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“it was the kind of moon
that I would want to
send back to my ancestors
and gift to my descendants
so they know that I too,
have been bruised…by beauty.”
― Sanober Khan, Turquoise Silence
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I call this new painting, a 16″ by 8″ canvas, The Bruise of the Moon. I take the title from the snippet above was taken from a poem, Tonight’s Moon, from the book Turquoise Silence from contemporary Indian poet, Sanober Khan.
I like this idea that beauty makes a deep impression, bruises us in a way. And that effect by the moon seems the perfect example as its beauty has been our companion since we first came to be here, however that may be.
Very often we pay little attention to the moon as it rises and falls through all our nights. We fail to notice its light and the path it traces across the sky as we focus on our earthly matters.
Yet, every so often, it refuses to be taken for granted and demands that we stop and take it in, to admire its cool and distant majesty. To make us consider that it has looked down on all that man has done in our relatively short time here, at least when compared the time that the Moon has looked down on our planet. To think that it has witnessed the conquests of Alexander the Great, the birth of Jesus, the explorations and sailors that circled the globe and so much more, including welcoming us as we came to visit it in the distant space it occupies.
It has watched us at our best and at our worst, forever a true companion to the most and least among us, almost leaving a mark, a bruise behind. It makes me wonder if that person who does not see the beauty in the moon even has the ability to see beauty in anything. It’s a thought that makes me sad because I can’t imagine what kind of person I would have to be to not feel the emotion that comes with witnessing the eternal and ageless beauty that the Moon brings us without fail.
This painting will be be included in my coming solo show, Self Determination, at the West End Gallery which opens July 14.
You do not have to be good.
I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. 
All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
This is another new painting headed to the Principle Gallery this weekend for my show there, Part of the Pattern, which opens next Friday, June 3. This piece is 14″ by 34″ on paper and is titled , The Untold Want. The title was taken from the title of a very short poem from Walt Whitman that contained the phrase that spawned and became the title of the Bette Davis movie, Now, Voyager.
Whenever I am asked to speak with students I usually tell them to try to find their own voice, to try to find that thing that expresses who they really are. I add that this is not something that comes easily, that it takes real effort and sacrifice. The great poet e e cummings (you most likely know him for his unusual punctuation) offered up a beautiful piece of similar advice for aspiring poets that I think can be applied to most any discipline.
I wasn’t going to feature another new painting here this morning but I felt that this piece just fits perfectly into the momentary state of our politics. At least how it appears to me.
Valentine’s Day.
There is delight in singing, though none hear beside the singer. 
I’ve always put my work out there on the internet, never getting upset when people use it for their own purposes so long as they aren’t claiming it as their own or selling it in any form. After all, the whole purpose in doing this is to expose the work to as many people as possible. Periodically I check to see where it ends up. It’s interesting to see how several sites use my work on their masts, especially groups associated with archaeology who use my work from the Archaeology series.
Redtree Times 