One never finishes learning about art. There are always new things to discover. Great works of art seem to look different every time one stands before them. They seem to be as inexhaustible and unpredictable as real human beings.
–Ernst Gombrich, The Story of Art (1978)
I think the passage above from art historian Ernst Gombrich (1909-2001) is an apt flourish to this reminder that my solo exhibit, Guiding Light, at the West End Gallery comes to its conclusion at the end of the day this Thursday, November 13. There are three days to arrange to see the show.
I believe Gombrich’s statement applies here because as he says, art looks different every time one stands before it. And I think when a show is hung it creates a unique atmosphere created by the dynamics of the individual pieces in relation to one another, the space, and the viewer. It makes viewing any painting in an exhibit, as well as the exhibit as a whole, a unique experience for the viewer.
Maybe I am out of place in saying this, but I felt that this show at the West End Gallery was one of those unique experiences with its own atmosphere. Each piece stands out in their individuality but is reinforced by the work surrounding it.
Like strong individual voices gathered in a choir.
Hope you get a chance to catch the show before the choir disbands and the singers go solo.
Here’s a favorite song from the Talking Heads and David Byrne performed during his American Utopia tour of 2018. This is This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody).
The less we say about it the better Make it up as we go along Feet on the ground, head in the sky It’s okay, I know nothing’s wrong, nothing
The great quality of true art is that it rediscovers, grasps and reveals to us that reality far from where we live, from which we get farther and farther away as the conventional knowledge we substitute for it becomes thicker and more impermeable.
–Marcel Proust, The Maxims of Marcel Proust (ed. 1948)
Proust certainly knew what he was talking about when it comes to the reality of one’s inner landscape. In his case, it is a place populated with layers of memory. The memories described in his monumental seven-volume Remembrance of Things Past are both voluntary and involuntary, those triggered and animated in his inner world by a sensory prompt– a taste, smell, sight, or sound– occurring in the outer real world.
His maxim above clearly states what I have been trying to say with my work for years now. And that is that art reveals realities that we often fail to observe. As he points out, it is a reality that has been barricaded from us by the common perceptions of what makes up reality that have been built up over the years. We have become so entrenched in only dwelling in that reality that we have lost the ability to sense and appreciate the other, that being one’s inner reality and its connection to an even greater outer reality.
My hope as an artist is that my work serves as a device or a prompt for the viewer to find their way to their own inner world, to see things from a viewpoint inside themselves rather than from their usual position in the outer world. And maybe that is what true art is, a device or tool that exists beyond its surface.
Proust mentioned this in the final volume of Remembrance of Things Past, writing how the reader (or in my case, the viewer) uses the work as instrument in which they can better see themselves.:
In reality every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to the reader to enable him to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have perceived in himself.
In that way, a piece of art becomes something more than mere wall coverings or ear or mind candy. It becomes a portal to another reality, another dimension, in which we are inhabitants whether we know it or not. It’s kind of miraculous to see this in action, to see someone engage with a piece of art that instantly reveals something of themselves of which they were either unaware or were blindly seeking.
I’ve been fortunate to witness this several times over the years and it may well be the primary motivator for my work now.
Well, that was not expected when I started this post this morning. Hope it makes sense in an hour or a day from now. Maybe we will talk about this on Saturday at the Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery.
Maybe not. Who knows which way the wind will blow on Saturday?
The Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery begins at 11 AM and lasts about an hour, ending with the drawing for the painting, Dare to Know, shown at the bottom of this page. The Gallery Talk and the drawing for the painting are free and open to all. You must be in attendance to win prize. Seating is limited so I would suggest you arrive early to claim your seat and settle in. We can chat or you can take in the exhibit. Doors Open at 10:30 AM.
Here’s a favorite song, Killing the Blues. It is best known as performed by John Prine which to me is the gold standard. I hesitated in playing this version that I like very much from Alison Kraussand Robert Plant since I have played it here before. I thought it was recently but, after checking, discovered that I had shared it last in 2011. I guess a 14-year gap between plays is acceptable.
Dare to Know— The Prize at Next Saturday’s Gallery Talk
Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere Aude!- ‘Have courage to use your own reason!’- that is the motto of enlightenment.
― Immanuel Kant, What Is Enlightenment?
I have written in the past about the difficulty and pain that comes in choosing the paintings that are sometimes given away at my Gallery Talks. I have often said that it must be a painting that creates pain for me in giving it away.
Well, I’ve made my choice for next Saturday’s Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery and, boy, does it hurt.
The painting is shown above and is titled Dare to Know. It is 11″ by 15″ on paper and is framed and matted at 16″ by 20″. It’s a piece that attached itself to me immediately, both visually and in its personal meaning which strongly adhered to the words of Kant above. To put it simply, it has always been a very special piece for me.
Here is an essay on this painting that has ran a couple of times here in the past:
Sapere Aude!
From the Latin, meaning Dare to Know.
I came across the passage above from the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant and felt immediately that it was a great match for this new painting. In fact, I am calling this piece, 11′ by 15″ on paper, Dare to Know (Sapere Aude!).
The Red Tree here is removed away from the influence and shading of the other trees and houses in the foreground, out of darkness and into the light. There is a light about the Red Tree and a sense of freedom in the openness of the space around it. It is free to examine the world, free to seek the knowledge it craves, and free to simply think for itself.
The concept of self-enlightenment is truly a great idea and one that we definitely could use today. Too many of us construct our own base of knowledge by relying on the thoughts and opinions of others, often without giving much consideration as to their truthfulness, motives, or origins. Or we shade our base of knowledge with our own desires for how reality should appear, holding onto false beliefs that suit us even when they obviously contradict reality.
In short, there is no enlightenment based on falsehoods, no way to spin darkness into light. There is no way to make a right based on wrongs.
Enlightenment comes in stepping away from the darkness of lies and deceptions to see the world as it is, with clarity. It means stripping away our own self defenses and admitting our own shortcomings, prejudices, and predispositions.
To have the courage to know and face truths.
It may not always be the desired outcome one hoped for, but it is an honest reality. And maybe that is enlightenment, the willingness to face all truths with honesty.
To dare to know.
Sapere Aude!
Dare to Knowwill be given away at my Gallery Talk this coming Saturday, November 1 at the West End Gallery, beginning at 11 AM. Seating is limited so I suggest getting there as close to 10:30 AM when the gallery doors will be opened. That will give you time to register for the drawing, claim your seat, and maybe chat for a few minutes beforehand.
The Gallery Talkand the drawing for the painting(s?) is free and open to everyone. Yeah, even you. So, what have you got to lose? Get yourself into the West End on Saturday and maybe take home a favorite painting of mine.
But be forewarned that this is an interactive event. Its success or failure– it can happen!— depends on your participation. So, you better have a good question or two in mind when you enter the gallery. If you leave me hanging up there all alone, there will be hell to pay!
Okay, that’s that. This week’s Sunday Morning Music is kind of last second choice. I had another song in mind but when I went to get its link this song was a suggestion. It was an immediate hit thematically and also favorite Beatles song. As if that could be a thing out of so many! This is Think For Yourself from their 1965 Rubber Soul album.
Each for himself, we all sustain The durance of our ghostly pain; Then to Elysium we repair, The few, and breathe this blissful air.
–Virgil, Aeneid (29–19 BC)
This year’s edition of my annual solo show at the West End Gallery, Guiding Light, opens this coming Friday, October 17. The painting above, Idyllica, is one of the larger pieces from the show, coming in at 30″ by 48″ on canvas.
I might call this a signaturepiece, if I were to put a label on it. By that, I mean it might be a painting that I feel neatly sums up what my work means for me. A painting that symbolizes who I am and how I see the world and my existence.
Kind of like a self-portrait that portrays the artist in their best light as they see it.
I have had this feeling a number of times about paintings, feeling that they represent a totality of what I hope I am. Mybe it is really more that they represent all the things I aspire to but knowingly lack personally.
Grace, balance, and harmony, for example. You can also add boldness, confidence, and courage. Maybe throw in Inner peace and strength, as well.
Maybe I am not seeing this so much as a self-portrait, a picture of who I am now, but rather as a laundry list of everything I have yet to find fully in myself. An image of what I desire to be.
Perhaps that is what I see in this– a clear statement of my hopes for myself as a human.
Maybe in some way it can serve as a template or roadmap to the attainment of these qualities?
I don’t know. Maybe.
But for the time being I find myself basking placidly in this piece. And in these days now filled with uncertainty, lies, malevolence, and moral cowardice, it is refreshing to rest for a moment in something that aspires to the better parts of our humanity.
It’s what I need right now…
Here’s a song that haunts me for days every time I hear it. It plays, in a way, into what I am saying this morning. It’s from Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, best known for their performances and music from the film Once, performing as The Swell Season. I am a big fan of their work, especially Hansard’s solo work. This is their version of Don’t Want to Know from a tribute album to the late British singer/songwriter John Martyn that came out soon after his death in 2009 at the age of 60. I don’t have time to go into his life right now, but Martyn was an interesting and enigmatic character, a mass of contradictions and conflicts and talents. The 1973 album that this song is from, Solid Air, is considered a gem that is little known here.
To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite.
— Novalis
I don’t plan on saying much today. Just going to let the spirit of the words, painting, and song do their thing. With a quick glance at these three, you can see that the theme for today is a recognition of the beauty of our world. Or as Novalis put it: the magic, mystery and wonder of the world.
Or maybe it is about how we often don’t fully recognize those things? I can’t decide.
The words are from the 18th century German poet/philosopher Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg 1772-1801) who was amazingly productive with work that has had lasting influence in the many generations since his death in 1801, at the youthful age of 28. He is thought to have died from tuberculosis or cystic fibrosis.
His words coincide with the hopes of many artists in wanting others to see in their work the potential for the extraordinary in the ordinary. To see that beauty is at hand at all times.
The painting above, This Beautiful World, is 10″ by 15″ on canvas and is from my West End Gallery show that opens next Friday, October 17. The exhibit is being hung today so you can see it early for a preview, if you so desire. I think this piece falls nicely in line with the words of Novalis as a symbol of the sacred mundane.
The song is the title track from the great Mavis Staples’ new album, Sad and Beautiful World. It’s her cover of a 1995 song from indie rock band Sparklehorse. It is a simple song with spare lyrics but it beautifully lays out the depth of the sadness that often comes with beauty as part of the deal.
We need the contrast of sadness to allow us to fully see how beautiful this world can be and how fortunate we are to experience its love, beauty, and wonder. And how fortunate we are to be able to feel deep emotion or to cry in both suffering and joy. To know life and death.
All hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will; She can, though every face should scowl And every windy quarter howl Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
–William Butler Yeats, A Prayer for My Daughter (1919)
I can see this new painting, Howl, as having two distinctly different interpretations. Probably more when the experience and perceptions of others are considered. But from my personal perspective, the first, which is how I initially viewed it, is as a howl of indignation and defiant resistance against the prevailing winds of injustice, cruelty, and indecency.
Obviously, that interpretation takes current events into account. However, such a howl is certainly applicable in all times and places. There’s never a shortage of injustice, cruelty, or indecency.
The other way of reading it comes from a poem, A Prayer for My Daughter,William Butler Yeats wrote days after his daughter was born in 1919 during the early days of the Irish War for Independence. It, too, takes the current events of its time into account. It is written with the hope that as his daughter can resist the winds of hatred and anger and that she is not pulled along with them. And with the hope that she recognizes that she will always have the choice to find strength and contentment within herself even as the winds of hatred and anger swirl around her.
That though times are ugly, the world surrounding us can still be beautiful and wondrous.
I can easily see both of these views in this painting. Both takes are really about resistance, about staying intact against the force that want to tear us apart. About staying true to ourselves and our humanity. About denying hatred and cruelty a place in ourselves.
It’s about holding our ground and issuing a howl. a bellow, a yawp borrowed from Whitman, that comes from the core of our being that says we will remain as we are and will not become that which we stand against.
Well, that’s what I see in it…
Howl is 8″ by 16″ on canvas and is part of my solo exhibit, Guiding Light, that opens next Friday, October 17 at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY. The show’s Opening Reception, which is free and open to all, runs from 5-7 PM on the 17th. The work for the show has been delivered and will be available for previews in the coming few days.
A Gallery Talk is also scheduled at the West End Gallery for Saturday, November 1, beginning at 11 AM. Keep an eye out here for more details.
Not sure if this song applies at all to the painting or words above. I just felt like hearing it this morning. This is Stand from REM.
So scanty is our present allowance of happiness that in many situations life could scarcely be supported if hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from the future.
–Samuel Johnson, The Adventurer No. 69, Idle Hours (1753)
The other day I mentioned not wanting to write about my work when so many wrongs were being spread among us. I didn’t want my focus on art or that of anybody else appear to be a distraction or seem ignorant of what is taking place.
Thinking about it in the days that followed, I realized that I was mistaking the function of art in such times. It is not a distraction at all. It is instead a release, a form of relief that is badly needed if one is aware and stays informed on what is taking place. Anyone who is disturbed by injustice and possessing even an iota of empathy and compassion for their fellow humans can be eaten alive with stress and anxiety in such times.
They need relief of some sort at some point. But not as a distraction nor to make them ignore their fears and cares. No, they need something that calms and gives hope in some way. Something that allows them to step out of the parade and stand hidden in a cool dark shadow for a few moments in order to catch their breath and take in the small details and wonders of this world that may have been overlooked in the hubbub of this moment. To find hope in a small glimpse of beauty, something that reminds them of why they need to continue to care and to stay involved.
No, art is not distraction at such times. It is a needed breath of clean air that keeps us going.
Relief. Release.
It is hope.
Hope and relief are what I find in this new painting. I had a hard time titling it because it does so many things for me that focusing on one thing seemed to leave out others that seemed as vital for me. But it was the ease of the boat going into the many colors and pattern of the sky that captured me. I feel as though I can get lost in the colors of the sky here, each block of color like a new burst of flavor and feeling.
But more than that, it makes me feel hopeful. it reminds me of the freedom of the mind and feeling, that part of us that can’t be captured, dictated to or governed by others.
It is boat gliding under a sky of wonder.
I call this painting, 16″ by 20″ on canvas, Color and Glide. It is included in Guiding Light, my solo show at the West End Gallery that opens October 17.
For this week’s Sunday Morning Music, I am going with a song whose title, along with its lyrics, might also fit this painting. This is Drift Away by Dobie Gray from 1973. The song was originally recorded by others as a country song, but Dobie Gray’s version far outstrips them in depth of feeling in my opinion.
Beauty, Inspiration, Magic, Spellbound, Enchantment, as well as the concepts of Serenity, Silence, Intimacy and Amazement. […] They have never ceased to be my guiding lights.
–Luis Barragán, acceptance speech for the Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1980
Luis Barragán (1902-1988) was an influential Mexican architect whose buildings were a blend of Modernism and traditional Mexican culture. They are marked by his use of bold colors, simple natural forms and materials, the play between light and shadow, and spaces that invited introspection and contemplation. Looking at his work, I was struck by his use of color, particularly his vibrant yellows and pinks that were bold but surprisingly calming. It was easy to see why his work is considered emotional architecture.
I was also struck by the qualities he listed above in his acceptance speech for the Pritzker Prize. We all follow guiding lights of some sort in our lives, attributes that form the paths we follow, the dreams we dream, the beliefs we hold sacred, and the standards– the ethics and morals– to which we personally adhere.
I would like to think that my list is not too far removed from the list of Barragán, especially those final four concepts he mentions: serenity, silence, intimacy, and amazement. I might throw in harmony. They certainly were close to the surface of consciousness while at work for my new exhibit, Guiding Light, that opens two weeks from today, Friday, October 17, at the West End Gallery.
The painting at the top, Guiding Light, 24″ by 30″ on canvas, provided the title for this show. I also believe it perfectly transmits those four concepts, particularly the serenity and silence. And though it depicts a landscape with distance and depth, there is also a sense of intimacy, as though the moon here is communicating directly to the viewer. That might also be the source for amazement, something that often comes with revelation.
This piece also makes me think about what other guiding lights each of us follow. Were they always influencing us from day one or did they one day rise up and become visible to us, like the moon rising in the evening? I think some of my guiding lights were present from childhood, but some have risen in my own sky, becoming more apparent and important to me as I age.
And how closely does each of us follow what we believe to be our guiding lights? I certainly follow mine more than when I was much younger. Well, at least I think I do.
Maybe self-deception is also a guiding light? I sure hope not though I think many folks do see it as one.
I have often employed the simple shape of the sun/moon in my work as a symbol of guidance and of something greater than ourselves. This show, my 24th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery, is filled with moons and suns. I have come to see the sun/moon as being equal in importance to my work as the Red Tree or any other of the icons that often inhabit it. As an element, it creates a palpable presence in each piece.
The third eye of the painting? I have to think on that.
As stated above, Guiding Lightopens at the West End Gallery two weeks from today, on Friday, October 17, with an opening reception that runs from 5-7 PM. Also, on Saturday, November 1, I will be giving a Gallery Talk at the gallery beginning at 11 AM. Keep an eye for more details in the coming weeks.
Here’s a song that has been in my head for a couple of days. I was big fan of the album Pontiac from Lyle Lovett years ago when it first came out, but in the confusion of time and space, it somehow, for no reason, fell off of my playlist. While building frames the other day, I found the CD and played it for the first time in quite a while. It reminded me of why I liked it so much and made me wonder what other music that really hit the mark had fallen to the wayside. This song, Simple Song, has been stuck in my head ever since and seems to fit this painting this morning.
Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage; If I have freedom in my love And in my soul am free, Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty.
― Richard Lovelace, To Althea, from Prison, 1641
Some folks that freely walk around are as imprisoned by their behaviors and beliefs as anyone behind the stone walls of any prison. As the 17th century poet Richard Lovelace pointed out nearly four hundred years ago, freedom is a state of mind.
For the most part, we often make our own prisons and do our own time. And conversely, we have the ability to define and make our freedom in any situation.
I was struggling to title this new painting that is headed to the West End Gallery for my annual solo exhibit in October. I saw it as representing the type of solitude that I enjoy, one that is not hindered by imposed restrictions or apartness.
The freedom of the heart and the mind.
But I also realized that my perception is not shared by a majority of folks. Most people don’t relish extended periods of time alone. They need the sound and engagement of others and look outward, avoiding reflection and introspection.
I am not criticizing here, just noting the difference. As with everything, to each their own.
As I said, I wasn’t sure about expressing the type of solitude I saw in it in its title. Then I came across the lines from Lovelace in a prior blog entry from a few years back. It seemed to speak directly of what I was seeing in this painting.
The freedom of the heart and the mind cannot be caged or restricted. It is an island and world unto itself.
Hence, the title The Heart is Free came to be.
I can only speak for myself, but for me it fits.
The Heart is Free is 14″ by 14″ on canvas and is included in Guiding Light, my 24th annual solo show at the West End Gallery that opens Friday, October 17.
He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.
–Charles Péguy, The Honest People in Basic Verities: Prose and Poetry (1943)
I didn’t know much about him when I came across the words above, but the author of them, Charles Péguy, was an interesting character from what little research I have done this early morning. Born into poverty in Orleans in 1873 and fatherless since the age of one, Péguy transcended his rough start in life with education, becoming a well-known essayist and poet in France. deeply nationalistic, Péguy enlisted at the outbreak of WWI and was among the first soldiers sent into battle. He died in combat at Marne in 1914.
The Poetry Foundation article on him states:
French poet, philosopher, and journalist Charles Péguy grew up poor in Orléans, France. He combined fervent Catholicism with socialist politics to create a body of work unlike any other. As a Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism writer suggested, “Most critics find that Péguy’s literary works exist outside the mainstream of modern French literature.” George E. Gingras, writing in the Encyclopedia of World Literature, noted, “Ultimately unclassifiable, Péguy was a solitary, best remembered for resisting all forces seeking to make political capital out of moral issues.” Péguy composed lengthy poems and plays, but philosophical journalism is his trademark.
In my brief research, I am finding he it is hard to attach a label on him. Unclassifiable is probably the right word for him. There seems to be a contrarian streak to him, one that made him willing to speak the truth as he saw it even when it went against the prevailing tides of sentiment. The next lines that follow the passage at the top are:
One must always tell what one sees. Above all, which is more difficult, one must always see what one sees.
A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.
All three of these short lines speak a truth, at least in the way I perceive them. If you see what you see, you must say what it is and to remain silent, refusing to bellow out what it is that you do see, you then become complicit with those who seek to deceive and abuse. That certainly seems applicable to the current situation. Actually, it’s a truth that speaks to any time because there have always been those seeking to deceive and abuse along with the many who have remained mute as it happens.
That final line about a word not being the same with one writer as with another translates to artists as well. The work of some artists from the gut, is part and parcel of their being, while other artists maintain a distance in their work from their gut, their true self. This distance can sometimes be cloaked in beauty, but it is often perceptible, bringing a coolness and aloofness to the work.
Like the soul is not fully engaged.
Obviously, I hope that my work falls in that from-the-gut and with a bit of soul category. At least, I try to create it in such a way. Maybe I am not always successful, but I try to say what I see.
And I do try to bellow the truth in what I see. We have so little time here and the voice of each of us needs to ring out in some way that to not bellow what is right and true is a deception of ourselves and our souls.
That is what I see in the new painting at the top, A Bellow to the Void. It is 14″ by 14″ on canvas and is included in my October solo show, Guiding Light, at the West End Gallery. There is a primal quality in the image of someone yelling their truth into the night sky. Like Whitman’s barbaric yawp echoing over the rooftops of the world.
As I said, we have so little time here. We are witnesses to our lives and times. To say what we see, to bellow it out to the void, is a duty to ourselves, our descendants, and our souls.
That’s enough said for now. I have to get upon the roof now. A bellow will soon commence.
Here’s Mumford and Sons with their Awake My Soul. Good stuff to kickstart your soul on a Monday morning.
Redtree Times 