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Dispersing Darkness

Posted in Painting, Philosophy, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on July 9, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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“Dispersing Darkness“- At West End Gallery

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

― Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy

Well, the show is out at the West End Gallery and will be fully hung today well in advance of next Friday’s opening reception, which runs from 4-7 PM.

There is, as always, a sense of relief in having the show out of the studio but this relief is forever accompanied by a feeling of anxiety in how the work might be perceived.

I know what I see in the work, what feelings and meanings I derive from it. It is created to satisfy and reflect my emotional needs. But how others experience it is always a crapshoot because one never knows what others are seeing of themselves in the work or what they desire to see.

Some folks want things I cannot offer and I have always been okay with that. I do what I do and put it out there, warts and all.

Some folks want nothing but optimism and light. While I understand this desire and attempt to keep my work optimistic and forward looking, I have always embraced a darker undertone in my work. I think it’s because I believe we are all delicately balanced between the opposing forces of dark and light.

The world is also balanced in this way in my opinion. It’s in that area of equilibrium between the two forces that harmony and beauty appear.

I think this is what I am seeing in the new painting above, Dispersing Darkness. We sometimes get out of balance and darkness becomes dominant. The key at these moments comes in knowing that this is only a temporary condition and  patiently waiting it out until light once more comes to push away the excess darkness.

Like the crow on the peak of the roof in this piece.

I see this piece in an optimistic, hopeful way but, as always, that is just my take. You will see what you need to see in it, no doubt.

As it should be.

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The Peaceful Stillness

Posted in Biographical, In the Studio, Music, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on May 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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“The Peaceful Stillness”

I want to be quiet this morning. No, I need, not want, to be quiet this morning.

Need to be quiet.

It’s one of those days when I wake up in the dark of the early morning. My dreams, which evaporate as soon as my feet touch the cool floor, have somehow dashed any facade of confidence I may have been wearing and I am already a bit glum before I have even seen the first light of morning. I slip on my jeans that are covered with paint and as I slide my right leg in, my toe catches a small tear in the pant leg. For some reason, my jeans always tear in this same spot, just above the right knee.

But this morning my toe catches that tear and in the darkness I hear it rip even more. I feel anger and frustration layering on top the glum blueness I woke up with and I want to just let my toe rip the hell out the jeans then throw them across the room in the dark. And scream so hard that my diaphragm aches and my throat burns from the effort.

But I don’t. I restrain myself and just stand there in the dark stillness, taking a long breath of cool air. Then I calmly ease my leg into the torn jeans. My eyes adjust a bit to the dark and I can see out the window that morning light is beginning to sift through the trees. The sun will soon be up.

I tell myself there’s still time for hope. I just need to be quiet and let it find its way here this morning.

I make my way along the path through the woods to the studio and I feel much of the frustration and anger slip away. I am still a bit glum and blue but lying on the kitchen floor with my Hobie, the faithful and loving cat with which I share my space, helps. Her loud purrs of satisfaction are like an elixir. I am tempted to click on the news to catch up and immediately turn it off after about 45 seconds of it make my blood pressure tick up a few notches.

I need quiet but I need some music. I remember this piece from the great jazz pianist Bill Evans, Peace Piece. I put it on and its quietude and gentle tone bring me back. And the music keeps playing and I know I have dodged a bullet of sorts. My blue is okay now. It’s like an old grouchy friend who I know how to deal with.

I can manage this. All I need is some quietness, some light, some hope.

I am showing a new piece at the top, one that I call The Peaceful Stillness. It’s 18″ by 24″ on aluminum panel and is part of Between Here and There, my solo show at the Principle Gallery which opens on June 4.

I wasn’t planning on writing this blogpost for this painting but it seems to work with it. I know I felt an easing of my angst and frustration on seeing this painting. It mirrored my attempts to find that quietness within. So, while I should probably talk about the process or meaning or symbolism in it, I am going to let it stand as is this morning.

It did what I wanted it to do. No, what I needed it to do.

Here’s Peace Piece from Bill Evans if you need some help on your end.

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Memory and Return

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Music, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on February 4, 2021| Leave a Comment »

“Memory and Return”- At the West End Gallery

It was odd getting up this morning and not staggering out the door to climb on my tractor to plow. It was almost becoming habit. Not having to do so felt liberating and it was nice to relax as I walked over to the studio under a still hanging half-moon that made the icy surface of the deep snow sparkle.

It was nice image. It made me wonder if these sort of images linger in our subconscious, becoming enmeshed and part of who we are.

They say that your life flashes in an instant in your mind’s eye just before you die. Would these be one of those images that would flash before my eyes when my time comes? Would they be random moments that didn’t even register in our conscious mind, hidden clues to who we are that lay deep in our brains waiting for the final moment to reveal themselves?

Or would they be those moments and faces and places that we do remember consciously, that we have already placed in our memory as being important?

I find myself often wondering about what sort of imagery, if any, would be there. Sometimes I will stop in the woods on those seemingly perfect days when the temperatures are pleasant and the sky peeking through the trees is that rich color of placid blue. Looking up, I will think to myself that if this were the last image in the final flash of my life, I would be okay with that.

And if not, it’s a perfect moment of calm in the present moment. Win-win as they say.

I guess I won’t know the answer to my questions until that last moment so I most likely won’t be able to write about them here. I just hope I am satisfied with what I am shown.

It would be awful if I were to end up like the Albert Brooks character in his film Defending Your Life who has to make the case after his death, using flashbacks to vital points in his life, that his time on Earth was well spent and that he was worthy to move on to the next world. His flashbacks focused, to great comedic effect, on his many fears and his weaknesses. 

I was hoping for something a little more zen, perhaps even answers to what the meaning might be for this particular life on this strange spinning planet.

But you get what you get, I suppose. We most likely have to do our own editing now, while we have the opportunity, if we want to be pleased when that flash comes before our eyes. 

That brings me to the painting at the top, an 8″ by 8″ piece called Memory and Return that is part of the West End Gallery’s annual Little Gems show of new small work, that opens next Friday, February 12. This piece has that feel of an image that might flash in my mind during that final slideshow of my life.

I don’t exactly know why.

While I am hoping the rest of the film will reveal the answer, I am mainly hoping I don’t see this film for some time to come. 

Here’s a lovely rendition of a favorite song that continues this theme. The song is In My Life from the Beatles and this version is from Diana Krall.

Give a listen, then go work on your own film and have a good day.

 

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Conubialis

Posted in Event, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 10, 2020| 3 Comments »

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“After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.”

― Mark Twain, Diaries of Adam & Eve

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This is another painting, 20″ by 34″ on wood panel, from my show at the West End Gallery which opens next week. This painting is titled Conubialis, which is basically Latin for marriage. Its pronunciation more or less sounds like connubial bliss which I suppose is the most desired state of marriage. As someone who has been married for eons, it sure presents a far more positive scenario than wedded rancor.

This would be considered one of my Baucis and Philemon paintings, which I first did a decade ago ( they recently celebrated their twentieth) for a couple celebrating the tenth anniversary of their own wedding. It is based on the Greek myth of the aged poor couple who welcome Zeus and Hermes into their humble home. The gods had been unceremoniously rebuffed by the wealthier residents of the village and Zeus was ready to ravage the place. But he was moved by the charity and generosity exhibited to the guests, as well as the love the elderly couple displayed for each other. After their visit, when Zeus  brought devastation to the village, he spared their home and granted them two wishes. For the first, he transformed their home into a temple where they lived out the rest of their lives. For the second wish, for which they asked that they remain together for eternity, Zeus made it so that when they died each became separate trees growing from a single trunk  that would live forever on a hill overlooking the village.

It’s a lovely story and I really enjoy painting these pieces with their interwoven trees. This one in particular was a joy. It had a richness and glow from the beginning that it maintained throughout the process which is a rarity. Usually, there are phases in the process of each painting where everything dulls and goes flat. But this painting came to life immediately and it maintains that glow on the wall now.

I came across the words from Mark Twain ( who wrote many of his books not too far from here) and they seemed to be the right gravity for this piece. Plus, they seemed to match up with the feel of the painting which has its own Garden of Eden thing working for it.

I was also thinking of using one from the ever witty P.G. Wodehouse who wrote in his story, Mostly Sally, concerning marriage : “And she’s got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.”

That made me laugh but I could see, even with my pea sized brain, that there was a grain of truth in it. Ideally, a relationship that lasts becomes a true union, much like those twisting trees, where each brings to it strengths that fills in for the others weaknesses.

So, maybe both quotes work equally well for this piece. But even without the words, I am finding myself continuing to enjoy the glow from this piece.

All I could ask from it.

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Off the Beaten Track

Posted in Event, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on September 18, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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True morality consists not in following the beaten track, but in finding the true path for ourselves, and fearlessly following it.

—Mahatma Gandhi

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This is another small painting on paper that will be accompanying me to the Principle Gallery in Alexandria this coming Saturday, September 21. I will be giving my annual Gallery Talk there beginning at 1 PM and I always bring a small group of new work with me– along with the painting(s?) that I will be giving away at the end of the Talk.

Some of the new pieces that will be coming feature small distant solo figures in generally large open landscapes. It’s a theme that has been a favorite of mine for some time now but one that I don’t visit all that often. Maybe I have to be in a certain mindset for them to come. Don’t really know.

I call this painting Off the Beaten Track. I like this piece for many reasons, including the obvious messaging of it. It just feels right which is something I can’t explain at all.

I can explain the message of this piece, at least as I see it and as it relates to my own experience. The Gandhi quote at the top partially explains it, that true morality can’t be dictated by the crowd that travels the beaten path. Without getting into the details, I think the current populist movements taking place around the world, including here in the US, are sufficient evidence of that.

What they claim for morality is certainly not the same as mine.

But beyond morality, life comes down to knowing when to veer from the beaten track, when to forge your own path and find your own way. That is absolutely true in making a life for yourself in the arts. There are few guides to show you the way  so many stick with the path, which is, as a result, crowded to the point that everything seems squeezed into a bland sameness. And it’s often headed in directions that don’t seem appealing or to make sense for what you’re hoping for your work.

Sometimes you have to break away from that crowded path and climb to higher ground, to look for something that draws you forward, that keeps you moving.

A muse. An inspiration. An opportunity.

To higher ground, where your voice can be heard above the drone coming from the path, where you can be clearly seen.

Fresh air and good views, both of where you’ve been and where you want to go.

This is what I am seeing in this little piece. It might be smallish in size but it speaks volumes for me.

Hope to see you at the Gallery Talk on Saturday. I have some neat things to share…

 

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Sublime

Posted in Event, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on July 5, 2019| 2 Comments »

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“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt”

― Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

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The painting shown at the top is titled Sublime. It is a new 24″ by 48″ canvas that is included in my show, Moments and Color, that opens a week from today on Friday, July 12, at the West End Gallery.

I struggled finding a title for this piece for a long time. There was a quality in it that attracted me immensely, that spoke volumes to me. But try as I might, I could never quite put my finger on what exact quality that might be. I just knew that if felt like something bigger than any single emotion. It had, for me, an immensity of feeling.

So, the word sublime came up in my search for a title and it immediately felt right. The feeling I was sensing and trying to describe was sublime, at least in my understanding of the word which put it at a point beyond beauty. Maybe beauty plus several other layers of feeling.

Every word that came to mind seemed limited to one emotional ray but sublime was a wide spectrum of feeling.

It was already titled when I came across the words at the top from the philosopher Immanuel Kant. His idea of the sublime being limitless and beyond our attempts at imagining it described perfectly my own frustration in the struggle to find words for the wide range of feeling I was sensing in this piece.

It seemed a bit like serendipity that the painting’s title was already Sublime. I still feel frustrated in describing my response to this piece but that word, sublime, covers the bases for me.

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Moments and Color is the title for my annual show at the West End Gallery, located on historic Market Street in Corning, NY. The exhibit opens Friday, July 12, with a reception that is open to all and runs 5-7:30 PM. The show is currently in the gallery and available for previews.

 

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First Looks

Posted in Event, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on June 5, 2019| 2 Comments »

My show at the Principle Gallery is in place, adorning the walls of the Alexandria gallery. I got word yesterday in the form of a few images that really put to rest a lot of my apprehensions.

It looks good. Very good.

I go through a cycle with every show where I have peaks of excitement over the work as it builds in the studio. But near the end of prepping for every show or after the show has been delivered and is out of sight, I begin to second-guess my own judgement of the work. The excitement I once held turns to a fear that I have been seeing the work through magic goggles that give the work qualities that really aren’t there.

Thankfully, most of the time these fears have been unfounded. But even so, this year gave me an extremely high level of excitement for the work which translated to an even greater dread in the last week or so. Much of it has to do with the fact that this is the 20th solo show at the Principle Gallery, the significance of this being something I have written about here in recent weeks.

Add to that the inclusion of my new Multitudes series that consists of masses of faces, such as the piece, The Following, here on the right. This group of work makes up a significant part, almost 25%, of the show and is untested in the marketplace. But Michele and her great staff– Clint, Taylor and Owen– have done a masterful job of hanging this work, interspersing it with the other work in a way that shows it as an extension of the prior work and not an exception.

Plain and simple, it all really fits together well. And that bring back to me a level of excitement. But that just makes me wonder if I put my goggles back on.

I guess you’ll have to be the judge. You can borrow my goggles, if you want.

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The show is hung for previews and the opening for Red Tree 20: New Growth is this Friday, June 7, beginning at 6:30 and running to 9:00 PM. Hope to see you there!

Taylor in the Front Gallery

 

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And the Sky Cracked

Posted in Biographical, Music, Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , , , on September 18, 2018| 1 Comment »

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I am a being of Heaven and Earth, of thunder and lightning, of rain and wind, of the galaxies.

–eden ahbez

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The painting shown above is a new piece, a smallish 6″ by 12″ canvas, that will be going to the Principle Gallery on Saturday for my Gallery Talk there. Its title is And the Sky Cracked and is part of a small recent series that features my interpretations of lightning strikes. How accurate they are in a realistic or scientific way, I can’t say. That doesn’t really hold much sway for me, at least not as much as capturing how the lightning feels to me.

Lightning is an amazing thing, a natural wonder that inspires awe and fear like it was some sort of god. No wonder so many religions give their main gods the power to wield lightning. It can destroy yet can also illuminate, bringing clarity to a course of action. Being struck by lightning is how we often describe moments of the revelation of great truths, of moments of self-discovery that alter the lives of those who experience these moments.

Like the finger of a god pointing the way and giving light to the path forward.

Powerful stuff.

Walking through my woods I often see the traces of past lightning strikes etched in the bark of the trees. Some have splits that run from their tops all the way to the way to the ground, blackened by the heat of the electricity that surged through them. In the case of some recent strikes, the ground at the base of the tree is burnt where the cracked bark of the trunk runs into the soil.

We had one strike several years back that was like a multitude of shotgun blasts going off outside our door, so close there was not thunder to give us warning. The next morning I saw that an old, large white pine down our driveway had been hit by the lightning. A deep crack ran down one of its thick upper branches down into the main trunk.

About forty feet away I noticed a chunk of pine the size of a large brick laying in the grass. Looking back at the trunk I immediately saw the spot where it had been blown away from the tree, no doubt the boiling sap of the pine finding a weak spot there in which to explode.

About a year later, that large branch, the size of a mature tree in itself, came down in another storm. The power to destroy.

Here is another in this lightning series that will also be with me on Saturday. It is called Real Power and is an 18″ by 18″ canvas.

The quote at the top is from eden ahbez, perhaps one of the earliest hippies back in the 1940’s and the man who wrote the song Nature Boy, most famously recorded by Nat King Cole. I wrote about ahbez here back in 2009 and Nature Boy remains a favorite of mine. Below is the Nat King Cole version.

Hope you can make it to the Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria on Saturday. It starts at 1 PM and there is at least one painting to be given away along with some other goodies. Oh, and some good conversation. See you there!

 

 

 

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Hope Rising

Posted in Current Events, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on May 21, 2018| 2 Comments »

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“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” 

― G.K. Chesterton

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This is a new painting from my upcoming solo show, Haven, at the Principle Gallery. It’s 12″ by 24″ on canvas and is titled Hope Rising.

There are a number of pieces from this show that lean towards darker and deeper hues than much of my other work.  Generally, when these colors have appeared in the past it was the result of being in what I perceived to be perilous times.

Such is the case with this work for it feels as though we live in a time of dragons.

But as Chesterton points out, the lesson to be gleaned from the fairy tales is that while we may live among dragons, they are not invincible. They are always defeated by forces of goodness and righteousness.

I get that feeling of hopefulness from this painting. It feels like a quiet moment when the fear brought on my the dark of night is alleviated by the reflected light of the moon that announces that there is a new day soon arriving.

The dragons can be held at bay and the darkness will only be a temporary condition if we hold tight to what is true and right.

The light of truth ultimately overcomes the false light offered by the dragon’s fire.

And that is not only in fairy tales.

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Head in the Clouds

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 2, 2018| 4 Comments »

Just a month out from my solo show, Haven, at the Principle Gallery. The work for the show as a whole is shaping up well and I am going through waves of elation and anxiety as I prepare. The elation comes in the way I feel the new work is finishing off and the anxiety in that I fear my judgement might be off base a bit, that what I am seeing and feeling in the work might not come across to others.

That I am working with my head in the clouds.

Fortunately– or unfortunately–that anxiety is not new to this show. I’ve had it in varying degrees for every single show I’ve done over the past two decades. This is my 19th solo exhibit at the Principle Gallery and my 52nd or 53rd solo show overall and I can’t remember ever feeling absolutely confident in how people would react to what I was doing. But so long as I have faith in my own reaction to the work, that I trust that I am experiencing real feeling from it, then I live a little easier with that anxiety, even though it never fully recedes.

The piece shown here is a new painting, 24″ by 12″ on canvas, that elicits the elation I described above. It checks every box for what I wanted from it. It has an equilibrium of fineness and roughness that appeals to me. There is a cleanness in its design that makes it feel solid and whole to my eye. It draws me in and lets me feel that I am the Red Tree here and it is a fulfilling experience.

It makes me feel good, to put it plainly.

Now, I must note that these are my reactions. You might look at it and feel nothing. That is no less valid a reaction than my own. But because I know what I am feeling is true and genuine for myself, the anxiety of showing it to someone who might not feel anything from it is lessened.

So, with that thought in mind, I must get back to work.

With my head in the clouds.

This painting is titled, of course, Head in the Clouds. I used the quote below from Thoreau just a week or two ago but it fits this piece and this blogpost so well I am using it again:

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are, if indeed you cannot get it above them, than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

–Henry David Thoreau

In this case, I think I know where I am…

 

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