Well, it is Sunday morning and time for some music once again. I thought I’d take this opportunity to show how it is not always the what but the how that is important. Take for instance the song Oops!… I Did It Again, perhaps one of the best known pop songs of the last fifteen or twenty years, performed by Britney Spears. Like her or not, you probably have found yourself at some point with that tune in your head.
Myself, I have tried to avoid it in any way possible.
But back in 2003, one of my favorites, Richard Thompson, did a live album called 1000 Years of Popular Music, where he attempts to summarize the last millennium through musical selections from different eras through that time. He begins with Sumer Is Icumen In from the 11th century (this debatable with some saying it is later but for the sake of making the album title work let’s go along with the 11th century) and moves through all forms of traditional and popular music all arranged for his single guitar and percussion, when needed. It ends with 2000’s Oops!… I Did It Again.
In Thompson’s hands, the song becomes something quite different. In painting terms, it would be like two vastly different painters doing the same scene. Let’s say a simple country cottage painted by Thomas Kinkade and Vincent Van Gogh. They might be the same whats but the resulting hows would be worlds apart.
Give a listen and see for yourself. And have a great Sunday…
It seems hard to believe that it was 45 years ago that the legendary rock festival Woodstock was taking place. On this date back in 1969, Sly and the Family Stone played a late night set that was one of the standouts of Woodstock, destined to become stellar among a number of other legendary performances at the event.
Sly has become less visible in recent years and I am sure he is unknown to many in the younger generations but he and his band were huge in their time, bringing a high-powered multi-genre, multi-racial blend of funk, soul and rock music to a wider audience. I will go for a while without hearing a Sly song and when one comes on I wonder why I am not listening to this all of the time. It engages you with a message and some heavy rhythm. I can imagine some young kids stumbling across his music and feeling like they’ve discovered El Dorado. It just glows.
I thought it would be fitting to kickstart this Sunday with a little bit of that performance at Woodstock from Sly. The Youtube video below is the shorter version of I Want to Take You Higher and the link below it is the full version. Either way, a rocking start to a Sunday morning. Have a great day.
Had a really nice Gallery Talk yesterday at the West End Gallery. A wonderful crowd of folks turned out, a mix of many new faces and those who I have seen before. Made for a very comfortable setting and their warmth and interest made me feel at home.
Sort of the theme of the talk.
I had two different people, both from my hometown of Horseheads, remark afterward how proud they were that I was from and creating this work there. It caught me off guard. I had never looked at my work from that perspective, as being a source of civic pride. I had never seen it as being of one place but it is, being from where I live. My home. There’s a power in that phrase that can’t be underestimated.
Many, many thank you’s to everyone who took time from a summer day with perfect weather to spend an hour with me, especially to those who traveled distances to do so. I cannot fully express my gratitude for your warmth, your attention and your participation. And, as always, many thanks to Linda and Jesse Gardner at the gallery. Sticking to the theme, the West End is my home gallery and they have always made me feel at home there. Thanks so much for the opportunity you gave me nearly twenty years ago. My life is much changed as a result.
So, since I usually have some music on a Sunday morning, let’s stick with the theme of home. Here’s 25 Miles , performed by the late Edwin Starr, the Motown artist who is best known for his 1970 #1 hit, War . You know the song– War– good god y’all– what is it good for, absolutely nothing. 25 Miles was from a couple of years earlier, in 1968, and reached #6 on the pop charts. It’s an indicator of what was to come with War.
We got in last night just before 9 PM and I saw that the movie The Pink Panther had come on TCM at 8 PM. That meant that we were just in time for the song Meglio Stasera which appears in the film about an hour in. There are scenes from some movies that I always try to see even if I can’t watch the whole film, scenes that capture some deep emotion in the film or at least make me smile every time. This is one of those. Another is Dick Shawn as the hipster LSD in The Producers when he sings Love Power.
The funny thing about this scene is that it does nothing for the movies story line, doesn’t move the story ahead in any direction. It is simply a musical interlude meant to entertain. And it does that very well, at least for me.
Meglio Stasera, which translates as It Had Better Be Tonight, was written by Henry Mancini who wrote all of the music for the soundtrack including, of course, the hugely famous Pink Panther theme. The alluring Fran Jeffries performs the song in a European ski chalet setting with a cast of early 60’s euro-jet set types dancing along as the song progresses. I always watch for the end when she is joined by a lady in a golden boots, a shimmery jumpsuit and a stacked hairdo that makes her look like she could be David Bowie’s or at least Ziggy Stardust‘s mother.
Anyway, I thought this would be a good pick for some Sunday music. Hope you enjoy. Have a great Sunday!
Sunday morning and I think I’m much more decompressed than yesterday morning after the show. All back to normal, whatever that is. This show has made me think on a wide variety of subjects, about purpose and meaning beyond what I see in the work as well the potential for legacy in these paintings– would they endure into the future?
A good friend stopped in the studio yesterday and we talked for a moment about the subject of legacy. I pointed out that legacy is a big if for any artist and that I can only do what I do — where it ends up in the future is something that is far beyond my own control. It could be in enduring collections or it could be in garage sales and dumpsters– you never know what the vagaries and tastes of the future hold. I witness this all of the time when I go through the records from the auction houses and see painters who were celebrated in their time who are now basically unknown. Their work sells for a pittance, far below what one might expect from reading about their fame when alive.
As an artist, you can only hope that your work has a transcendent quality that allows it to live out of the time of its creator and be of the time in which it is viewed. I don’t know how you do that outside of maintaining consistency in your own vision and hoping that it is one that somehow speaks to those in the future. But there is always the question that if your work does move ahead, does maintain life and attracts future collectors, what would your legacy work be?
I know that this a fool’s game– no one has the ability to predict that future for their own work. You can’t be objective when you are so close to it, can’t discern your own personal feelings for it from how it reads to the outer world. But there are pieces that I see that nag at me, that have a weight that tells me that they may be vital pieces in a potential legacy. Pieces that I could see easily living in the future. There are a number in the current show, including the piece above, Observers.
These pieces have an intangible quality that I wish I could more fully understand so that I could better describe it. Or capture in a way so that it would be in all of my work. There is just something that seems beyond me, something that is beyond this time.
Could I be wrong? Of course. I have been wrong many times in the past and will no doubt be wrong in the future. But for my work I can hope that in this instance I am correct and that they hold on.
Actually, this was all just an elaborate lead in for a little Sunday morning music , some soul stirring from the Alabama Shakes and lead singer Brittany Howard. It is a song titled, of course, Hold On.
I wanted to take a bit of a break from writing about tomorrow’s opening of my show, Layers, at the West End Gallery. But while I was planning to just feature a song here today I found that this painting from the show, Blue Zone, fit in with the feel of the song I had selected, What’s Going On, from the late, great Marvin Gaye.
There’s a tiny figure standing alone on the horizon outside the house under a segmented sky with a blue sun above. It’s a piece that has both an inviting warmth and a feeling of alienation as the figure seems overwhelmed by the strangeness of this world. I can almost hear him saying, … tell me, what’s going on…
This song from Marvin Gaye, one of the more elegant songs of protest, is one that is old enough that it sometimes slips from memory. But simply hearing that saxophone come in at the beginning and Gaye’s silky smooth voice following it is an ample reminder that this is truly a great song.
There are certain songs that immediately take you back to specific moments when you hear them, songs that are imprinted in you as a sort of timestamp. Whenever I hear Grazing in the Grass I am instantly sent back to the summers of my youth. Impressions of bright yellow sunlight seen through closed eyelids, dried and brown cut grass on bare feet and the endless search for something to fill your summer days. We lived relatively isolated in the country and it was a time without instant connection to the outer world– no computers, video games, DVDs, around the clock satellite television or even FM radio– so there was always a pervading sense of boredom.
But, in retrospect, this boredom was a gift and a wonderful thing. It made me create my own entertainment and trained me to bide my time within myself. It gave me time to experiment and explore, to read and to look at the world around me. It seems that I am eternally busy now and I find myself missing that boredom, of wondering what to do next. Or not.
I think boredom has gotten a bad rap with so many parents feeling that they need to fill each moment of their child’s life, depriving the kids of developing self-reliance and a certain creative ability. I know that for me boredom seemed like a curse when I was a kid but was sorely missed once it was gone.
And that all comes to me with this song. And it can be either version, the original Hugh Masekala instrumental #1 hit from 1968 or the Friends of Distinction‘s vocal hit from the following year, which I personally prefer, if only for the chance to sing along with the chorus that ends with Can you dig it, Baby?! I’ve included both versions below for comparison.
So enjoy your Sunday. I hope you find a little time to be bored.
Yet another Sunday morning finds me in the studio working. My show, Traveler, at the Principle Gallery ends this week and my next show, Layers at the West End Gallery, opens in a few weeks on July 25th so there hasn’t been much of a break. But that’s okay, I like the busyness and purposefulness of it. It forces me to keep my head down and concentrate. To forge ahead instead of being distracted by shiny things, something to which I , like many others, am prone.
Not that distraction is a bad thing. You find interesting things when you allow your eyes and mind to wander and that, too, eventually finds its way into your work. But that is for another time when there is a deadline involved.
So, its back to work.
But it is Sunday and I have made a habit of having some music on this day’s posts. This week I am featuring one of my favorites, Neko Case, who I have featured many times over the years. This is Night Still Comes from her most recent CD, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You–which is quite a mouthful. I chose the painting above to go along with it. Its title is Confessor Blue and its one of the remaining paintings at the Principle Gallery show.
It’s the last Sunday of June and I sit in my studio early this morning surrounded by new work in varied states of completion that is headed to the West End Gallery for my show there at the end of July. There are paintings on easels and on chairs, some propped against the walls, on ledges above the fireplace as well as leaning against the hearth– everywhere I turn they’re facing me.
I take a moment and just sit back and take them all in, just letting them meld together as a collective group. For a moment, there’s a disconcerting feeling like looking at mirror that is shattered but still in place, a hundred different angles of myself staring back at me. But there is a quick adjustment, like my eyes coming into focus, and they’re no longer images of myself. Oh, I’m in there and I am part of what they are but they are more like a group of friends surrounding me, each with their own life but still maintaining a close relationship with me. I know them well, know their secrets, know what they mean to me. And they know me, hold my secrets and share a past with me.
In that moment, there’s a feeling like I am in a room full of friends and it is warmly reassuring. I’m not sure I can do justice with my description here. It makes me think of a favorite song of mine, Feeling Good Again, from Robert Earl Keen. Whenever I hear this song I am reminded of time in my youth spent with my father.
On many Saturdays we ended up at the horse track and before heading out would stop at a beer joint in town. It would only be about 9 or 10 in the morning but the place would be busy with some guys drinking their morning coffee and some their first of many beers. When we walked in, there would be shouted greetings from around the bar. Everyone knew each other and there was a terrific sense of friendship and camaraderie in their banter. Looking back, I can see how that place was a safe haven for a lot of tough lives and how those friendships, though maybe not deep, were reassuring, something on which to hang. Feeling good again.
So when I hear this song, I am transformed again to that thirteen year old kid drinking a coke while my old man joked around with his buddies and looked over the Racing Form with his cup of coffee. Have a great Sunday.
For the mystic what is how. For the craftsman how is what. For the artist what and how are one.
–William McElcheran, Canadian Sculptor 1927-1999
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I came across this quote this morning from the Canadian sculptor William McElcheran and lost myself in the circle logic of its semantics. It made immediate sense yet somehow did not. It was like a mist that I could see and feel but still couldn’t quite get in my grasp. And maybe that is the very point of the quote, that art has both a tangible and intangible element. It seems clear and within reach but there is mist-like quality that one can’t quite put their finger on. And perhaps that is the very definition of art– to try to put that misty mystical element within reach, to try to capture what is not quite visible.
Emotion.
Spirit.
I don’t know, maybe its too early on a Sunday morning to be pondering what is how and how is what.
However, it does provide a somewhat proper intro to some Sunday music. Using the mystical theme, I thought some classic Van Morrison might be in order. Here’s Into the Mystic from all the way back in 1970. It stills feel fresh and in the moment. And that, too, defines art.
The painting at the top is Led Home is a 10″ by 30″ canvas and is at the Principle Gallery for the Travelerexhibit.
Well, it is Sunday morning and time for some music once again. I thought I’d take this opportunity to show how it is not always the what but the how that is important. Take for instance the song Oops!… I Did It Again, perhaps one of the best known pop songs of the last fifteen or twenty years, performed by Britney Spears. Like her or not, you probably have found yourself at some point with that tune in your head.
Redtree Times 