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Posts Tagged ‘Poetry’

The Calming Flow

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Calming Flow— Coming to Principle Gallery, June 2025

In my youth the heart of dawn was in my heart, and the songs of April were in my ears.
But my soul was sad unto death, and I knew not why. Even unto this day I know not why I was sad.
But now, though I am with eventide, my heart is still veiling dawn,
And though I am with autumn, my ears still echo the songs of spring.
But my sadness has turned into awe, and I stand in the presence of life and life’s daily miracles.

—Youth and Age, Kahlil Gibran (1926)

I recently came across the opening portion above from the poem Youth and Age from poet/philosopher Kahlil Gibran (1883 –1931) and felt that it spoke deeply to both what I have been feeling in my recent work and in my own life. I suppose that makes sense since my work very much reflects the experience and feeling of my life. I 

I think that anyone who is into the autumn or winter of their life can identify with the message of these lines. The face in the mirror shows the wear of the years and the body often aches and groans but the heart and spirit still feel youthful. As Gibran puts it, my ears still echo the songs of spring.

But it is a youthfulness that comes with much more understanding and acceptance than when one was actually the age felt. I think this is put best in a passage from later in this poem:

And in my youth I would gaze upon the sun of the day and the stars of the night, saying in my secret, “How small am I, and how small a circle my dream makes.”
But today when I stand before the sun or the stars I cry, “The sun is close to me, and the stars are upon me;” for all the distances of my youth have turned into the nearness of age;
And the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great, has turned into a vision that weighs not nor does it measure.

The extremes of smallness and largeness of self that one sometimes felt in their youth has mellowed with the knowledge that while we are but small and seemingly insignificant bits of whatever you want to call this swirling, chaotic mass that is our existence and the universe, we occupy a place in it.

Born of a singularity, we are of it. 

And with that knowledge, as Gibran puts it so well, my sadness has turned into awe, and I stand in the presence of life and life’s daily miracles.

I think this thought is an apt description for what I see in this new painting, The Calming Flow, an 18″ by 18″ canvas that is part of my upcoming solo exhibit, Entanglement, at the Principle Gallery. I recognize that same sense of acceptance and realization that I read in Gibran’s verse. It is one of the calmness and patience that comes with age for some.

The complete poem Youth and Age is below.

Entanglement opens Friday, June 13 at the Principle Gallery with an Opening Reception from 6-8:30 PM. I will also be giving a Painting Demonstration at the gallery on the following day, Saturday, June 14, from 11 AM until 1 PM.

In my youth the heart of dawn was in my heart, and the songs of April were in my ears.
But my soul was sad unto death, and I knew not why. Even unto this day I know not why I was sad.
But now, though I am with eventide, my heart is still veiling dawn,
And though I am with autumn, my ears still echo the songs of spring.
But my sadness has turned into awe, and I stand in the presence of life and life’s daily miracles.
The difference between my youth which was my spring, and these forty years, and they are my autumn, is the very difference that exists between flower and fruit.
A flower is forever swayed with the wind and knows not why and wherefore.
But the fruit overladen with the honey of summer, knows that it is one of life’s home-comings, as a poet when his song is sung knows sweet content,
Though life has been bitter upon his lips.
In my youth I longed for the unknown, and for the unknown I am still longing.
But in the days of my youth longing embraced necessity that knows naught of patience.
Today I long not less, but my longing is friendly with patience, and even waiting.
And I know that all this desire that moves within me is one of those laws that turns universes around one another in quiet ecstasy, in swift passion which your eyes deem stillness, and your mind a mystery.
And in my youth I loved beauty and abhorred ugliness, for beauty was to me a world separated from all other worlds.
But now that the gracious years have lifted the veil of picking-and-choosing from over my eyes, I know that all I have deemed ugly in what I see and hear, is but a blinder upon my eyes, and wool in my ears;
And that our senses, like our neighbors, hate what they do not understand.
And in my youth I loved the fragrance of flowers and their color.
Now I know that their thorns are their innocent protection, and if it were not for that innocence they would disappear forevermore.
And in my youth, of all seasons I hated winter, for I said in my aloneness, “Winter is a thief who robs the earth of her sun-woven garment, and suffers her to stand naked in the wind.”
But now I know that in winter there is re-birth and renewal, and that the wind tears the old raiment to cloak her with a new raiment woven by the spring.
And in my youth I would gaze upon the sun of the day and the stars of the night, saying in my secret, “How small am I, and how small a circle my dream makes.”
But today when I stand before the sun or the stars I cry, “The sun is close to me, and the stars are upon me;” for all the distances of my youth have turned into the nearness of age;
And the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great, has turned into a vision that weighs not nor does it measure.
In my youth I was but the slave of the high tide and the ebb tide of the sea, and the prisoner of half moons and full moons.
Today I stand at this shore and I rise not nor do I go down.
Even my roots once every twenty-eight days would seek the heart of the earth.
And on the twenty-ninth day they would rise toward the throne of the sky.
And on that very day the rivers in my veins would stop for a moment, and then would run again to the sea.
Yes, in my youth I was a thing, sad and yielding, and all the seasons played with me and laughed in their hearts.
And life took a fancy to me and kissed my young lips, and slapped my cheeks.
Today I play with the seasons. And I steal a kiss from life’s lips ere she kisses my lips.
And I even hold her hands playfully that she may not strike my cheek.
In my youth I was sad indeed, and all things seemed dark and distant.
Today, all is radiant and near, and for this I would live my youth and the pain of my youth, again and yet again.

–Youth and Age, Kahlil Gibran 

 

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Magritte/ Poetry for the Unknown

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 9, 2025| 3 Comments »

The Happy Donor— Rene Magritte

I conceive of the art of painting as the science of juxtaposing colours in such a way that their actual appearance disappears and lets a poetic image emerge. . . . There are no “subjects”, no “themes” in my painting. It is a matter of imagining images whose poetry restores to what is known that which is absolutely unknown and unknowable.

–Rene Magritte, 1967, In a letter two months prior to his death

I am getting ready for my annual solo exhibit at the Principle Gallery. This year’s edition, Entanglement, my 26th such show at the Alexandria, VA gallery, opens five weeks from today on Friday, June 13th. I will also be doing a Painting Demonstration at the gallery the following Saturday, June 14, from 11AM until 1 PM. There is still a ton of work to be done so I am simply sharing a reworked post from several years back.

The quote above from Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte reminds me of an instance where I didn’t fully get across what I was trying to communicate in response to a question while speaking to a group. It occurred at a demonstration and talk I gave before a regional arts group consisting of enthusiastic painters, some amateurs and some professional.

While I was working, a question was brought up about the importance of subject. Magritte elegantly stated in his words what I was trying to say that evening, that the purpose of what I was doing was not in the actual portrayal of the object of the painting but in the way it was expressed through color and form and contrast. To me, the subject was not important except as a vehicle for carrying emotion.

Of course, I didn’t state it with any kind of coherence or clarity. Hearing me say that the subject wasn’t important visibly angered the man who was an art teacher and an accomplished lifelong painter of realistic landscapes. He said that the subject was most important in forming your painting. I fumbled around for a bit and don’t think I ever satisfied his question or got across a bit of what I was attempting to say.

I think he was still mad when he left which still bothers me because he was right, of course. Subject is certainly important. It is the artist’s relationship that with the subject and the emotional response it elicits that allows the artist to create this poetry of the unknown, as Magritte may have put it.

While I am not interested in depicting landscapes of specific areas, I am moved by the rolls of hills and fields and the stately personae of trees that populate my work. I believe it comes through in my painting. Yes, I can capture emotion in things that may not have any emotional attachment to me through the way I am painting them, which was part of what I was saying to that man that evening, but it will never be as fully realized as those pieces which consist of things and places in which I maintain a personal relationship. It is always easier to find the poetry of the unknown in those things which we know.

But there is a caveat: The subject is often not the tree or the landscape, as much as it may seem the case. Often, it is the vague poetry made from that tree, the sky, the landscape, or whatever is chosen to paint along with things not visibly apparent that makes up the atmosphere of the painting.

That poetry is the real subject of a painting. 

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The Moment– and a Mayfly

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »

A Matter of Perspective— At the West End Gallery

The Moment

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

–Margaret Atwood

It’s hard to watch the Billionaire Boys Club pillaging day after day, discarding people at will while staking claims and planting their flags on everything in sight. Brazenly displaying the power of their ownership.

I take some solace in putting things into perspective.

For example, the top of Mount Everest is comprised of limestone, sedimentary rock that contains marine fossils. It was formed more than 450 million years ago, during the Ordovician period, at the bottom of a large body of water before shifting tectonic plates and volcanic forces pushed it upward toward the sky, to the rooftop of the world. 

The land surface of the Earth is approximately 29% with the other 71% under water. Our knowledge of the Earth’s history is known primarily from limited examination over a very short period of time of a very small amount of the 29% that is currently above water. We know little, if anything, of what rests beneath the bottom of the other 71%. We know nothing of any other creatures or civilizations might have lived and prospered during their time on this Earth, before all evidence of their existence was plunged into the depths of the seas. 

I can’t say for sure, but it seems plausible that during those intervening 450 million years some being existed who dominated and ruled over the other beings in their region, claiming all the Earth that they could see and reach as their own. 

At the other end of the spectrum, the mayfly emerges from the water each year and lives for but a day. A mere 24 hours.

That lifespan seems ludicrously short and insignificant to us humans. But to the mayfly that timespan is all they will ever know, representing everything within their purpose. For that time period the world they know belongs to them.

Their ownership of their time and space is no different than our own. No less significant or insignificant than our own. When you compare the lifetime of the mayfly with that of the human within the Earth’s timeline, the difference between them is negligible. In the eyes of the Earth’s history, we are little different than the mere mayfly.

When our civilization is long gone and buried at the bottom of some future ocean, what importance will there be in the ownership and power possessed now? For that matter, in just a few years when age or violence has claimed the lives of the tyrants and oligarchs who revel in their power now, what good will the hoarded wealth, be to them?

The real estate and all the things on this Earth they claimed as their own never really belonged to them. As the poem says in its final verse:

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

In the end we own nothing here. We are but momentary visitors on the great timeline of this Earth.

You might ask how that gives me solace? After all, isn’t it simply evidence of my own insignificance? 

Well, yes, it is.

It shows us to all be little more than mayflies. And when the mayfly’s 24 hours are up, does the life of one mayfly matter anymore than that of another?  

Just thinking out loud this morning. Take it for what it worth– the ramblings of a mayfly…

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An Irish Trio

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 17, 2025| 2 Comments »

Paul Henry- The Fairy Thorn (1936)

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

— William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree (1888)

St. Patrick’s Day 2025.  No commentary today, just a simple triad of Irish imagery, song and verse.

The painting at the top is from Paul Henry, who spent his life painting his native Ireland from 1877 until his death in 1958. He was perhaps the best-known painter in Ireland through the first half of the 20th century though many of us here in the States may not recognize the name. I didn’t know his work until a decade or so ago, but had an affinity for it instantly, seeing a familiarity between his work and my own, in the stark manner in which the landscape and tree was portrayed.

Most of Henry’s landscapes were set in the west of Ireland, in the Connemara district, an area described by Oscar Wilde as “a savage beauty.”  For many, Henry’s landscapes represent the idealized image of the Irish countryside with simple white cottages set among stark, barren hills and rolling green fields. But his greens are not that bright Kelly green so often used in depicting Ireland. No, Henry often chose blue and brown tints in his work.  He used a very distinct and deceptively cool palette in his painting which enhances the earthy coolness and solitary nature of the landscapes.

The poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, is from the great W.B. Yeats and may well be the most famous piece of Irish verse. It has been set to music by numerous artists, referenced in film and television, and is even printed on the Irish passport. I find it’s transcendent tone captivating, a mood much like that which I try to find in my work.

For the song, I am going with Carrickfergus from the collaborative effort between the Chieftains and Van Morrison. This may be my favorite version of this folk tune that feels like it is much older than its actual age, coming as it does from the 1960’s. That old feel may come from the fact that musical scholars have deduced that its melody is a combination of two much older Celtic folk tunes.

Whatever the case, I think it is a lovely fit this morning with the words of Yeats and the painting from Henry.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow…

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Preferences and Possibilities

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Completeness— At West End Gallery

We do not belong to those who only get their thought from books, or at the prompting of books, — it is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful.

–Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882)

Below is a poem from the late Nobel Prize-winning Polish poetess Wislawa Szymborska (1923–2012) called Possibilities. I featured it here back in 2015 but it struck my fancy this morning and I thought I’d share it again and maybe add a bit to the original blogpost. It is basically a laundry list of her personal preferences. Some are small and some significant but all contribute mightily to her wholeness as a person. We are all the totality of our own laundry lists of preferences that define our character and personality just as our DNA determines our physical characteristics.

It’s a simple yet thought-provokingly complex poem that leave me wondering about my own preferences, my own possibilities. What are those small things that give you shape, make you who you are? Do we rely solely on these preferences in making the choices that we face in this life? Or do we sometimes make choices that do not align with our own preferences?

There are a lot of Symborska’s preferences that strike a chord with me. For instance:  I prefer myself liking people to myself loving mankind. That certainly has been my preference for most of my conscious life.

Then there’s: I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems. Like writing poetry, painting can often seem like an absurd thing to do. I often find myself asking why I am alone in the woods smearing paint on surfaces. Is there a purpose or meaning in it?

But I have known the other side of that coin, living a life where I wasn’t painting, and that existence was far more absurd for me. Absurd to an unsustainable degree.

And that final line says it all: I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility that existence has its own reason for being. We may never know whether there is a reason for our being but that should not take away from the life we have here.

If this is all we get, live by the possibility of your own preferences and not those of any other.

Live as you are. As you want to be.

You might not agree with some of her preferences. That’s okay– they’re not yours to determine. She is simply giving us a loose outline of her individual nature, her humanity. And there’s poetry in that for any of us.

I am also including a song which was a favorite of Symborska, who requested that the version below from Ella Fitzgerald be played at her funeral. The song is Black Coffee and since being written in 1948 by Sonny Burke it has been covered by some of the great vocalists of our times– Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, k.d. lang and so forth. You could pick any as your preference and they are all special. It’s that kind of song. But this version from the great and grand Ella Fitzgerald is extra special.

POSSIBILITIES

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here
to many things I’ve also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

–Wislawa Szymborska

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Nonno’s Poem

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 22, 2025| 2 Comments »

O Courage, could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell,
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me?

— Tennessee Williams, Night of the Iguana

The 1964 film Night of the Iguana was on TCM yesterday and I listened along as I painted yesterday. Based on the 1961 Tennessee Williams play, the film is one that has slowly become a favorite of mine.

By that, I mean it was hardly a favorite when I first saw it many years ago. Not sure I even watched the whole thing then. It felt grim to the younger me who wanted a neater and tidier story with sharply defined protagonists and an ending that tied up all the loose ends in a satisfying way. The younger me didn’t see any of that in this film then.

But with age, you realize that life is never neat and tidy, try as you might to make it so. The brokenness of the main characters in this film that once turned me off now seemed more pertinent to the world I now know, taking on a much deeper reality and meaning for me. Like much of the work from Tennessee Williams, it deals with broken people trying to make their way through this world. His work is seldom an easy thing to take in. But it is usually worth trying and over the years, I have myself growing into this film. 

I am not going to go into the story or the film here this morning. Nor am I endorsing this film for you. It is certainly art and is therefore subjective. Where I see light or hope in it, you might see darkness and despair. 

That’s art for you. As it should be.

I only mention the film this morning because I wanted to share the poem from the old poet, Nonno, who has ended up at the seedy Mexican resort where this takes place with his middle-aged granddaughter, who is an itinerant painter. She is played by Deborah Kerr who is an absolute favorite of mine. They have been traveling for a long time as he attempts to complete a poem that he has long labored over, one that deals with having a feeling heart in a corrupt world. 

The final version, in the video at the top of the page, delivered beautifully by Nonno, portrayed by Cyril Delevanti, is a wonderful scene and I thought it deserved to be shared. I also added the text of the poem below as well as a song, Night of the Iguana, from Joni Mitchell.

How calmly does the olive branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer,
With no betrayal of despair,

Sometime while night obscures the tree
The zenith of its life will be
Gone past forever, and from thence
A second history will commence.

A chronicle no longer gold,
A bargaining with mist and mould,
And finally the broken stem
The plummeting to earth; and then

An intercourse not well designed
For beings of a golden kind
Whose native green must arch above
The earth’s obscene, corrupting love.

And still the ripe fruit and the branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer,
With no betrayal of despair.

O Courage, could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell,
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me?

— Tennessee Williams, Night of the Iguana

 

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Cloud Flyer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 30, 2025| 2 Comments »

Cloud Flyer– At West End Gallery

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fattened lives that of their sweetness tire
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.

Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;
Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:
Let the thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.


–G. K. Chesterton, The Great Minimum (1917)

The new small painting at the top is titled Cloud Flyer and is now at the West End Gallery as part of their annual Little Gems exhibit. I showed my work for the first time ever at their first Little Gems show back in 1995. The show has proven to be one of their most popular shows every year since. I know it’s one of mine, both in painting for it and seeing the small work of the other artists.

It seems to go against logic but there seems to be something freeing in painting on a small scale. Maybe it’s because it feels less daunting facing a small unintimidating surface than being confronted with the broad blankness of a large canvas.

Or maybe because of the size there is only one take, to use a movie term. There are no preliminary sketches or studies. I know many artists who work in a 3-step process of first creating a small loose study then transfer it to a slightly larger version that is a bit tighter in its painting. They then attempt to transfer everything they have gleaned from the first two studies to a large and totally finished final painting. With few exceptions, when I get to see all the stages of a painting done in this way, the first sketch is generally the most alive of the three. It is fresh and free and, unlike the later stages, not trying to recapture something that may have been unintended when it emerged. The final painting often ends up feeling like a copy of something else other than what it is.

I don’t work that way. My belief has been that every painting ends up being a rehearsal for the next. Therefore, you should strive to paint each piece, no matter its size or significance, in the same manner. I think it creates consistency in the quality of the work, something that transcends its size. I feel that every small piece I have done for all the Little Gems shows over the years is a work unto its own.

That’s certainly how I feel about this small painting. It has things in it that I know I would be hard-pressed to recreate it on a larger scale and still maintain the original unique feel of this one. An angle here or there would be off, the composition and colors would be altered in some way, and it might feel a little stilted. Contrived. It wouldn’t be the same. And for me, that’s the way it should be.

This piece has its own life and a sense of freshness. This was one of the first pieces I worked on for this show and I can’t tell you how much I springboarded off the energy this little guy provided. It was like a little jolt of lightning hitting me at a time when I needed it.

That’s the reason I chose the section from the G.K. Chesterton poem, The Great Minimum, at the top. That final line– And the lightning. It is something to have been. — just kills me. The rest of the poem, as I read it, is about the small joys of being alive, how each small thing brings value to this world, and nothing is insignificant.

Little things mean a lot.

Of course, I could be wrong. We all read things differently with our own set of filters and desires for what we want to see and hear. 

For me, it fits this painting. And this exhibit.

Below is a version of the poem performed as a song by the Nicole Ensing Band. I liked this better than some of the dryer straight recitals of it. They do a nice job with it. Below that is the whole poem if you would like to read along.

The Great Minimum

It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched when all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,
Although it break and leave the thorny rods,
It is something to have hungered once as those
Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

To have seen you and your unforgotten face,
Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray,
Pure as white lilies in a watery space,
It were something, though you went from me today.

To have known the things that from the weak are furled,
Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;
It is something to be wiser than the world,
It is something to be older than the sky.

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fatted lives that of their sweetness tire,
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.

Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;
Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:
Let thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.

— G.K. Chesterton

 

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Of the Empire/ Mary Oliver

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 24, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Blue Moon Calls– At West End Gallery

Of The Empire

We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

–Mary Oliver, Red Bird (2008)

The question is: When the collective heart of a people has become small, and hard, and full of meanness, can a person keep their own heart from becoming the same?

Or maybe it should be: Is the condition of the collective heart, now small, and hard, and full of meanness, terminal? Can it ever be reversed so that one day in the future it will be said that we were a people whose heart was large, and soft, and filled with warmth and kindness?

Of course, only time will reveal the answers to these questions.

Time is, after all, the ultimate revelator.

On that note, here’s one of my all-time favorite songs, The Revelator, from Gillian Welch. When I worked in my first and much more rustic studio (no phone, TV, internet, or other distraction) up in the woods in the early 2000’s, this song was in heavy rotation on my playlist.

I imagine most of you know who Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was but for those of you not familiar, she was perhaps the best known and bestselling contemporary American poet in recent times. I have featured her work, including her best-known poem Wild Geese, several times in the past.

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Sea of the Six Moons

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Sea of the Six Moons– At West End Gallery

But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,
And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,
That the ship would not travel due West!

–Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark (1876)

I think the takeaway from this new small painting for me is that we sometimes find ourselves sailing on seas that don’t make sense.

The bearings that once guided our navigation have changed in ways that confuse us. The winds blow and the waves break in ways we have never seen before and don’t quite understand. Where there was one moon and recognizable constellations by which we could set a course, we find ourselves under a starless sky with six moons, some rising, some falling, some moving sideways.

And a familiar shoreline is nowhere to be found. And the only map we have is like the Bellman’s map in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark— a blank sheet of paper!

Lost sailors on strange seas with the only things we have at hand are ourselves, our imagination, a bit of courage, and the willpower to survive.

A dire situation, indeed. But we are still afloat and our sails intact. That is job one. We can do this.

Now that is my reading of this piece this morning at this particular moment in history. I have looked at this piece many times since I completed it a few weeks ago and saw it in more whimsical terms.  Less ominous and less fraught with peril. But either way, as a frightening allegory or as a flight of fancy, it satisfies me greatly. And that’s all I can ask of my work.

This piece is 8″ by 8′ on panel and is now at the West End Gallery in Corning. It will be included in their 31st annual Little Gems exhibit that opens February 7. The show is going up on the walls beginning today if you would like to stop in for a preview.

Here’s a song that leans heavily to the whimsical interpretation of this painting. It’s a version of a favorite Little Feat song, Sailin’ Shoes, performed by mandolinist Sam Bush, who is a big kahuna in the world of progressive bluegrass. Always good stuff and a good take on this song.

Now, to which moon do I set my course? There’s a snark out there somewhere to be found, for sure.

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It Makes No Difference

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Winterglide— At West End Gallery

“In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.”

Came out the door this morning and was met with -7°. Everything creaks differently at those temperatures, me included. I think part of my brain froze on the walk over to the studio so, instead of fumbling with that, I thought I’d share a post from 2019 that has been getting a lot of views here recently. The poem from Milosz is powerful and seems timely, especially that third stanza.

Struggle echoes and history rhymes…

I also added a song at the bottom, It Makes No Difference, from the Band. Their last living member, Garth Hudson, died yesterday at age 87. Hard to believe they are all gone.

But on the day the world ends their music will no doubt play on.

[From 2019]

I found that these intriguing words from the late Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz that came from his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. But while researching this quote, I came across this poem that really spoke to me. I thought I would share this as well. It was written in Warsaw, Poland in 1944 in the midst of the Nazi’s destruction of that city.

Basically, he is saying that though the world might seem to be in chaotic and deadly turmoil, that some will see that the world as they knew it is obviously ending, there are those who will not notice. The sun is shining as it always does and the moon will rise soon after as it, too, always does. Birds sing and fish swim as they always do. People go about their days, working and playing, as they always do.

How can this be the end of the world if such things go on unaffected? How can atrocity exist side-by-side with the mundane?

But the end he may be describing may not be the actual end of the world, though for some it surely does. The world is always changing sometimes in small ways and sometimes in large swipes. Every change means the end of one world and the beginning of another. Perhaps, while he is surely pointing to an actual ending of worlds for his neighbors in WW II Warsaw, he is also referencing a symbolic ending to worlds of innocence, of worlds of gentleness, replaced with worlds of violence and treachery.

I don’t know for sure but that is how I am reading it. Take a look and decide for yourself.

**************************

A Song on the End of the World

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world will there be,
No other end of the world will there be.

–Czeslaw Milosz   (1911-2004)

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