The Blue Moon Calls– At West End Gallery
Of The Empire
We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.
–Mary Oliver, Red Bird (2008)
The question is: When the collective heart of a people has become small, and hard, and full of meanness, can a person keep their own heart from becoming the same?
Or maybe it should be: Is the condition of the collective heart, now small, and hard, and full of meanness, terminal? Can it ever be reversed so that one day in the future it will be said that we were a people whose heart was large, and soft, and filled with warmth and kindness?
Of course, only time will reveal the answers to these questions.
Time is, after all, the ultimate revelator.
On that note, here’s one of my all-time favorite songs, The Revelator, from Gillian Welch. When I worked in my first and much more rustic studio (no phone, TV, internet, or other distraction) up in the woods in the early 2000’s, this song was in heavy rotation on my playlist.
I imagine most of you know who Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was but for those of you not familiar, she was perhaps the best known and bestselling contemporary American poet in recent times. I have featured her work, including her best-known poem Wild Geese, several times in the past.
I’m sitting in my studio looking at an empty canvas. Not too long ago it was not empty. No, I spent the better part of the afternoon yesterday working on this canvas, a 36″ square that was prepped beforehand with gesso and a first layer of black paint. Several hours spent and not a minute of it felt smooth or in rhythm. The paint didn’t come off the brush in the way that I expected or desired. The composition seemed to just go nowhere ,leaving bland and lifeless bits of nothing littered all over the canvas. I never felt a flow, which is that quality I have described before where one mark leads to the next as though you are reading the lines and strokes on the canvas like they were revelatory tea leaves.
Aww, change the channel. It’s a rerun…
I am going to change the channel now. It’s time for Sunday music and I’ve been singing this song all week. It’s the Tom Jones version of Elvis Presley Blues which was written and performed originally by Gillian Welch. I am a big fan of Gillian Welch and love her version but I really admire Tom Jones’ take on it as well. It’s pared down accompaniment really highlights the power of his voice which is still formidable even at age 75.
Redtree Times 