Redtree Times

Time Passage— Coming to Principle Gallery, June 2023

A healthy human environment is one in which we try to make sense of our limits, of the accidents that can always befall us and the passage of time which inexorably changes us.

-Rowan Williams, Choose Life: Christmas and Easter Sermons in Canterbury Cathedral

…the passage of time which inexorably changes us…

Yes, it does.

I was going to write a whole thing on time passing and aging. About how it took a while to get used to seeing and experiencing the changes that aging affected on my behaviors and appearance. The new wrinkles that came one day and decided to take up permanent residence on my face. The beard that was suddenly just white, no longer salt and pepper. Or the fact that now, like the line from the Leonard Cohen song, I ache in the places where I used to play. 

But I’m not going to write that particular post.

We can bitch and moan about it, but it happens. That’s the message today. That’s it.

And I’m okay with it. In fact, I feel kind of lucky to be able to continue aging in a world that often seems determined on seeing us not living. I have finally began to enjoy my age and appreciate what little wisdom that experience and time have gifted me. I better accept my limitations now as well as better celebrate my abilities.

In fact, this time passage feels like a gift.

Take that’s for what it is right now. Tomorrow might find me singing a completely different tune.

Here’s an old song that lines up with the painting at the top, Time Passage, which is headed to the  Principle Gallery for my June show, and the lines from Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. The song is Time Passages from Al Stewart. Released in 1978, it was one of those ubiquitous songs that seemed to always be on whenever you flipped on the radio back then. It wasn’t a favorite of mine but listening to it today for the first time in quite a few years, I found it pretty pleasing.

Kind of soothing.

Maybe that’s a product of time passing…

Archaeology: The Past Comes Forward– Soon at Principle Gallery

We are that strange species that constructs artifacts intended to counter the natural flow of forgetting.

–William Gibson, Distrust That Particular Flavor

The painting above is a new addition to my Archaeology series and is included in my June solo exhibit at the Principle Gallery. It is titled Archaeology: The Past Comes Forward and is 18″ by 18″ on canvas.

There is a lot I like about this series of paintings, aside from the process of painting the artifact field which is a sort akin to writing in a stream of consciousness, just letting things go without much, if any, forethought. I think the main aspect that attracts me to it is its ability to reveal new hints and new surprises with each new examination of the details. Every view creates new and different links between the artifacts and a new story and interpretation seems to emerge each time.

I think I may have compared these paintings to a jigsaw puzzle in the past. You’re trying to piece tiny bits and pieces together to get a fuller view of the whole they represent. Isn’t that kind of what archaeologists are doing?

It begs the question: What are the artifacts that would best represent what you are in this world if future archaeologists were to excavate the remnants of your life?

I sometimes ponder that question when I am painting these pieces. There are obvious choices. Paintbrushes. Books. Artwork. A guitar and things like that. However, the thing that always jumps out at me is that we don’t get to choose what pushes its way to the future to represent us. I look around at the mundane objects and wonder if they will end up being the sum total of my existence when some being in Year 21278 comes across evidence of our time.

Will my existence then be reduced to toenail clippers, a screwdriver and a broken pair of reading glasses? Will a plastic bucket , a chainsaw blade and a piece of chicken wire say anything about what the person I was thought and felt twenty thousand years before?

Most likely, it doesn’t matter. Maybe Gibson was right, we construct these things, these artifacts, so that we don’t forget and aren’t forgotten. But for the time being, I am enjoying this painting and the things it keeps me from forgetting.

Here’s song, Traffic in the Sky, to go with this post from Jack Johnson. I chose it because of these lines:

Puzzle pieces in the ground
But no one ever seems to be digging
Instead they’re looking up towards the heavens
…
The answers could be found
We could learn from digging down
But no one ever seems to be digging

Seemed to fit.

Imitatio– At the West End Gallery

My rebelliousness went so deep that, faced with a can of asparagus that instructed me to open at this end, I always, stubbornly, opened it at the other.

–Dorothy Gilman, A New Kind of Country (1978)

Wasn’t going to write anything this morning but an old Graham Parker song came on that I hadn’t heard in a long time that made me think about my somewhat contrarian nature. I have never liked being told what I can or cannot do. It becomes a personal challenge to prove that whoever imposed this often arbitrary judgement on me was wrong.

I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. If you tell me that it’s bad, I will probably try to find an example that proves you wrong. And if you tell me that it’s good, I would most likely agree but point out the many times I have failed while trying to disprove the judgements of others. Faced with any rule, I try ways to bend it or make it fit my way of doing things.

This might be viewed as a personality flaw. It doesn’t necessarily make for a good employee, team member or friend. But it does sometimes serve a purpose, especially as an artist. It makes you push yourself when you might not have pushed yourself otherwise. It helps you determine your true limitations and strengths. It drives change and growth.

So, maybe it’s good?

I don’t know. And honestly, I don’t care. And that’s only because if I did care, that would make me a conformist. And the contrarian part of me won’t allow that.

This was all just an excuse to get to the Graham Parker song. This is from his1976 album, Howlin’ Wind which I think I had on 8-track. Man, the world has changed! But this song still works pretty well. This is Not If It Pleases Me. Give a listen if it please you.

Silent Eye of Night– Coming to Principle Gallery

Let’s take a ride to the easy plateau
Where the cold don’t come and the wind don’t blow
Moonlight flickers on the water below

—Easy Plateau, Ryan Adams

This is another new painting that will be going to the Principle Gallery in a couple of weeks for my annual solo exhibit there. This year’s show is called Passages and opens Friday, June 9th.

This piece is titled Silent Eye of Night and is 24″ by 12″ on canvas. For me, the cool of the moon acts as a counterweight to the warmth of the colors of the sky and the landscape. This juxtaposition creates the calmness and balance that marks the tone of this piece in my eyes. It’s one of those pieces that always grabs my eye as I am working and makes me stop to rest on it for a moment. Something very satisfying in this piece for me. I don’t know how to describe it other than that.

For this week’s Sunday Morning Music, here’s a song from Ryan Adams who I haven’t played here since 2009. I used to listen to him a lot but for some reason he just fell off my radar and out of my listening cycle. Maybe it’s time to get reacquainted. This is Easy Plateau.

Struggle and Will– At the West End Gallery

When I was younger, I used to believe that I never wanted to leave this world without saying ‘fuck you’. And now I never want to leave this world without saying ‘I love you’.

–Paul Schrader, Interview, Venice 2023

I found the passage above from director/screenwriter Paul Schrader very compelling. Schrader is best known for writing Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ for Martin Scorsese and directing films of his own such as American Gigolo, Blue Collar, Light Sleeper, Affliction and a number of others. Complicated films with psychologically troubled central characters and often plenty of violence. His comment above came from an interview he gave in interview while debuting his latest film, Master Gardener, which opened in theatres just yesterday.

Leaving that aside, it was his succinct description of the arc followed by many expressive people that interested me. It certainly lined up with my own feelings. Early on, there was always the desire to make a loud bang that couldn’t be ignored or to carve a deep wound in this world, one that would leave a scar that would mark one’s existence here. It was both a creative and destructive– and self-destructive– urge built from the fires of anger and insecurity.

But as time passed and the weight of age adds up, one’s perspective slowly changes. Oh, the anger and insecurities are still there but are no longer the central driving force they once were. There is a realization and acceptance of the shortness and fragility of our lives that makes us understand that we gain nothing with our hatreds and prejudices.

Certainly not peace of mind or of the spirit.

That only comes from love and joy, of finding beauty and harmony.

I have said ‘fuck you‘ many times before to many things in many ways and sometimes still have to hold down that urge and its accompanying anger. I take little pleasure in that knowledge.

Life’s too short to dwell in anger.

I no longer want to make a scar on this world. I want to leave something to mark my existence but not a wound or a scar. No, it must be a creation built on Love. Beauty. Harmony. Grace. Compassion.

A creation where anger exists only to act as a contrast which shows the power of love and light. A creation of ‘I love you’ and not ‘fuck you’.

I had no intention of writing this this morning but that passage was stuck in my head and had to be addressed. Here’s a song that ends the new Schrader film, Master Gardener. It revolves around the line, I never want to leave this world without saying ‘I love you’, which prompted Schrader’s words. It is written and performed by Devonté Hynes AKA Blood Orange with vocals from Mereba. This is Space and Time.

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Passages: New Worlds Revealed— Soon at Principle Gallery

The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is.

–Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past

I’ve been looking at the new painting above for several months now and still get the feeling from it of suddenly having a landscape open before me that is at once strange and wondrous yet not alien. As though I am looking at the world I know with eyes that have never seen it. The normal, that which is recognized yet often unseen, seems new and vibrant with these new eyes.

Maybe that’s what Proust was referring to in the passage above. Maybe we all need to try to see things with new eyes– and perhaps new ways of seeing things– every so often. Maybe we need that new sight and perception in order to restore the sense of wonder that staves off the weariness that often comes the longer we live in this world.

Perhaps this sense of wonder is the source of that fountain of Eternal Youth that Proust mentions. And maybe art is a form of seeing through the eyes of others, of reaching other universes that we fail to see with our own eyes, of maintaining a sense of wonder in this world.

I like that and it makes sense, at least at 5:30 AM. I would like to believe that my work serves that sort of purpose, that the viewer sees that which feels familiar to them in a different way. With new eyes, if you will.

I am not sure that this song completely fills out today’s triad but I like having it here this morning. This is Find the River from R.E.M.

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The painting at the top is titled Passages: New Worlds Revealed and is 12″ by 36″ on canvas. It is included in my upcoming annual exhibit at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA which opens Friday, June 9.

Yves Tanguy – Indefinite Divisibility 1942

I found that if I planned a picture beforehand, it never surprised me, and surprises are my pleasure in painting.

–Yves Tanguy

The post below is from several years back. I was reminded of it while I was working on a new painting yesterday. It had started with a general, kind of hazy desired outcome. But it soon became apparent that it was going in a much different direction and n a way that I could not have planned. And it was better for it.

Tanguy’s idea of automatism, of letting the painting tell you where it wants to go, certainly plays well in my studio.

Let’s take a quick look at the Surrealist painter, Yves Tanguy. I can’t say I know a lot about Tanguy, who was born in Paris in 1900, raised in Brittany and died in Connecticut in 1955. He first was attracted to painting in 1922 after seeing a Giorgio De Chirico painting in the window of a Paris art dealer as he was riding a passing bus. He jumped off the bus and went back to study the painting. That was the experience that set off his career.

But with the little info I could quickly glean, I found that we shared a few similarities. One was coming to painting with little training. I consider myself basically self-taught and, while he had done some sketching before his brush with De Chirico’s work, Tanguy basically set out on his career as a painter with no formal training. His self-taught style developed quickly and was recognizable and celebrated within several years.

He also practiced automatism in his work, which is just a more formal word for having no real plan as you start a painting. I actually didn’t know there was a word for this though I’ve been practicing it for decades now. Much like he said in the quote at the top, I also take great pleasure in the surprises that come from working this way. There’s a form of revelation in working this way that I can’t get when beginning a piece with a predetermined outcome.

Tanguy also described the effects of his automatism this way: The painting develops before my eyes, unfolding its surprises as it progresses. It is this which gives me the sense of complete liberty, and for this reason I am incapable of forming a plan or making a sketch beforehand.

I understand this completely.

He also said: I believe there is little to gain by exchanging opinions with other artists concerning either the ideology of art or technical methods.

I hate to admit it but I kind of agree with this. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoy talking with other artists, hearing about their experiences and their breakthroughs. But I don’t really like to talk about my own process or my ideology with other artists. Oddly enough, I am more likely to do this with a group such as at a gallery talk. There, I feel like I am simply describing what I do and not giving advice or direction, which I dislike giving to other artists.

I think art comes from having an idea of what one wants and needs to get from their art as well as their individual knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses as applied to technique and materials. I can’t tell someone what they need from their own art or how it should make them feel. Nor can I tell them how they will better understand what they know about the paints or tools they use. I can give little ideas but they must gain their own insights through their own experiences.

I’ve often said there is no right or wrong in art and this hesitancy to exchange opinions is just an extension of that. What might be right for me or Yves Tanguy might not be right for another artist.

Okay, I know there is a that can be debated here but I am tired of even talking about this right now. Let’s just look at few Yves Tanguy paintings, okay?

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Yves Tanguy – Promontory Palace 1931

Yves Tanguy – Mama , Papa Is Wounded 1927

Yves Tanguy- Azure Day 1937

Yves Tanguy –The Sun In Its Jewel Case 1937

Yves Tanguy- There, Motion Has Not Yet Ceased 1945

Silent Dusk– At the West End Gallery

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

–T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding, V

One of those days. A bit somber. I have a lot of other things that need to be done and don’t feel like writing. I am at the part of the process for my upcoming show where it feels like I would rather put what I am feeling in paint rather than in words. At least for today. So let’s just leave it here with a few lines from T.S. Eliot and a reading by Tom O’Bedlam from the final section from his Little Gidding, the last of his Four Quartets.

Tempus Quietis— Coming to Principle Gallery, June 2023

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.

—Thomas Carlyle, Sir Walter Scott (1838)

Have things that need to be done today so I will maintain a silence. And as Carlyle noted, isn’t that better?

Here’s Miles Davis and his In a Silent Way. Worth a listen.

But I’ve said too much…

Breaking Joy— Coming to Principle Gallery, June Show 2023

The drum of the realization of the promise is beating, we are sweeping the road to the sky. Your joy is here today, what remains for tomorrow?
The armies of the day have chased the army of the night,
Heaven and earth are filled with purity and light.
Oh! joy for he who has escaped from this world of perfumes and colour!
For beyond these colours and these perfumes, these are other colours in the heart and the soul.
Oh! joy for this soul and this heart who have escaped the earth of water and clay,
Although this water and this clay contain the hearth of the philosophical stone.

— The Drum of the Realization, Rumi 

The new painting at the top is part of my upcoming solo show, Passages, at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA. The show opens on Friday, June 9th. This piece is titled Breaking Joy and is 24″ by 18″ on canvas.

I think the opening lines of the poem above from Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet, describe very well what I see in this painting:

Sweeping the road to the sky… your joy is here today…the armies of the day have chased away the army of the night…Heaven and earth are filled with purity and light…

That’s the kind of joy I saw in this painting when I first finished it which gave me its title. It’s the idea of finding one’s joy in rising above the earthly bonds of traits such as desire and envy and finding it in light and nature and in the world of thought and imagination.

Not an easy thing to do, of course. But this serves as a reminder that this is not simply a goal that we might hopefully attain in some future time or distant place. Joy is always near at hand, always breaking with each new day.

Joy is in the here and now.

Here’s a lovely version of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy from German pianist Igor Levit. A fine way to start the week.