerful and on the nose, speaking to the underlying reasons for the current spate of racism that infects this country. You can listen but if you would rather read it, you can do so via a PDF at this link.
Near the end of the letter, Baldwin quotes a line from an old gospel song, Free At Last:
The very time I thought I was lost, my dungeon shook and my chains fell off
I am also including a version of that song from Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers. I don’t believe they use this great line in their iteration of the song but hey, it’s Sam Cooke and that’s more than good enough for me.
Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.
— Eckhart Tolle
This has been a down week for me, as is often the case in the weeks after a show. I’ve addressed this here before so I am not going into it now, especially since I am typing this awkwardly on my phone. Still having issues with my computer but seem to be gaining on it.
That being the case, I am being concise this morning and am going to share my Sunday Morning Music then get the heck out of Dodge. The song is one I played here last year. It’s Funky Destination and his Soopasoul version of The Inside Man.
I think it’s just the right sound to climb– or dance– my way out of a down week. Hope it does the same for you.
The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains, appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
Computer on the fritz this morning which has made for some irritating last few hours. Hoping that Emerson’s words ring true this morning.
On the fritz?– Going to have to look that term up when I get this thing straightened out.
In the meantime, if you would like take a walk through my show, Passages, now hanging at the Principle Gallery follow this link to the exhibit page where you can take a virtual tour of the gallery space. It’s always interesting to see the work in space to get a better idea of size.
Okay, back to the irritation. Hopefully, for a very short time…
Listen to Mustn’ts, child, listen to the Don’ts. Listen to the Shouldn’ts, the Impossibles, the Won’ts. Listen to the Never Haves, then listen close to me. Anything can happen, child, Anything can be.
–Shel Silverstein
Why do we so often set limits on ourselves? Is it because of fear? Laziness? An unwillingness to venture outside of that which we know and have already experienced? A lack of confidence or courage?
Is it a case of thinking it better to have never tried rather than having to face potential failure?
There are a multitude of other reasons for this self-limitation. I think we all have our reasons for our own stagnancy, for not taking risks, for not attempting to reach those bigger desires we hold inside.
Are they valid reasons?
I can’t say for anyone other than myself. And for myself, I know they are just excuses in the hopes of avoiding having to face the regret of not having tried.
I know those regrets firsthand and despise them. They are worse than failure. They make me want to go bigger and bigger, to venture further out from the shore.
And I will.
Actually, this is my normal pep talk that comes in that depressing lull that normally comes after a show. I’ve written about it before. This precipitous fall in mood in the aftermath of a show happens to a lot of artists. The goal that was there before has been reached and all that remains is the question of what the next destination will be and whether you should even attempt to reach it.
Luckily for me, for the past 20+ years I have had my July West End Gallery show immediately in front of me after my June Principle Gallery exhibit. It doesn’t give me time to mope too much. Not that I don’t, for at least a while, especially during this week immediately after the show opening.
Having that next destination set makes this week easier to endure. It also makes me want to blast much larger and bolder with my work because in the end, it is the work and not the show that is the destination.
Pep talk done. Mission accomplished. I want to get back to work so get on your own goddamn boat and get out of here. I got my destination and you got your’s.
The crows like to insist that a single crow is enough to destroy heaven. This is without doubt, but it says nothing about heaven, because heaven is just another way of saying: the impossibility of crows.
–-Franz Kafka, The Zürau Aphorisms, #32
The Impossibility of Crows– Now at Principle Gallery
This morning, I am taking the unusual step of rerunning a blogpost that ran only six weeks ago. This is mainly because I screwed up the story and reasoning behind the painting mentioned here while at the Principle Gallery opening this past weekend. Felt like it needed to be posted again.
When I finished this new painting that is headed to the Principle Gallery for my annual solo show there in June, I thought of the above aphorism from Franz Kafka. It’s sometimes eludes my understanding when I come across it and it takes me several moments to recall the logic it holds.
Basically, at least in my reading of it, it declares that crows know that since they have always been the targets of hatred and scorn among humans, they are not part of heaven as constituted by humans. Therefore, they know they could not exist in that realm. Thus, if one crow were to appear in heaven it would destroy the very illusion of heaven that humans had constructed.
Now, I know nothing of heaven — don’t even have an opinion on the reality of its existence– so I can’t speak on it with any certainty. I am also a longtime fan of crows, believing them to possess an intelligence and consciousness that we have long misunderstood.
But I know they have also historically been vilified by most people so the idea that they would be excluded from the average conception of heaven makes sense to me. So, the idea of a crow suddenly appearing in heaven being a calamitous event makes sense as well.
In real world terms, anytime we hold a belief that denies the existence of others, we are creating a world — a heaven, if you will– that is ripe to be upended when those whose existence we deny show themselves to be.
I think this could be applied to the past and current cultural wars surrounding the civil rights of minority groups. There are those who wish to deny the existence of these groups, to exclude them from the deniers’ concept of what the world should be. When it is proven that they do in fact exist and are present in this world, it creates a sense that the world — their conceived heaven — is in the midst of being destroyed.
Ultimately, I find myself both understanding and questioning this aphorism. First of all, I wouldn’t want to have a heaven that didn’t include crows or for that matter, any other creature or being. Just as I wouldn’t want a world without the full variety of people that make up this world.
Because who’s to say that I might not appear as a crow in the eyes of others? Couldn’t we all be the crows in some way in this exercise?
Like I said, I don’t know if there is a heaven. But I do know there is the here and now and, in the absence of a heaven, we need to make of it what we can. For all– crows included.
I am calling this new 24″ by 8″ canvas The Impossibility of Crows. Maybe it should be called The Possibility of Crows? After all, it shows what could be considered an idyllic landscape complete with crows.
I am subbing in a different song for this re-run. Here’s Diana Krall and her very fine take on Joni Mitchell’s Black Crow.
Dawn’s Return— Included in Passages at Principle Gallery
I met a young man on the skeleton coast He was out of his feet and pale as a ghost I asked him his name – he said Lazarus, man I’ve come to your country from a faraway land I can’t quite remember the last time I was on shore Coulda been twelve years – it coulda been more But I’ve seen tribulation and it staggered my mind And I just don’t remember what I came here to find
It’s wind on the ocean, rain on the land Three drops of water and one grain of sand I’ll tell you the story as quick as I can I’ve got nothing but time, I’m Lazarus Man
— Terry Callier, Lazarus Man
I was looking for a song to accompany the new smaller painting at the top, Dawn’s Return, which is part of my current show at the Principle Gallery and came across a song and an artist with which I was not acquainted.
The song was Lazarus Man and the artist was Terry Callier.
I first heard the song as performed by TomJones in a recent video and he, of course, blasted it with his voice’s big sound. Good stuff, good enough to make me want to see where the song originated. That’s where I first came across Terry Callier.
Callier had an interesting career that didn’t follow the usual arc. In the short time it took to look him up this morning, I have seen him described as a jazz guitarist, a folk singer, a psychedelic jazz artist, soul singer, and a mystic. He had a small degree of recognition in the 60’s and 70’s then dropped out of sight for nearly 20 years.
Like the Lazarus Man of his song, his career was resurrected after several musical groups discovered his early work and integrated it in their works. The spotlight found him once more and he took advantage, releasing a new album, Timepeace, in 1998. It garnered some attention and was given the United Nations’ Time For Peace award for outstanding artistic achievement contributing to world peace.
He spent the rest of life, until his death from cancer at the age of 67 in 2012, recording and touring around the globe. He was the Lazarus Man.
I have liked everything of his I have heard this morning and regret not having taken notice of him earlier. Below is a performance of Lazarus Man from Terry Callier as well as the Tom Jones version. Though sonically different, the song’s power remains the same.
To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.
—Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1588
Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately…
The passage above is from the influential French philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) is from his final essay, Of Experience.
As is the case with so many things of consequence, the task he sets before us– to live with order and tranquility– seems simple yet is difficult to achieve.
Simplicity is always harder to achieve than one might think. In life and in art.
That’s it for today. Any more would be too much.
Here’s a version of the great Beatles song Across the Universe that I like from Rufus Wainwright. Seems to fit the morning.
A Rising Peace— Now at the Principle Gallery, Alexandria
Sophia and Grandmother sat down by the shore to discuss the matter further. It was a pretty day, and the sea was running a long, windless swell. It was on days just like this–dog days–that boats went sailing off all by themselves. Large, alien objects made their way in from sea, certain things sank and others rose, milk soured, and dragonflies danced in desperation. Lizards were not afraid. When the moon came up, red spiders mated on uninhabited skerries, where the rock became an unbroken carpet of tiny, ecstatic spiders.
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book, 1972
It’s a strange thing, walking into a gallery where your work covers the walls. It’s both emboldening and embarrassing, and sometimes even nauseating. I think I’ve written here about experiencing that sensation after going into the Principle Gallery back in 2000 and seeing my first solo show, Redtree, there on the walls.
It felt overwhelming. Too much, like seeing your guts smeared on the wall. Maybe that’s too graphic. But it sure didn’t feel like the thrill I’d thought it would.
But years passed with many shows that followed that first and I got past that stage of nausea, partly by not looking too closely at my work at the walls. Almost keeping blinders on.
In those shows that followed, there was still the excitement and emboldening surge of pride in seeing the groups of my paintings on the walls but that was always countered by a sense of embarrassment at being the center of attention and the nagging worry that I didn’t deserve it and that this would be the group that showed to the world that I was a fraud and a poser. I can’t say for sure, but I believe this is not an uncommon trait among artists.
I didn’t have to really face these feeling too often in recent years where the pandemic walled off my participation. And when I did participate, I was able to feel a bit less exposed behind my N95 mask.
That brings us up to the opening on Friday evening of my current show, Passages, at the Principle Gallery. Not being at an opening there since 2019 and going into this one unmasked made this feel a little like that first show there. I didn’t know what to expect, wasn’t sure anyone would show up.
I still had my blinders halfway on to stave off the nausea but couldn’t quite ignore the work on the walls. I took a few minutes to really take it all in and it was good. Had the sense of wholeness I couldn’t fully discern in the studio. It certainly felt like it had a lot more powerful presence of color than the last show of mine I had attended there.
It felt good. Oh, I was still embarrassed and more than a little worried, but the work felt properly in place there. It was one of those rare moments when I didn’t feel close to being exposed as a fraud, that the work deserved its place there.
The show went well with a good crowd that kept me engaged the entire time. It was good to see many familiar faces and meet many new folks, some who had come across my work in that four-year hole and had been waiting to speak with me. The interaction felt familiar and I discovered I could still make conversation, could still talk about this stuff.
It was fairly comfortable —that’s saying a lot for me— and the night ended with a sense of satisfaction.
It felt good– and almost normal. A rare sensation these days. It made me feel somewhat optimistic going forward, as though the last four years were a period of listlessness and stagnation. As though they were the dogdays as we call those sweltering days of summer when little is accomplished except for the days passing.
It felt like these dog days were coming to an end.
A real thank you to those of you who made it to the show and an even bigger, more heartfelt thank you to Michele, Clint, Owen, Taylor and Sierra at the Principle Gallery. My gratitude to them is endless. Champions all.
Here’s this Sunday Morning Music selection. Here’s a new lyric video from Florence + The Machine of her anthemic 2009 song, Dog Days Are Over. What else could it be?
Three Sides to the Story— Now at Principle Gallery
Let’s look at photographs as food. Does an exhibition leave you hungry or fill you with the visual equivalent of a snack or feast?
…
Do your photographs offer substance and sustenance? Or a starvation diet? Do your photographs feed another man’s body, his emotions, his love, his intellect, his cupidity, his lower appetites, his transcendental hungers?
The American photographer Minor White (1908-1976) might have been talking about photographs for an exhibit in the passages above, but the same criteria could be applied to any sort of artistic exhibition. I look at the work for my shows, including the one opening tonight at the Principle Gallery, in very much the same sort of way.
Using White’s analogy, the individual paintings are the dishes that make up the meal that is the exhibit. As an artist, you are like the chef trying to serve up tasty dishes with flavorful depths that make the meal satisfying as a whole.
Not only do you never want it to be said that you allowed people to leave the table hungry, but you want them to give them tastes that linger in their mind long after they have left the meal.
I like this show and its wide and varied menu of dishes very much. It fills me with its variety of dishes and flavors, very much satisfying my appetites. Will it do the same for others? I hope so. Any artist wants their work to reach out to people and move them in some way or connect with them on a deeper level. That would be the substance and sustenance to which White refers.
But, in the end, the table is set and out of my hands now.
So, we shall wait and see.
This year’s show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria is called Passages. It opens today, Friday, June 9, with an opening reception that begins at 6 and goes until 8:30 PM. I haven’t been at an opening at the Principle Gallery since 2019 and while I am more than a little anxious, I am looking forward to seeing and speaking with folks down there again.
Redtree Times 