One never finishes learning about art. There are always new things to discover. Great works of art seem to look different every time one stands before them. They seem to be as inexhaustible and unpredictable as real human beings.
–Ernst Gombrich, The Story of Art (1978)
I think the passage above from art historian Ernst Gombrich (1909-2001) is an apt flourish to this reminder that my solo exhibit, Guiding Light, at the West End Gallery comes to its conclusion at the end of the day this Thursday, November 13. There are three days to arrange to see the show.
I believe Gombrich’s statement applies here because as he says, art looks different every time one stands before it. And I think when a show is hung it creates a unique atmosphere created by the dynamics of the individual pieces in relation to one another, the space, and the viewer. It makes viewing any painting in an exhibit, as well as the exhibit as a whole, a unique experience for the viewer.
Maybe I am out of place in saying this, but I felt that this show at the West End Gallery was one of those unique experiences with its own atmosphere. Each piece stands out in their individuality but is reinforced by the work surrounding it.
Like strong individual voices gathered in a choir.
Hope you get a chance to catch the show before the choir disbands and the singers go solo.
Here’s a favorite song from the Talking Heads and David Byrne performed during his American Utopia tour of 2018. This is This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody).
The less we say about it the better Make it up as we go along Feet on the ground, head in the sky It’s okay, I know nothing’s wrong, nothing
At Epidaurus, in the stillness, in the great peace that came over me, I heard the heart of the world beat. I know what the cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world.
–Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi (1941)
Que sera, sera.
Whatever will be, will be.
There’s a certain fatalistic aspect to this well-worn phrase that seems questionable in troubled times. On its face it seems to be saying that we should just accept things as they come. Don’t worry, be happy to quote another popular song.
Again, if that is the case, it seems like poor advice in dangerous times such as those through which we are now travelling.
But I don’t think the phrase or song can be taken at such face value. I don’t think it is saying that we should just accept whatever is put on our plate or that we should simply acquiesce to those who seek to subjugate us.
It doesn’t say that we should end resistance to that which offends all sense of decency.
No, in my eyes, it says that we should release our sense of dread and fear, that we should trust that the light of our better angels, with all the help we can muster, will push away the darkness. It says that the future is never fully written even though there are those who might wish you to believe it is already deeply engraved with their dark visions for the future.
It says to me that you have to set aside fear and panic and to replace it with resolve and calmness that allows you to trust that the future will still be filled with light.
I see it as a more proactive song than the title may seem. You may not be able to control the future, but you can nudge it so long as you don’t fall prey to the paralysis created by fear and worry. The only thing we need to relinquish is fear and the only thing we should hold tightly to is our love and compassion.
Whatever will be, will be but remember that you still have a say it what it will be.
That reminds me– it’s election day across the country. Vote for the future you want.
This post came about as a result of recently stumbling on a version of this song, which is, of course, the beloved trademark of Doris Day, from Sly and the Family Stone, recorded in 1973. I had never heard this version before and it sent me thinking.
The great quality of true art is that it rediscovers, grasps and reveals to us that reality far from where we live, from which we get farther and farther away as the conventional knowledge we substitute for it becomes thicker and more impermeable.
–Marcel Proust, The Maxims of Marcel Proust (ed. 1948)
Proust certainly knew what he was talking about when it comes to the reality of one’s inner landscape. In his case, it is a place populated with layers of memory. The memories described in his monumental seven-volume Remembrance of Things Past are both voluntary and involuntary, those triggered and animated in his inner world by a sensory prompt– a taste, smell, sight, or sound– occurring in the outer real world.
His maxim above clearly states what I have been trying to say with my work for years now. And that is that art reveals realities that we often fail to observe. As he points out, it is a reality that has been barricaded from us by the common perceptions of what makes up reality that have been built up over the years. We have become so entrenched in only dwelling in that reality that we have lost the ability to sense and appreciate the other, that being one’s inner reality and its connection to an even greater outer reality.
My hope as an artist is that my work serves as a device or a prompt for the viewer to find their way to their own inner world, to see things from a viewpoint inside themselves rather than from their usual position in the outer world. And maybe that is what true art is, a device or tool that exists beyond its surface.
Proust mentioned this in the final volume of Remembrance of Things Past, writing how the reader (or in my case, the viewer) uses the work as instrument in which they can better see themselves.:
In reality every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to the reader to enable him to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have perceived in himself.
In that way, a piece of art becomes something more than mere wall coverings or ear or mind candy. It becomes a portal to another reality, another dimension, in which we are inhabitants whether we know it or not. It’s kind of miraculous to see this in action, to see someone engage with a piece of art that instantly reveals something of themselves of which they were either unaware or were blindly seeking.
I’ve been fortunate to witness this several times over the years and it may well be the primary motivator for my work now.
Well, that was not expected when I started this post this morning. Hope it makes sense in an hour or a day from now. Maybe we will talk about this on Saturday at the Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery.
Maybe not. Who knows which way the wind will blow on Saturday?
The Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery begins at 11 AM and lasts about an hour, ending with the drawing for the painting, Dare to Know, shown at the bottom of this page. The Gallery Talk and the drawing for the painting are free and open to all. You must be in attendance to win prize. Seating is limited so I would suggest you arrive early to claim your seat and settle in. We can chat or you can take in the exhibit. Doors Open at 10:30 AM.
Here’s a favorite song, Killing the Blues. It is best known as performed by John Prine which to me is the gold standard. I hesitated in playing this version that I like very much from Alison Kraussand Robert Plant since I have played it here before. I thought it was recently but, after checking, discovered that I had shared it last in 2011. I guess a 14-year gap between plays is acceptable.
In my solitude I sing to myself a sweet lullaby, as sweet as my mother used to sing to me.
–Albert Cohen, The Book of My Mother (1954)
Today’s post is kind of like a poker hand. I have a pair of Cohens and a wild card in the form of a new painting. The first of the two Cohens is Albert Cohen who is noted as “a Greek-born Romaniote Jewish Swiss novelist who wrote in French.” Born in 1895, he is considered a French writer though he lived most of his life in Switzerland, dying in 1981.
The other Cohen here is the late great Leonard Cohen. I am sharing a song from late in his long career, Lullaby, from 2012. His deep voice and the song’s easy pace and rhythm have a most soothing feeling for me.
The painting is Dusk of Time from my current solo show hanging at the West End Gallery. I find a soothing feeling in this piece that matches up well with the Cohen song.
Hey, I just fell asleep while looking and listening. I guess they do work well as a lullaby.
There you are. Three of a kind. That’s usually a winning hand. If I had only come up with a fourth Cohen–that would have been unbeatable! I was going to try to slip in something from the theatrical giant George M. Cohan and maybe slur over the fact it is Cohan with an A rather than Cohen with an E but decided against it. That might be viewed as being a bit underhanded.
Oh, what the hell. Here’s something from George M. Cohen. Oops. That should be Cohan:
Whatever you do, kid—always serve it with a little dressing.
I will use that slightly deceitful fourth Cohen as the transition into the Gallery Talk that will be taking place on Saturday at the West End Gallery. It begins at 11 AM and lasts about an hour, ending with the drawing for the painting, Dare to Know, shown at the bottom of this page. And that’s not all. Taking the advice from that fourth Cohen, er, Cohan, it will be served with a little dressing.
Hope you can make it to the West End Gallery on Saturday for the Gallery Talk. I have plenty of dressing all ready to go…
“For the gods perceive future things, ordinary people things in the present, but the wise perceive things about to happen.”
–Philostratos, Life of Apollonios of Tyana, viii, 7.
Ordinary people know what’s happening now, the gods know future things because they alone are totally enlightened. Of what’s to come the wise perceive things about to happen.
Sometimes during moments of intense study their hearing’s troubled: the hidden sound of things approaching reaches them, and they listen reverently, while in the street outside the people hear nothing whatsoever.
–C.P. Cavafy (1915)
I have mentioned C.P. Cavafy a few times here in the past. In 2021 I wrote the following in a post about one of his more famous poems, Waiting For the Barbarians:
Been reading some verse lately from Constantine P. Cavafy, the great Greek poet who lived from 1863 until 1933. He lived his entire life in Alexandria, Egypt and his work often captured the sensual and exotic cosmopolitan feel of that time and place. Readers of Lawrence Durrell and his Alexandria Quartet, in which Cavafy appears as a character, will know what I mean.
Though Cavafy was known for his poetry among the Greek community in Alexandria he spent most of his life working as civil servant. He didn’t actively seek widespread acclaim, turning down opportunities to have his work published while often opting to print broadsheets of his poetry that were distributed to only a few friends. His work didn’t realize wider acclaim until later in his life (and afterwards) when his friend, novelist E.M.Forster, wrote about his work, describing him as a Greek gentleman in a straw hat, standing absolutely motionless at a slight angle to the universe.
I love that description from Forster: standing absolutely motionless at a slight angle to the universe. I am not exactly sure what Forster meant but part of me thinks I know exactly what he is saying.
He sees Cavafy as both part and apart from the world around him. Seen and unseen. Engaged and disengaged.
My perception could well be the result of my own experience of having often felt both part and apart from all things. Not knowing anything but my own experience, I assumed that many others felt exactly the same. But over time, I realized that while there were many others, it wasn’t as many as I had thought.
I don’t know why this was the case. Maybe it’s simply easier to choose one or the other. Choosing and seeing oneself as part of things allows one to be absorbed into the crowd, to take on the voice and thought of the crowd. It requires so much less effort than thinking or speaking in your own voice. And it feels safer in the protection of the crowd.
When you stand apart, you are vulnerable and dependent upon your own wits, senses, and perceptions. There is a sense of danger in this, knowing that whether you stand or fall depends on your own choices and actions.
But with that comes a sense of freedom. You speak your own words and hear clearly beyond the din of the crowd. You think and decide on your own.
You become the tree, still part of the forest yet standing apart.
And maybe that is what Forster was implying with his slight angle to the universe.
I don’t know and I am not sure that this makes one whit of sense to anyone. Probably doesn’t. I don’t mind though. I have often not made sense in many things. Maybe I am standing a little off level myself.
Hey, here’s a lovely piece from Yo-Yo Ma. It’s Gabriel’s Oboe by Ennio Morricone from his soundtrack to the film, The Mission.
REMINDER
MY ANNUAL GALLERY TALK
AT THE WEST END GALLERY
TAKES PLACE
THIS COMING SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2025. BEGINNING AT 11 AM
SEATING IS LIMITED. THE DOORS OPEN AT 10:30 AM. IT IS SUGEESTED THAT YOU ARRIVE EARLY.
Dare to Know— The Prize at Next Saturday’s Gallery Talk
Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere Aude!- ‘Have courage to use your own reason!’- that is the motto of enlightenment.
― Immanuel Kant, What Is Enlightenment?
I have written in the past about the difficulty and pain that comes in choosing the paintings that are sometimes given away at my Gallery Talks. I have often said that it must be a painting that creates pain for me in giving it away.
Well, I’ve made my choice for next Saturday’s Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery and, boy, does it hurt.
The painting is shown above and is titled Dare to Know. It is 11″ by 15″ on paper and is framed and matted at 16″ by 20″. It’s a piece that attached itself to me immediately, both visually and in its personal meaning which strongly adhered to the words of Kant above. To put it simply, it has always been a very special piece for me.
Here is an essay on this painting that has ran a couple of times here in the past:
Sapere Aude!
From the Latin, meaning Dare to Know.
I came across the passage above from the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant and felt immediately that it was a great match for this new painting. In fact, I am calling this piece, 11′ by 15″ on paper, Dare to Know (Sapere Aude!).
The Red Tree here is removed away from the influence and shading of the other trees and houses in the foreground, out of darkness and into the light. There is a light about the Red Tree and a sense of freedom in the openness of the space around it. It is free to examine the world, free to seek the knowledge it craves, and free to simply think for itself.
The concept of self-enlightenment is truly a great idea and one that we definitely could use today. Too many of us construct our own base of knowledge by relying on the thoughts and opinions of others, often without giving much consideration as to their truthfulness, motives, or origins. Or we shade our base of knowledge with our own desires for how reality should appear, holding onto false beliefs that suit us even when they obviously contradict reality.
In short, there is no enlightenment based on falsehoods, no way to spin darkness into light. There is no way to make a right based on wrongs.
Enlightenment comes in stepping away from the darkness of lies and deceptions to see the world as it is, with clarity. It means stripping away our own self defenses and admitting our own shortcomings, prejudices, and predispositions.
To have the courage to know and face truths.
It may not always be the desired outcome one hoped for, but it is an honest reality. And maybe that is enlightenment, the willingness to face all truths with honesty.
To dare to know.
Sapere Aude!
Dare to Knowwill be given away at my Gallery Talk this coming Saturday, November 1 at the West End Gallery, beginning at 11 AM. Seating is limited so I suggest getting there as close to 10:30 AM when the gallery doors will be opened. That will give you time to register for the drawing, claim your seat, and maybe chat for a few minutes beforehand.
The Gallery Talkand the drawing for the painting(s?) is free and open to everyone. Yeah, even you. So, what have you got to lose? Get yourself into the West End on Saturday and maybe take home a favorite painting of mine.
But be forewarned that this is an interactive event. Its success or failure– it can happen!— depends on your participation. So, you better have a good question or two in mind when you enter the gallery. If you leave me hanging up there all alone, there will be hell to pay!
Okay, that’s that. This week’s Sunday Morning Music is kind of last second choice. I had another song in mind but when I went to get its link this song was a suggestion. It was an immediate hit thematically and also favorite Beatles song. As if that could be a thing out of so many! This is Think For Yourself from their 1965 Rubber Soul album.
Look down the long valley and there stands a mountain That someone has said is the end of the world. Then what of this river that having arisen Must find where to pour itself into and empty? I never saw so much swift water run cloudless. Oh, I have been often too anxious for rivers To leave it to them to get out of their valleys. The truth is the river flows into the canyon Of Ceasing-to-Question-What-Doesn’t-Concern-Us, As sooner or later we have to cease somewhere. No place to get lost like too far in the distance. It may be a mercy the dark closes round us So broodingly soon in every direction.
–Robert Frost, Too Anxious for Rivers (1947)
The canyon of Ceasing-to-Question-What-Doesn’t-Concern-Us…
This line (and the title) caught my eye when I first came across this Robert Frost poem, Too Anxious for Rivers. I thought the first half the poem shown above (the full poem is included at the bottom of the page) was a fine companion to the painting at the top, Follow the River. Both have an existential theme and feel.
I could see this river flowing into that particular canyon. There is something about that slash of that particular blue cutting through the center of the painting that speaks to me, something that calms me. I guess that is a good thing, as I, much like the title states, am sometimes too anxious for rivers. Too anxious to simply float along with the current.
So much energy wasted struggling against the rhythm and force of the river when I should be letting it guide me, rather than trying to make it deliver me where it refuses to go.
The river will deliver you on its own terms and schedule.
This painting, Follow the River, is 30″ by 15″ on canvas. It is included in my current exhibit, Guiding Light, at the West End Gallery. The show is hanging until November 13.
Next Saturday, November 1 I will be giving a Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery, beginning at 11 AM. Today or tomorrow, I will be choosing the painting that will be given away in a drawing at the end of the talk to someone in attendance. As always, the Gallery Talk is free and open to everyone. I will be announcing the prize painting in the next few days so keep an eye out here.
Here’s a song, River Man, from Nick Drake. Nick Drake recorded three albums from 1969 to 1972 that never really found an audience at the time. Tragically, he died from an overdose of antidepressants in 1974 at the age of 26. In the years since, his work has gained that audience that eluded him during his short lifetime and has a cult following. I find this song particularly haunting.
And soothing like the flow of a river.
Look down the long valley and there stands a mountain That someone has said is the end of the world. Then what of this river that having arisen Must find where to pour itself into and empty? I never saw so much swift water run cloudless. Oh, I have been often too anxious for rivers To leave it to them to get out of their valleys. The truth is the river flows into the canyon Of Ceasing-to-Question-What-Doesn’t-Concern-Us, As sooner or later we have to cease somewhere. No place to get lost like too far in the distance. It may be a mercy the dark closes round us So broodingly soon in every direction. The world as we know is an elephant’s howdah; The elephant stands on the back of a turtle; The turtle in turn on a rock in the ocean. And how much longer a story has science Before she must put out the light on the children And tell them the rest of the story is dreaming? “You children may dream it and tell it tomorrow.” Time was we were molten, time was we were vapor. What set us on fire and what set us revolving, Lucretius the Epicurean might tell us ‘Twas something we knew all about to begin with And needn’t have fared into space like his master To find ‘twas the effort, the essay of love.
Each for himself, we all sustain The durance of our ghostly pain; Then to Elysium we repair, The few, and breathe this blissful air.
–Virgil, Aeneid (29–19 BC)
This year’s edition of my annual solo show at the West End Gallery, Guiding Light, opens this coming Friday, October 17. The painting above, Idyllica, is one of the larger pieces from the show, coming in at 30″ by 48″ on canvas.
I might call this a signaturepiece, if I were to put a label on it. By that, I mean it might be a painting that I feel neatly sums up what my work means for me. A painting that symbolizes who I am and how I see the world and my existence.
Kind of like a self-portrait that portrays the artist in their best light as they see it.
I have had this feeling a number of times about paintings, feeling that they represent a totality of what I hope I am. Mybe it is really more that they represent all the things I aspire to but knowingly lack personally.
Grace, balance, and harmony, for example. You can also add boldness, confidence, and courage. Maybe throw in Inner peace and strength, as well.
Maybe I am not seeing this so much as a self-portrait, a picture of who I am now, but rather as a laundry list of everything I have yet to find fully in myself. An image of what I desire to be.
Perhaps that is what I see in this– a clear statement of my hopes for myself as a human.
Maybe in some way it can serve as a template or roadmap to the attainment of these qualities?
I don’t know. Maybe.
But for the time being I find myself basking placidly in this piece. And in these days now filled with uncertainty, lies, malevolence, and moral cowardice, it is refreshing to rest for a moment in something that aspires to the better parts of our humanity.
It’s what I need right now…
Here’s a song that haunts me for days every time I hear it. It plays, in a way, into what I am saying this morning. It’s from Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, best known for their performances and music from the film Once, performing as The Swell Season. I am a big fan of their work, especially Hansard’s solo work. This is their version of Don’t Want to Know from a tribute album to the late British singer/songwriter John Martyn that came out soon after his death in 2009 at the age of 60. I don’t have time to go into his life right now, but Martyn was an interesting and enigmatic character, a mass of contradictions and conflicts and talents. The 1973 album that this song is from, Solid Air, is considered a gem that is little known here.
To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite.
— Novalis
I don’t plan on saying much today. Just going to let the spirit of the words, painting, and song do their thing. With a quick glance at these three, you can see that the theme for today is a recognition of the beauty of our world. Or as Novalis put it: the magic, mystery and wonder of the world.
Or maybe it is about how we often don’t fully recognize those things? I can’t decide.
The words are from the 18th century German poet/philosopher Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg 1772-1801) who was amazingly productive with work that has had lasting influence in the many generations since his death in 1801, at the youthful age of 28. He is thought to have died from tuberculosis or cystic fibrosis.
His words coincide with the hopes of many artists in wanting others to see in their work the potential for the extraordinary in the ordinary. To see that beauty is at hand at all times.
The painting above, This Beautiful World, is 10″ by 15″ on canvas and is from my West End Gallery show that opens next Friday, October 17. The exhibit is being hung today so you can see it early for a preview, if you so desire. I think this piece falls nicely in line with the words of Novalis as a symbol of the sacred mundane.
The song is the title track from the great Mavis Staples’ new album, Sad and Beautiful World. It’s her cover of a 1995 song from indie rock band Sparklehorse. It is a simple song with spare lyrics but it beautifully lays out the depth of the sadness that often comes with beauty as part of the deal.
We need the contrast of sadness to allow us to fully see how beautiful this world can be and how fortunate we are to experience its love, beauty, and wonder. And how fortunate we are to be able to feel deep emotion or to cry in both suffering and joy. To know life and death.
Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas. Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness. I take it for granted that to create a tree I condemn a seed to rot. If the first act of resistance comes too late it is doomed to defeat. But it is, nevertheless, the awakening of resistance. Life may grow from it as from a seed.
–Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras (1942)
What awakens us?
What are the sacrifices that created us and brought us to this point in our existence?
What seeds have been condemned to rot so that we might stand on this rock?
So many questions.
Few, if any, answers.
It sometimes like we have evolved enough to ask the questions but not enough to recognize the answers.
We are left standing on this rock with only a vague sense of what that answer might be.
A nebulous feeling of what is and what is not.
And sometimes that feeling is enough in the moment to sooth whatever it is within us that asks such questions.
It is enough to allow us to feel as though we have been given an answer.
The real question is: What do we do with that answer?
I don’t know if any of this makes sense to you this morning. It just felt right for what I was feeling from the combined stimulus from the passage along with the painting at the top and the song below. There seemed to be some thread of sense running between the three, containing some sort of answer to whatever question I was asking.
But then again, I could be delusional. I wouldn’t be at all surprised– I hear there’s a lot of that going around.
The painting shown here is The Awakening, 24″ by 12″ on canvas, that is included in my solo show, Guiding Light, that opens at the West End Gallery next Friday, October 17. The Red Tree in it represents, for me, the growth from that sacrificed seed, the newly formed consciousness that feels the wonder of the world into which it has emerged. It seeks to understand the answers it feels it is being given.
The song below is a new song from the new album from Robert Plant called Saving Grace. It features the vocals of singer Suzi Dian and the group Plant. I really like this recent performance on Jools Holland’s show and felt it fit well with some of my work, including this new painting.
Feels like there’s an answer in there somewhere if I could just make it out…
Redtree Times 