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Posts Tagged ‘From a Distance’

“From a Distance” Opens/ Preview

Posted in Event, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , , on July 17, 2020| 1 Comment »


This year’s edition of my annual solo exhibit, From a Distance, opens today at the West End Gallery in Corning.

As I’ve noted here recently, this year marks 25 years that I have been showing my paintings at the West End. It’s been a long trek from that day in early 1995– I believe it was late January– when I came into the gallery with a milk crate that served as my portfolio, roughly stuffed with bits of painted paper and cardboard. I was hoping for a critique and had no expectations or hopes that that particular day would ever lead to a satisfying career that has spanned 25 years (thus far) and 50+ solo exhibitions that have sent my work around the country and the world, as well.

Funny how one day, one positive reaction, can change your life.

In all those years, this show certainly has the oddest feel for me. It is very bittersweet. There is that celebratory feel that comes with marking 25 years at the gallery, highlighted by what I feel is one of my strongest shows there.

But I am saddened that I won’t be able to fully witness how people see the paintings, to talk with them and describe, person to person, some of the stories and meanings behind them. That’s a big loss for me, personally. I usually pull enthusiasm for moving forward out of these shows and I can already feel the loss.

But that is just another thing to deal with in a year filled with challenges for us all. In big picture terms, it’s pretty small so I choose to focus on the celebratory parts of this show and the work itself. As I said, I believe it is a very strong show and there are so many pieces that I could easily call my favorites.

I hope you get a chance to stop in at the West End Gallery and take in the exhibit. Jesse and Lin have done their usual masterful job in putting the work together and are taking great care to make the experience as safe and comfortable as possible.

Here’s a slideshow of the show — set to a wonderful version of Work Song from Vince Guaraldi — just to give you some glimpses.  Thanks!

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Tempus Quietis

Posted in Event, Painting, Personal Mythology, tagged , , , , , , , on July 16, 2020| 3 Comments »

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“Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?”

― Lawrence Durrell, Justine

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I have found that this painting serves me as a reminder to seek silence. To stay silent. To quiet my inner voice. To slow down and listen to the silence.

I know all this but have to be reminded. Life speeds you up, makes you raise your volume in order to be heard. And your inner voice gets even louder in frustration.

You forget to be quiet. Forget to read the silence.

We went up the hill last night to a spot away from the forest that swallows us and only gives a partial view of the night sky. Up on the hill the night sky opened for us and we were able to finally spot the Comet Neowise as it hurtled across the sky. Once found, you could see it faintly in the dark sky but when you looked through the binoculars you could see it plainly with its tail a slash of bright light behind giving it a sense of great speed.

Standing in the dark stillness, I got a sense of having seen a time machine cut through my world. Who might have stood in this place 4000 or so years ago and seen this comet? Or who might stand in this spot 6800 years from now, when it is next scheduled to appear here, and wonder that same thing?

It was a beautiful sight and there was the feeling of being able to see the magnitude of the universe set against our own smallness. It was sobering in the silence and the black of night though it was not sobering in a scary way. There was almost comfort in simply knowing our place, in knowing that we were part of this great puzzle, however small a piece we may be.

The feeling I find in the painting above is much the same.

This piece is titled Tempus Quietis, Latin for a time for rest, and it is sized at 18″ by 24″ on paper. It is, of course, part of my show, From a Distance, that opens tomorrow at the West End Gallery.

I am going to take a hint from this piece and stay quiet. Have a good day.

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A Time For Reckoning

Posted in Current Events, Event, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on July 15, 2020| 1 Comment »

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“There’s a sin, a fearful sin, resting on this nation, that will not go unpunished forever. There will be reckoning yet … it may be sooner or it may be later, but it’s a coming as sure as the Lord is just”

― Soloman Northup, Twelve Years a Slave

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My show, From a Distance, opens this Friday, July 17, at the West End Gallery. This year marks the 25th that I have been showing my work with the gallery and in all that time there have been many shows, both in group exhibits and as a solo artist. Without checking, I believe this is my 18th or 19th solo show there.

There have been shows in the aftermath of terrorist attacks. Presidential impeachments. Economic meltdowns. Historic presidential elections.

A lot of history in those 25 years.

But this year’s show is different from any of those previous shows. It feels like those eventful years have been moving us in an unalterable arc toward this moment, this time of reckoning. I know it certainly showed in my work for this show. Some were depictions of the time and some were escape routes away from it. The piece at the top, A Time For Reckoning, definitely feels like a mirror for this time for me.

A reckoning, as you may know, is an archaic term that means a settling or balancing of accounts. Kind of like karma, I suppose. This certainly feels like a time when accounts of all sorts may be brought back into some sort of balance.

Again, karma.

Without getting into a screed here, that’s what I see in this painting. There comes a point in the lifetime of everything that has gotten out of balance where there is a reckoning. Things must be brought back into balance or they will no doubt crash and burn. It could be something as simple as a wheel on a car or it could be a person at the crossroads of their life or a country finally facing the darker side of its history, as Mr. Northrup predicted in the words at the top from his moving autobiography.

When things are out of balance, there eventually comes a time for reckoning.

I hope you can get out to the West End Gallery for this show. It was a difficult show to put together but I think it’s a really good show, one of which I am proud.

Have a good day.

 

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To the Far Reaches

Posted in Event, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 14, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

― Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist

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These words above from an Oscar Wilde prose piece seems to fit this new painting, To the Far Reaches, perfectly. Well. at least, in my eyes.

Those who dream often take journeys that carry them beyond the far reaches of our reality. Guided by their imagination like sailors are led by the light from the sun and moon, they are rewarded by wonders in these fantastical worlds that only they will ever see.

But this same imagination that gives them such rewards, also allows them to foresee the far reaches of reality before it actually comes to bear in this world. While mingling their imagination with a bit of knowledge of the world and its patterns to foresee the potential outcomes of the near future can sometimes be a reward when those future skies are bright, it can be a great punishment in times ahead that fall under dark skies.

It may cause the dreamer to question their own vision, their own imagination. They may stop telling others of their vision and may try to quell their journeying altogether. Or perhaps go even further beyond the far reaches of reality, into a world of pure imagination.

Or they may stay true to their imagination and speak even louder with the hope that they can avoid the darkness ahead and that they will once again be rewarded with new and brighter dawns ahead.

That’s the choice I would prefer they make– to keep speaking of what they see ahead and to keep pushing forward because as Carl Sagan once said: “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.”

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This painting, To the Far Reaches, 8″ by 24″ on canvas, is part of this year’s edition, From a Distance, of my annual solo show of new work at the West End Gallery. The show opens this Friday, July 17. The show is hung and in place so you can stop in at the gallery now to get a preview of what I think is a very strong show.

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In These Days

Posted in Biographical, Event, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on July 13, 2020| 2 Comments »

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“That is how I experience life, as apocalypse and cataclysm. Each day brings an increasing inability in myself to make the smallest gesture, even to imagine myself confronting clear, real situations. The presence of others — always such an unexpected event for the soul — grows daily more painful and distressing. Talking to others makes me shudder. If they show any interest in me, I flee. If they look at me, I tremble. I am constantly on the defensive. Life and other people bruise me. I can’t look reality in the eye.”

― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

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The painting above is from my new solo show, From a Distance, that is now hanging at the West End Gallery. The show officially opens Friday, July 17, but can be previewed beforehand. Jesse and Linda are doing a marvelous job in maintaining a safe yet welcoming environment for those that come to the gallery during these times. They have been extremely conscientious and have fastidiously followed the most stringent protocols to ensure the safety of their patrons so if you can, please stop in to see the show.

This piece, 22″ wide by 36″ high on wood panel, is titled In These Times. I think most people will see an air of warmth and friendliness in this painting that is welcoming. The sun here gives this painting a sense of communion, a sense of certainty, with the greater powers of the universe. There is comfort to be found in this piece but there is also an accompanying darker edge that lulls underneath everything. Maybe this comes in the  treatment of the sun’s rays, those squiggly fragments of radiating lines that counter the certainty of the sun with an uncertainty and foreboding. It creates a sense of remoteness, one that keeps the viewer at a distance even as they attempt to get closer.

At least, that’s how I am seeing this piece. It feels easy and simple at its surface but it has many undercurrents. Hard to get a handle on. I think that’s how I came to the title, In These Times. It seems to echo the feelings of this complex and treacherous time for myself and it makes it perhaps the most autobiographical piece in the show, the one that mirrors most my current state of being.

These is a time of great trial that is sending many of us to the far reaches of our personalities. Every trait in us, good or bad, seems to respond at amplified levels. There is little middle ground remaining for anything and we retreat to our own zones of comfort.

I know when I read the passage above from the great Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, who I wrote of last year, I saw in it my own reaction. My default reaction to the world is one of withdrawal but I normally tolerate and enjoy many interactions. But these times have amplified that feeling of withdrawal in myself and Pessoa’s words echoed very much my current feelings. The remoteness seems deeper now with an added layer of defensiveness and, like Pessoa, I find myself much more uncomfortable speaking with people.

Even writing this brings on an increased level of anxiety. So, I am going to stop now.

As I said, this is a painting that has much more going on than you might ascertain with a cursory glance.

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Age, Art, and Life

Posted in Biographical, Event, Quote, tagged , , , on June 16, 2020| 2 Comments »

Black Fish- Georges Braque

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With age, art and life become one.

—Georges Braque

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I have been very busy working on my upcoming annual West End Gallery show, From a Distance, that opens next month on July 15. Yesterday, in emails with the gallery, while we were going over some details for how the show would safely go on given the current situation with the covid-19 pandemic still in progress, I was reminded this was my 25th year showing with the gallery.

Of course, I knew this as a fact. But just reading it yesterday really brought  the point home for me.

Twenty five years. A quarter of a century.

While I was very pleased to have been with them for so long, it made me feel kind of old, to tell the truth.

While I understand that I am now one of the elder statesmen in the galleries that show my work, I still feel like a young painter most days, both for better and worse. I am often as excited by the work that emerges as I was 25 years back, still am in wonder at times that these paintings that sometimes seem far beyond my own meager understanding are products of my imagination.

And I am also as uncertain and doubtful of my abilities as I was all those years ago. Actually, maybe more doubtful than I was then. Hardly a day goes by now where I don’t say to myself in frustration, “You stink!”

And some days I find myself going from one extreme to the other, from the abyss of pure self-doubt to wondering how something so alive and vibrant came from my hands and mind. Sometimes in just an hour or two. Yesterday was one of those days.

Makes me think that Braque is right, that with age, art and life become one.  If my age, my twenty five years of doing this, has taught me anything, it’s that this time spent creating art has been the best and the worst all wrapped in one big messy, sometimes beautiful, and almost always imperfect package.

Just like life.

 

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