Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Painting’

A Look Back: Winter Park

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Winter Park — 1994

Silience

n. the kind of unnoticed excellence that carries on around you every day, unremarkably—the hidden talents of friends and coworkers, the fleeting solos of subway buskers, the slapdash eloquence of anonymous users, the unseen portfolios of aspiring artists—which would be renowned as masterpieces if only they’d been appraised by the cartel of popular taste, who assume that brilliance is a rare and precious quality, accidentally overlooking buried jewels that may not be flawless but are still somehow perfect.

–The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, John Koenig

The painting at the top is from the autumn of 1994 making it an early piece for my work. I immediately called it Winter Park when it was completed– if you can call it completed. I wasn’t sure at the time if I was done with it. The white negative space was still up in the air in my mind and I was thinking it might need some color.

But the more I looked at it, the more that negative space took on a positive form for me. Color would have sullied it, made the sky less prominent which was a big factor in choosing to leave it as it is. This was painted not long after I had experienced my Eureka! moment with a painting that I called First View from August of 1994. I have discussed that painting several times here over the years, describing how when I first saw it, I knew that I had found something important to me that I didn’t even know I was seeking.

This painting felt like a continuation of that moment. Especially in its sky. It had the same sort of mixture of muted tones that created a complex color that was hard to describe. It was both beautiful and appealing to my eye but at the same time had the feel of a deep bruise in the sky. And that appealed to me, as well.

It created a great polarity of emotion for me within this seemingly simple piece. The negative space took on the form of snow in my mind and had a joyful feel in the way its clean, cool whiteness played off the muddle of the sky. But it also felt a bit wary and weary for me in the next moment, as though it represented enduring the journey through a long, hard winter that wasn’t yet over.

It’s been a piece that I come back to quite often when I review my past work. It has roughness and rawness that appeals to me. That’s something I still crave in my work but is sometimes hard to find after years of practice and refinement of whatever skills I possess.

In the refinement you sometimes lose a hard emotional edge that can’t be replicated no matter how far one’s abilities have progressed. I don’t know that I can properly explain that.

I think that’s why I am always looking for the next Eureka! moment. I know there’s something still out there but don’t yet know what it is. It will make itself known with unmistakable clarity when it comes.

If it comes.

Who knows? I may have already exceeded my given allotment of Eureka! moments. If so, I am grateful for the few I’ve been fortunate to experience. All were unexpected gifts. All were lifechanging.

What more can you ask?

I thought I would run the post below that was coupled with Winter Park about five years back. It doesn’t have an awful lot to do with the painting itself but speaks to how Eureka! moments and bits of serendipity sometimes lead a fortunate few to destinations they didn’t even know they were seeking. Perhaps at the end of that path in Winter Park…

[From 2021] I came across the word at the top, silience, while browsing through a site I’ve mentioned here a number of times in the past, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It reminded me of the many bits of serendipity that brought me to the life and career I have been so fortunate to have and how lucky I have been in encountering people who didn’t just walk by without noticing my work.

It makes me feel grateful, indeed. It also makes me feel somewhat guilty for my good fortune when I know with absolute certainty that there are equally or more talented people out there whose work and abilities has gone unnoticed. I often see or hear the work of folks who have yet to find an audience and wonder how this could be. I find myself rooting for them, wanting them to continue to do whatever they do so that their work might someday find its way into a situation that will shine a light on it.

It also makes me somewhat guilty for the time that I have wasted, for the bits of hubris I have displayed at times when mistaking the serendipity I have encountered for some sort of entitlement or inevitability.

It’s a needed reminder that any notice my future work receives must be earned anew and that I must take notice of and encourage the talents of others.

Here’s a well-done video for silience:

Read Full Post »

Born Into Color

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 10, 2026| 6 Comments »

Born Into Color— At West End Gallery

There is not one little blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice.

—John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)

I was born into a world of color. Color is the basis for what I do and how I see and feel things. Color has an emotional power that triggers all kinds of responses in my mind.

Yes, I was born into color.

However, it didn’t always seem that way when I was a child. I was reared and learned much of what I knew from television. Well, from reading, too, but that isn’t part of this post. From life lessons and ethics to the value of goofiness and absurdity. My view of human behavior was greatly shaped, for better or worse, by the shows I saw on the television.

Black and white television.

We didn’t have a color television until 1973 so, the shows that defined my childhood were all seen in black and white. I took it on faith that Mr. Green Jeans on the Captain Kangaroo show really wore green pants. I am still not sure because my memory only remembers him in black and white. The gorgeous, deep colors of Warner Brothers and Disney cartoons did not exist in color for me except in those rare occasions when I saw one at a movie theatre.

The color in those rare sightings made color feel very luxurious then. I think it was the absence of color in my viewing diet at that time that developed my appreciation and desire for color, that made me see it as a rare and special thing. I found that color had the power to attract and hold my attention, to inspire me, to light a creative fuse.

A single color could, in itself and in combination with other colors and forms, provoke emotions of all sorts. It could lift me up or make me somber from one moment to the next. But primarily, it made me aware of our place in the natural world, that we were part of the colorful richness and beauty that is this world.

By extension, we humans, as part of this world, were also made from that same richness and beauty.

Yes, we were all born into color.

This begs for a much longer essay, one that I am not prepared to write this morning. Perhaps some time in the future, I will better address this. Or not. If I promise to do it, I will begin to feel it as a burden and, as a result, most likely will consciously avoid doing it.

That’s my modus operandi.

One of the things that make me who I am? I don’t know if that is being colorful or just a pain in the butt.

It makes me wonder about the origins of the term  a colorful character and why and when they began to use it to describe certain people.

Hey, that should have been the end of this post. I should have asked if this appreciation and desire for color makes me a colorful character. That would have been a great parting line.

Guess I missed that opportunity. Oh, well, next time. Or not. Who knows?

Here’s a favorite song that is definitely on point this morning. It’s She’s a Rainbow from the Rolling Stones in 1967. Geez, hard to believe this song is almost 60 years old. Great song and a great richly colored video. Good stuff all the way around.

Read Full Post »

Adding or Subtracting?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 8, 2026| 4 Comments »

Kingdom Come– Now at West End Gallery

For as long as space endures,
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I, too, abide
To dispel the misery of the world.

–Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, Poem recited at conclusion of Nobel lecture (1989)

When I read the short poem above from the Dalai Lama the first thing that came to mind was a question: Has my life added to or subtracted from the misery of the world?

I don’t know. I’d like to think it has added more than it has subtracted but you never really know. Not sure any of us do know with absolute certainty. 

It’s one of those questions that is hard to objectively answer. We seldom fully know the full extent of the results of our words and actions. There are often words spoken or actions taken with little thought that might well have changed another’s life in some way. It might be in a small way, or it might have greater consequence– in both good and the not so good ways. 

We never fully know what sort of fuse we may light in others. It might produce a grand fireworks display in the sky or it may blow up in their face.

I guess the best we can do is to adhere to the words above from the Dalai Lama and try to consciously subtract from the misery of the world. 

To make a real effort to see the struggles of others and hear their voices and to offer a helping hand.

To not focus on our own attainment. To not take more than we need.

To be generous in all ways. To give more than we take.

To watch our words and actions, to see them from the perspective of those with which we are dealing. 

To speak words intended to heal and help, not to wound.

To put those words into action. 

There’s a lot more, of course. But the main objective is to simply be aware of our place in this world, no matter how small and insignificant it might seem, and to make that place better in some way. 

Keeping that in mind, we can rest assured that we will not have added to the misery of this world. 

It should be our task and mission.

That shouldn’t be too heavy a burden for any of us to carry. In fact, it becomes lighter with practice. 

Okay, sermon’s over. I’ve had my say. Here’s this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s an absolute favorite. This is The Weight from The Band and The Staples Singers taken from the film The Last Waltz, directed by Martin Scorsese.

You know what? I’m not even going to tell you to get the hell out of here this morning. Stick around if you like.

See? Watching my words.  If I can do it, you can do it.

Read Full Post »

A Look Back: Jason Thieves the Golden Fleece

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 23, 2026| 7 Comments »

Jason Thieves the Golden Fleece (May, 1994)

It is a fact that we tribes of suffering men never plant our feet firmly upon the path of joy, but there is ever some bitter pain to keep company with our delight.

–Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica (3rd century BC)

For this week’s A Look Back, we’re going to focus on a small group of experimental pieces. They came at a time when I was trying a lot of new things that gave me insights into how different paints reacted and moved on the painting surface as well as how to apply paint in different ways.

I remember this time as being very exciting for me. My mind was in overdrive and ideas were firing out of it at a dizzying pace. The problem with this was that it was unfocused. Instead of being like a fireworks display lighting up the sky, it was more like a big bag of fireworks being shoved into a steel 55-gallon drum then being set ablaze. Loud, but no direction or flow.

But it was what it was and being so, I took what I could from the explosions and bursts that rattled around and emerged from the steel drum that was my mind.

At one point, I was experimenting with moving paint on the surface with a simple drinking straw. Placing a drop in one spot, I would direct it by blowing through the straw. I loved the tendrils of paint it created, long and thinning as they progressed. If I changed the direction of my blowing, it created a lovely organic bend that mimicked the branch of a tree. I also applied thin watercolor washes as I normally would as well as playing with this same thinned watercolor in an atomizer to create an interesting background texture.

It was all abstract in nature. There was no intention, nothing that I was trying to represent. These pieces acted more like Rorschach tests, where one gives their first impression of random ink blots. I have vague memories of a board game we had from the 1960’s that incorporated these inkblots. I don’t remember us actually playing the game, just looking at the blots and trying to figure out what we were seeing in them.

As for these pieces, I wouldn’t even consider what they might be until they were what I felt was complete. And determining this finish point was completely intuitive. If all the elements and colors felt whole and unified, then I thought it was done.

I only did a handful of these pieces at the time. Though I enjoyed painting them and felt some excitement in the finished pieces, I didn’t feel I could mentally commit to the process in any meaningful way over the long term.

It didn’t feel like a found voice. I was still searching for that and while I didn’t know what it would be, I knew that I would recognize immediately when I came across it. And I was right, but that’s another story.

This particular piece intrigued me from the minute I felt it was done. I immediately saw a character with something tucked under their arm running towards some destination represented by the blue ball and the bit of a swirl around it. That looked like some form of destiny to me.

Though the item under its arm appeared mainly red there was bit of gold that I instantly saw as the golden fleeced ram stolen by Jason in order to fulfill his quest in the Greek myths. I don’t know why exactly why that came to mind. Do we ever truly know why we think many things? If we did know why, couldn’t we do a better job at thinking?

Now, you might see it as something completely different, though I have probably given you too much mental direction at this point, which I probably should not have done. But give me a break– I’m an artist, not a psychoanalyst.

I always particularly enjoy coming across this small experimental group. I still get a kick out of them that makes me wonder how things would have went if I had felt more committed to this style at the time, if I would have been able to develop this voice in a way that would connect with others. Would it have led to the same sort of life that I was later fortunate to find? Maybe it would have led to an even better one?

I kind of doubt it. If I had went that way, I’d probably right now be the guy collecting shopping carts in the Walmart parking lot. That’s not a knock on that job. There have been many points along the way when I have envied that guy. Hell, I have been that guy before.

And if not for inkblots, fireworks in a steel drum, and falling ladders, I might still be that guy.

Funny how that works.

 

Read Full Post »

A Look Back: Mountain of Frustration

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 16, 2026| 4 Comments »

GC Myers – Mountain of Frustration 1995

Frustration is one of the great things in art. Satisfaction is nothing.

—–Philip Guston, Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations

I don’t know that I completely agree with the late artist Philip Guston on frustration being one of the great things in art. When you are truly frustrated great is not a word that springs to mind. 

It might be great in the fact that it is sometimes a potent motivator for artists. It creates a sense of restlessness that I believe artists need in order to maintain growth in their work.

Without this restlessness, the artist begins to view their work with mere satisfaction and as Guston says, satisfaction is nothing. I agree completely with that.

Frustration for the artist comes in many forms. Sometimes it is a mental block that prevents them from achieving their vision or, sometimes, from even being able to work. Been there, done that.

Sometimes it comes from outside the artist, in the obligations and responsibilities that often keeps them from focusing on their work. Been there, done that.

Sometimes it comes with feeling that their work is overlooked and underappreciated, that the outside world just doesn’t comprehend what the artist is trying to communicate. Or that the outside world sees the work as being so irrelevant that they don’t even stop to really consider it. Been there, done that, as well. Too many times.

There are plenty of other frustrations for the artist, probably too many to laundry list here.  But for the purpose of today’s post let’s focus on the last one listed above, about the artist being frustrated by others not seeing the value of what they are trying to do.

The painting at the top is another early piece, one from early May of 1995. I remember finishing this piece thirty years ago and just not clicking with it in the moment. So, it was set aside and never shown. But like many of those early pieces, I would periodically pull it out and look it over for a while. I began to see more and more in it over the years and came to have a real affection and appreciation for it. It has things in it that excite me now, making me wonder why I couldn’t see them when it was first painted.

The paper on which it was painted listed only the date and the number I had given at the time. No title or note on it.  As a result, I never viewed it with a title in mind, nothing that could inform me of what I was feeling about it at the time. But I recently looked it up in my painting diary from that time, something which, for some unknown reason, I had failed to do in the intervening years. 

There was a title for it, Mountain of Frustration, and a note. The note said it was an odd, color-filled picture and that I was feeling anxious and frustrated on that day. It went on to say that I was disappointed by being rejected for a regional exhibit to which I had submitted my work and was beginning to question my ability. I ended by writing that maybe I was mentally putting myself further down the road than where I truly was at that point.

I had no memory of writing that entry. But reading it made so many things clearer for me about this painting. I could see now how my frustration shaded my opinion of this painting for a number of years until the memory of it faded.

Actually, my first reaction was to laugh at the fact that I was so upset by the rejection in the first place. This was May of 1995, so I had only been showing my work for a few months at that time and had only been painting for a little over a year. I am not sure I had even sold my first painting at that point.

Saying that I was putting myself further down the road was an understatement. Hell, until just a few months before this, I didn’t even know there was a road. 

I can’t remember what painting had been rejected but I am sure the slide I submitted was very poor in quality. I laughed and shook my head at the gall and hubris I had displayed. I thought I had responded like a fool.

But even though I see how ridiculous it was now, I can’t discount the impact of that frustration I was feeling at the time. I looked at it then as a challenge. It was a defiant call to arms and an “Oh, yeah? Well, I’ll show you!” moment.

I’ve had plenty of those over the years but many more so in those early years. As I wrote above, that frustration transformed into a huge motivating force for me, one that has served me well for many years.

It strengthened my resolve and focus. I may not have seen it in this painting then, but I definitely see it now. After having the diary entry jog my memory, this painting, though I have come to appreciate its power over the years, now drips defiance for me.  It was just what needed to be painted in that moment.

It was a bellow into the void. My first real yawp. Many of you know what I mean by that.

Just sorry that it took thirty years to realize it.

A side note:  I completed my next painting after this on the following day. It was titled The Sky Doesn’t Pity and was later that year submitted to another regional exhibition. It was awarded third prize. There was a lot of validation in receiving that small award. Though I don’t put my work up for competitions today, I entered several regional and national competitions in those early years and won a number of prizes, including a couple of Best of Show awards. 

That was probably all a result of the disappointment and frustration I felt then from that first rejection. Maybe Guston was absolutely correct in saying that frustration is one of the great things in art.

Works for me.

 

Read Full Post »

If Two Trees Fall in a Forest…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 14, 2026| Leave a Comment »

All Embracing– At West End Gallery

There must be some other possibility than death or lifelong penance … some meeting, some intersection of lines; and some cowardly, hopeful geometer in my brain tells me it is the angle at which two lines prop each other up, the leaning-together from the vertical which produces the false arch. For lack of a keystone, the false arch may be as much as one can expect in this life. Only the very lucky discover the keystone.

― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose (1971)

The lines above from the 1972 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Angle of Repose, from the late Wallace Stegner really jumped out at me this morning. To be honest, I haven’t read the book so can’t speak to its context. I read a summary that described its theme, described by its title, as a metaphor for finding balance between personal ambition and contentment. His description of this concept being like two vertical lines tipping together so that they meet and prop each other up to create a self-supporting false arch just seemed like the perfect imagery for today, Valentine’s Day.

Love, like every lasting relationship including the inner one we maintain between our hopes and reality, depends on this arch. I hesitate to use the word “false” though I understand it is in reference to the distinction between “true” and “false” arches.

“True” arches are carefully designed and slowly built, having angled stones and a keystone at its apex that sturdily binds it all together. It is built to last.  “False” arches that may have the appearance and serve the same purpose are more organic, not really designed or constructed so much as they just happen, often haphazardly and by sheer coincidence of time, place, and circumstance.

Two trees falling against one another in the forest, for example.

Or maybe even two trees that grow together and eventually seem almost as one, a la the trees in my Baucis and Philemon based paintings such as the example at the top.

I’ve been part of such a false arch for a very, very long time. As a result, Valentine’s Day takes on a different look for me. Though it still maintains a romantic aspect, it is now more about a deeper recognition and appreciation of all the many aspects that make up that tree that somehow fell my way all so many years ago to create the false arch that has somehow, often against all odds, survived.

Actually, I should say when my tree came to rest against the strength that is her tree.

Without that support, I would most certainly have fallen all the way to the forest floor.

Many times. I have always existed as a pretty precarious tree, after all. Even in my sapling days.

As the Stegner lines above point out, this type of false arch might be as much as one can expect in this life. I certainly couldn’t ask for anything more.

Here’s one of my favorite Rickie Lee Jones songs, one that seems fit for this day and post. This is We Belong Together, from her 1981 album, Pirates. Though this album was critically acclaimed when it came out, I don’t know how it has aged through the years or how it is viewed by a younger audience nowadays. I have always thought it as a classic, with its striking cover photo from the great French photographer Brassai who has been featured here before, and the many songs that have stuck with me for forty-five years now.

There’s an angle of repose in there somewhere…

This post ran several years ago. I rewrote it a bit, adding and subtracting here and there, but its sentiment holds true for this Valentine’s Day in this forest.

Read Full Post »

A Good Kick in the Teeth

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 12, 2026| 1 Comment »

Dawn’s Return–At West End Gallery

 

All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

–Walt Disney, The Story of Walt Disney (1957)

 

As someone who has had their teeth knocked out several times, literally and figuratively, I might want to disagree with Walt Disney here. But I get the gist of what he is saying. It is actually something that I have believed for a long time now, that we are strengthened by the obstacles and setbacks we face.

Once you know that you can bounce back from adversity it becomes easier to tackle whatever the next roadblock might be.

I am not going into a long spiel on the subject this morning. In the wake of yesterday’s Congressional hearing with the Attorney General, I was originally going to write about what is taking place in the country. It would have been long and angry.

But I just couldn’t do it this morning. Wanted to keep my blood pressure down a bit this morning. Writing a post about the many terrible things that are simultaneously taking place here would definitely shoot it sky high.

I would most likely end up looking like a Disney character whose head turns into a red-faced tea kettle with steam streaming out both ears.

Trying to stay away from getting into specifics that might trigger this tea kettle effect, I will point out that this current situation is our collective stumbling block right now.

It is a large and treacherous mountain placed in our path to the promise so many of us once saw and still see for this country. To get to the other side will require, as is the case when encountering any obstacle, a summoning of our collective strength and willpower.

It’s going to be difficult, but it is not an impossible task. Almost all obstacles can be overcome with diligence. tenacity, and well-considered action.

We’re going to lose a few teeth along the way. But take it from someone who knows, it will be worth the sacrifice in order to get over that mountain. It will make getting to the other side all the sweeter.

Here’s a song that very much sums up this thought. Here’s a rousing version of the gospel classic Lord Don’t Move That Mountain that was popularized by the great Mahalia Jackson in the late 1950’s. This is a performance from Jacob Lusk, who I featured recently with song performed with Moby, with Jools Holland on piano. I am throwing in Jacob’s great and fun version of Bennie and the Jets at the bottom for good measure. It took place at the 2024 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song concert honoring Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

The painting at the top, Dawn’s Return, doesn’t easily fit in here this morning. I just see a lot of things in it for myself and wanted to share it again.

Maybe its dawn is on the other side of the mountain?

Maybe.

Read Full Post »

Right Place Wrong Time?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2026| 1 Comment »

Harmony in Blue and Green— At West End Gallery

 

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; ‘these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions‘; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: ‘the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life… for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy’.

–Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926)

 

I recently came across the passage at the top from the esteemed historian/philosopher Will Durant. I was taken by hos words which very much aligned with one part of yesterday’s post that stated that we become what we say and do. Durant stressed the repetition required to create habit in our virtue and excellence.

Good stuff. Practical and applicable to most people. And the practice of becoming and being an artist. I’ve often felt that one of my strengths is my willingness– or perhaps it’s compulsion– to work. I would like to believe that this habit I have created shows itself in some small degree of excellence.

While reading the article that contained this passage from Durant, I noticed there was an attached note pointing out that the passage’s quoted phrase ‘these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions were taken from the Nicomachean Ethics written by Aristotle around 350 B.C.E. I decided to investigate a bit further to see the context of Aristotle’s words. This further digging is now part of my writing habit. Not sure any excellence has come of it yet.

I was interested in what Aristotle wrote on this subject. My concise reading of the chapter containing the phrase above is that all art has a level of goodness contained within itself. This applies even if it is performed or created by those lacking goodness and virtue. The character of the work only becomes virtuous when the work is created with conscious intent by a virtuous artist of firm and unchanging character.

This made me wonder if the qualities that I sense in my work were the inherent goodness already present in it or did they reflect my character and whatever goodness I might have contributed to the work? Were my feelings I experienced from seeing the work I created actually part of the work? Or was any character and virtue the work possessed its alone?

This created quite a quandary in my mind. It made me think of a conversation I had with a good friend recently where I was briefly talking about the new work created in this past year, of which the piece at the top is an example. I was describing to my friend the disappointment I felt in the general reception to this work. I said that I saw something in the work from this time that felt as though it might one day be important and definitive in the larger context of my work.

Well, if there ever is such a thing as the larger context of my work. That’s out of my hands.

But I felt that this work was created with great intent and was truly reflective of my character and beliefs. It had a passion in it that was instantly apparent to me. It deserved to be created and seen.

Of course, that is my personal opinion. That can often be too close or biased in judging one’s own work. Maybe the passion and depth I sensed didn’t come through in the inherent goodness of the work? Or perhaps that which I perceived then as goodness and virtue is not that exactly? Maybe much less?

Or maybe what I was seeing was real and present in the work but was appearing in the wrong time and place?

I don’t know and may never know. That’s something you have to accept as an artist. You never know how your work, no matter how passionate you are about it, will be received. Now or in the future. You create on your own faith and belief in what you do, over and over again, with the hope that, as Durant points out, excellence will one day be achieved through this habituation.

You just do what you do and let the chips fall where they may. Now and in the future.

As I said, maybe the work was in the right place at the wrong time. Here’s the late and ever flamboyant Dr. John with a song that hits this nail on the head. This is a performance from the Midnight Special in 1973 of his Right Place Wrong Time with the Doc in full Night Tripper regalia.

A blast from the past. Well, my past, at least. You got your own past to work from, kids.

Now get out of here before I turn surly.

Read Full Post »

No purpose but what we made…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 10, 2026| 1 Comment »

The Restless Seeker– At West End Gallery

No meaning but what we find here.
No purpose but what we make.

— This is what was bequeathed us, Gregory Orr (b. 1947)

 

I posted the poem and its accompanying animation, shown at the bottom of the page, about five years ago. It was written by American poet Gregory Orr and the two lines above from it made me think about the nature of both meaning and purpose, both things that I discuss here on a fairly regular basis. I don’t know why it seems like such an important subject to me.

Maybe I am trying to find justification for my own existence and the work I do? Let’s leave that for another day and move on.

We often speak of finding meaning and purpose in our lives but is it something to be found? It seems as though that it would be a difficult task to find something when you have no idea what you’re seeking.

Perhaps the seeking truly begins when we form an image or loose definition, even if it is on a subconscious level, of what values we would want to appear as part of the meaning and purpose of our life, should we ever stumble upon it. Once there is this vague conception in our mind of our desired purpose, maybe we then begin to create it.

Maybe what we believe is seeking is actually more or less gathering those bit and pieces of whatever makes up our individual meaning and purpose then assembling them in a form that comes near in its representation of that vague conception deep in our mind.

Using the painting at the top, The Restless Seeker, as an analogy, perhaps the boat does not represent a search for purpose or meaning. Maybe the boat itself is purpose and meaning, something I have constructed in order to navigate my way through this life?

As always, I can’t say for sure. But it sounds good at the moment.

The idea that our thoughts and desires form what we become is not a new idea, of course. It harkens back at least to the Buddha when he is believed to have stated:

The thought manifests as the word;

The word manifests as the deed;

The deed develops into habit;

And habit hardens into character;

So watch the thought and its ways with care,

And let it spring from love

Born out of concern for all beings…

As the shadow follows the body,

As we think, so we become.

Or to put it more concisely: Garbage in, garbage out.

As I wrote above, we structure our desired purpose on our own values. They might be traits we have observed and admired in others. Or on the set of morals and ethics we have developed, some handed down to us from our upbringing, and some obtained through our earliest experiences.

Perhaps some are even things we find lacking in ourselves and in the world around us?

I don’t know. Obviously.

It’s a difficult thing on which to put a single definition, especially before six in the morning. Even more difficult since every life has its own distinct meaning and purpose. My purpose and meaning is not yours and vice versa.

One size does not fit all.

As it should be.

I am just blabbing on in all directions at this point. Maybe that’s my purpose? Sounds about right…

Let’s end this with the poem and animated reading from Gregory Orr.

This is what was bequeathed us

This is what was bequeathed us:
This earth the beloved left
And, leaving,
Left to us.

No other world
But this one:
Willows and the river
And the factory
With its black smokestacks.

No other shore, only this bank
On which the living gather.

No meaning but what we find here.
No purpose but what we make.

That, and the beloved’s clear instructions:
Turn me into song; sing me awake.

–Gregory Orr (b. 1947)

Read Full Post »

A Look Back: Camp

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 9, 2026| 2 Comments »

Camp – January 1995

The concentration camps were swarming with photographers and every new picture of horror served only to diminish the total effect. Now, for a short day, everyone will see what happened to those poor devils in those camps; tomorrow, very few will care what happens to them in the future.

–Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus (1947)

Robert Capa is considered by many to be the greatest combat photographer. The only civilian photographer to land with the troops on Omaha Beach on D-Day, Capa captured the horrors of war around the world throughout the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. His life ended in 1954 after stepping on a landmine in Vietnam.

The passage above from his 1947 memoir was written about the final days of WWII as the Allied troops swept through a nearly defeated Germany.  At this point, he observed that the conflict there had changed from, as he put it, a shooting war into a looting war. Troops searched for souvenirs such as Lugers and cameras in the clean little villages they encountered going from the Rhine to the Oder. They also sought and found plenty   German frauleins willing to fraternize with them.

Capa noted that the soldiers who had been the liberators of the concentration camps–Dachau, Belsen, and Buchenwald— were the only troops who refused to fraternize with the frauleins. The scenes they witnessed in those would not allow them to suddenly embrace those people who had witnessed and turned a blind eye to such horror.

The passage above is just a quick observation from Capa about how though the flood of images emerging from those places shocked and horrified people in the moment, they might also someday serve to dull our response to similar images in the future.

What was once thought to be unimaginable was now imaginable with tangible evidence of the dark potential within all humans.

That brings us to the early painting I am featuring today. It was painted on January 11, 1995 and has the title Camp scrawled at the bottom of the sheet of watercolor paper on which it was painted. In the entry in my painting diary for this piece on that day, I wrote: Very dark. Concentration camp, remnant of dreams past. Hard to critique this objectively.

It is still hard to critique this piece.

It doesn’t really matter how I see it in qualitative terms, whether it’s a good or bad painting. I just don’t care. Seeing it always affects me in some deep, dark spot that I don’t really know in myself. Certainly not in this life. But it’s in there and it still emerges at certain times to let me know it is there, that it occupies a space in me.

It’s hard to even write superficial observations about what I mean here. I don’t know why it came about at that time in 1995, what compelled me to create it. It may have been something as simple as a color or combination of colors in it that sparked something to come out of that deep, dark spot. Something that perhaps sparked a flash of an image in that part of me that is connected to our collective memory.

I write about this painting today because it has been on my mind in recent times. It began to emerge several years ago when I first hear about private for-profit prisons. That idea just horrified me. A business whose sole purpose was to profit from keeping as many people imprisoned for as long as possible is fraught with the potential for abuse. And worse.

Then as these detention centers have become to pop up around the country, ostensibly to hold illegal immigrants for deportation, this image has begun to haunt me more and more. Especially as many the detained are shown to be not criminal nor threats to us. Just people looking for a better life who are swept up by masked men in combat gear looking for a monetary bonus for their cruelty.

It’s not a coincidence that this potential has arisen now. It’s been over 80 years since the end of WWII. Most of the witnesses, the survivors and liberators of the concentration camps, are dead. And though the images from those camps still inspire feeling of horror within us, they seem far removed now. Our memory has faded, replaced with the hubris of thinking it can’t happen to us here.

It now feels like we have foolishly allowed ourselves to be led to the top of an exceedingly slippery slope that we will soon find ourselves whooshing down.

And at the bottom there waits a horror that we once knew and were once shocked and horrified by its very existence. Those German farmers and villagers in the Rhine Valley, along with those fraternizing frauleins, probably once thought that the horrors that had taken place in their name could ever happen.

Unimaginable.

But it did happen. And it is now easily imaginable. And therefore possible.

That’s the power in this image for me. Then and now.

Here’s the great Itzhak Perlman playing the Schindler’s List Theme, composed by John Williams. I know it’s a bit on the nose but for a subject like this, one with such weight, that is what is required.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »