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Posts Tagged ‘Principle Gallery’

First Happiness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 27, 2025| 2 Comments »

Bound in Time— At Principle Gallery

Chaos is the first condition.

Order is the first law.

Continuity is the first reflection.

Quietude is the first happiness.

— James Stephens / The Crock of Gold (1912)

The lines above are from a novel, The Crock of Gold, from Irish author James Stephens. The form above is not how they were presented in the book originally. They were actually dialogue spoken by the main character, the Philosopher, in the comic/fantasy novel that deals with philosophy, murder, love and marriage, and Irish folklore, including Leprechauns and a stolen crock of gold.

From the bits of it I have read on Internet Archive where it is available, it seems like a wild ride. It has had continuing influence, too. The late Shane McGowan, leader of the Irish band The Pogues, used the title for his last studio album before his death.

But it is the bit of dialogue that caught my eye. It seemed to capture much of what I have been seeing in my work in recent times. Or. at least, hoping to see. You’re never quite sure what will emerge when you’re pulling things out of the ether.

This procedural list seems to match with what I am trying to depict. We try to identify order within the chaos in which we find ourselves. Having revealed whatever bit of order there is to be found, we try to maintain it through repetition of conditions and behaviors. Having done so, we find a bit of tranquility in whatever small patch of order we are able to maintain. Therein lies happiness.

That might be all you need to know about life.

I don’t know, that’s for damn sure. But it sounds like a decent recipe.

Maybe that is the gold in the Leprechaun’s crock?

Here’s a song that probably has nothing to do with post. Maybe that’s the chaos part of it?

Anyway, it came on the station I often listen to just a few minutes ago. I hear it every couple of days, and it always catches my attention, even if I am really focused on painting at that time. It’s One of Those Days from singer/songwriter Eilen Jewell.

Maybe the appeal for me is that I’ve had a lot of those days. Bet a lot of you have, as well.

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Beyond the Blue Horizon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 19, 2025| 3 Comments »

Wherever the Wind Takes Me – At Principle Gallery

The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his work a fulfillment instead of a horizon.

–Henry Miller, The Cosmological Eye (1939)

Love these words from Henry Miller. I think most people, artists included, look at a piece of art and see it as an endpoint rather than a jumping off point. I would like to think that my work serves both as an invitation and starting point for the viewer. My hope is that my little world as I present it is welcoming enough that they easily enter and feel comfortable. Once there, my wish is that they begin to explore both the space in which they are and the self they see in it. To start an inner journey of some sort, one that might last only for a few moments or for a lifetime.

That’s asking a lot, I know. And it’s not fully in my mind when I am at work because at that point I am fully engaged in my own inner journey. It’s only after I step back and try to view a piece with a more dispassionate eye that I begin to recognize if a piece has that potential in it.

A horizon to pursue.

A starting point of a journey.

Some do. Some don’t. And maybe some that I think do, don’t. And vice versa.

One never knows for sure. And that is the beauty of art. Some see totality and some see endless potentiality.

That’s all the time I have this morning. I see a horizon forming and need to get moving towards it.

Here’s a song from Michael Nesmith, best known as one of the Monkees. This is his take on Beyond the Blue Horizon, a song that was first performed by Jeanette MacDonald in 1930. It’s quirky but still works for me this morning.

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I Got a Feeling

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

NightFlare– At Principle Gallery

I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, ‘The Beatles did’.

— Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake (1997)

To make someone else appreciate the fact that they are alive is an admirable goal for any artist– or any person, for that matter.

I can’t say that it was my mission when I first began painting. I don’t know that I actually had a mission other than trying to find something that would release the pent-up feelings within me. It began as a selfish act, for me alone.

There was never a consideration of its effect on other people. Actually, I doubted that it would have any effect on others. At the time, I didn’t have a lot of faith in my ability to do much of anything, let alone make others appreciate the fact they were alive. I wasn’t sure that I was that thrilled about being alive so who was I to make others feel that way?

But as time passed, the work I was doing, after first being an expression of self for myself alone, became a way of reaching out to people, many who recognized their own feelings in that work. I have been blessed to have heard from so many people over the years that tell me how the work has affected them. 

The effect this has had on me is immeasurable. I can’t say that it measures up to Vonnegut’s mission aim of making people appreciate being alive.  But I can unequivocally say that the reactions these folks pass on to me make me glad I am alive.

Maybe that should be a corollary to Vonnegut’s words, that the mission for the artist should also be to find a gladness for their own life in making others realize their appreciation for being alive.

If so, mission accomplished.

Here’s a favorite song and performance by those very same Beatles. This is from their legendary concert that took place in January of 1969 from the rooftop of their Apple Corps headquarters in London. It was their last public performance. I am not going to try to explain the effect that the Beatles had on everything in their short lifespan, not just on music. There are no contemporary comparisons, nor have there been any since, to make someone who came of age after they were around understand their influence and reach since the world had already changed by then. The shortest way I can describe it as the world was in black-and-white before the Beatles and in full, vivid color afterwards.

I love this performance of I Got a Feeling, particularly that of Paul McCartney, though everyone shines, including Billy Preston on keyboards, though you only get brief glimpses of him.

Makes me glad to be alive. 

Mission accomplished.

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Bulb or Light?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 10, 2025| 5 Comments »

Quiet Revelation-Now at Principle Gallery

The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to lose it, is to identify yourself, not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. And when you can do that, and this is something learned from my myths, What am I?  of which the bulb is a vehicle?

One of the psychological problems in growing old is the fear of death. People resist the door of death. But this body is a vehicle of consciousness, and if you can identify with the consciousness, you can watch this body go like an old car. There goes the fender, there goes the tire, one thing after another— but it’s predictable. And then, gradually, the whole thing drops off, and consciousness rejoins consciousness. It is no longer in this particular environment.

~Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

That is a great question: Are we the bulb that carries the light, or are we the light?

While I believe there may be an absolute answer that is deeply etched in whatever makes up and energizes the universe, the answer for our time here in this small world is determined by each of us.

We can see ourselves as being only a physical being. A body with a brain that is simply another part of it. And maybe that is all the brain is, a control module that exists to help the body maneuver and survive this world, with very little to do with our actual consciousness– that light, that lifeforce, that we carry and emit.

Or we can see ourselves as that light that is something apart from and only temporarily contained by our physical vessels. That we are that lifeforce that exists beyond our time here in this plane.

In our youth, we tend to see only the physical nature of our being- strength and beauty and the quickness of the mind. I thought that way for a while. But over the years, witnessing others struggle with disease and death while experiencing my own aging with the dings, dents, and slipping gears that accompany it, to continue the old car metaphor Campbell employed above, I definitely see things more in the latter mode, that we are the light, the consciousness, that is carried by the bulb that is our body. And someday, sooner or later, when our engine is blown and our fenders rotted off as the tow truck comes to haul us to the junkyard, our consciousness will go on. 

Cosciousness shall rejoin the greater consciousness. Our light will rejoin the greater light.

Just a thought, my own viewpoint as an old Subaru, this morning. I could go on, of course, and maybe I am remiss in not doing so. But I think I’ve said enough this morning and I’ll let you fill in the blanks like it’s some sort of philosophical Mad-Libs.

Besides, I want to get to the Sunday Morning Music for this week.

Here’s a great version of This Little Light of Mine from bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley. I had the great pleasure of seeing him perform a number of years back at Radio City Music Hall as part of the Down From the Mountain tour which featured the many singers and musicians– Alison Krauss & Union Station, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Patty Loveless, and Stanley— whose music played a large role in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? Stanley’s performance of O Death was perhaps the most powerful moment from a memorable show.

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The Weight of Dreams…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Night’s Dream— At Principle Gallery

“As I thought of these things, I drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and it seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light filling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who labour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy, bodies into souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour my mortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men of letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate spiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many dreams.”

—W.B. Yeats, Rosa Alchemica (1896)

It seems like each new day sees us bearing witness to yet another outrage, often greater than that of the day before which was greater than the day before it. This downward and backward spiral goes on and on to a point not so long ago when those with darkest and most amoral souls were vilified and ostracized, not idolized and elevated before the public in the way we are currently experiencing.

Those days, though not so long ago, seem like ancient history now as the behavior of the worst of us grows at an alarming geometric pace. To those of us who wish to lead a simple, quiet, and peaceful life that sees us doing no harm to others and others doing no harm to us, these days feel like we are being beaten down with a bag of oranges, each blow hurting a bit more until we are in a state of numb submission.

The dreams and aspirations of so many that once seemed to be within reach now feel even further removed, distant like the stars in the sky. It is a time when dreams fall by the wayside. It begs the question that the poet Langston Hughes asked in his poem Harlem:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

What will happen with the dreams of so many being not only deferred, but destroyed?

I don’t know. It certainly feels that is must be sagging like heavy load for many folks at this point. Or like they are furiously treading water just trying to stay afloat.

The question remains: How does one keep their dreams alive in times such as these?

Maybe that is one purpose of the spiritual element of art in all its many forms–to lift our vision and our spirit, to inspire creative thought and action that will transcend the horror that stalks the present moment. To stave off the drying up, the festering, the stinking rot, and crusting over so that dreams may be kept alive. 

Maybe.

And if it explodes? Maybe art then provides guidance and unity through the explosion as well as a reminder of who we are and the values we hold dear.  And in the aftermath of the explosion it may serve as a template to follow in our rebuilding so that the errors that brought us to this point are not repeated. 

Well, until time and a new darkness clouds our memories once more and we begin a similar downward spiral.

My dream is that we don’t forget, that we are lifted up and dreams continue to be both dreamed and realized by many folks, not just those privileged few who dream of hoarding everything for themselves.

Here’s a little-known song from Bruce Springsteen that I am pretty sure has not been shared here before. It’s called Dream Baby Dream. I saw him perform this once during a solo show in 2005 that featured only him and his guitar, his piano, and for this song, a pump organ. It is a spare, simple song and its sound mounted throughout so that it became almost mantra.

Very powerful. A mantra for our times, perhaps.

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How To Be a Poet–a Reminder

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Answering Light— At Principle Gallery,

make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

—Wendell Berry

I run the post below every five years or so. Since I’m busy this morning (trying to not disturb the silence) and it’s been five years, thought today would be as good a time as any to replay it.

Regardless of what we do, we all need a reminder now and then to heed the silence.

I came across this poem a while ago from poet/author Wendell Berry on Maria Popova‘s wonderful site, Brain Pickings. It’s a lovely rumination that could apply to any creative endeavor or to simply being a human being.

I particularly identified with the final verse that begins with the line: Accept what comes from silence and ends with the lines above. I’ve always thought there was great wisdom and power in silence, a source of self-revelation and creative energy. Perhaps that self-revelation is why so many of us shun the silence, fearing that it might reveal our true self to be something other than what we see in the mirror.

Berry’s words very much sum up how I attempt to tap into silence with my work, to find those little words that cone out of the silence, like prayers, and to find inner spaces to paint that are sacred to me and not yet desecrated by the din of the outside world.

At the bottom is a recording of Wendell Berry reading the poem which gives it even a little more depth, hearing his words in that rural Kentucky voice. It’s fairly short so please take a moment and give a listen.

HOW TO BE A POET
(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill — more of each
than you have — inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

—Wendell Berry

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Magical things…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 31, 2025| 3 Comments »

Betwixt and Between— At Principle Gallery

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

― Eden Phillpotts, A Shadow Passes (1919)

Running very late today. Overslept for a change. But I wanted to share the quote above from British author/poet/dramatist Eden Phillpotts who lived a life, 1862 to 1960, that spanned a time period marked by huge changes in society, culture, and technology.

It was an amazing time period to be alive. But, as Dickens wrote in regard to a different era, it was both the best and worst of times.  It was a time that saw huge advancements in science and medicine that brought relief to many who suffered. It was beginning of the Industrial Revolution with the huge technological shifts that advances brought such as the rise of the automobile, the airplane, radio, television along with the beginnings of space exploration and computerization. I am not always sure if the rise of the computer should go in the best or worst category. For this discussion, we will put it in the best.

But there were also two World Wars and multiple civil wars. Holocausts and ethnic cleansings. The rise of fascism and Nazism. The nuclear bomb was developed.

I am just spit-balling here off the top of my head and not even going into the cultural and societal shifts that occurred during that period. In short, it was an amazing time period.

But in that time period did our intelligence expand along with the knowledge that spawned such great change? Did our wits sharpen in any way to make us sense those magical things that surround us?

I can’t say. I doubt it. There is certainly little evidence of it taking place. Maybe that is why the bests and worsts of that era and our own run to the extremes. Maybe our wits are not yet developed enough to fully utilize the changes we have experienced as well as the magic that always surrounds us.

Hmm. That’s a lot to think about for a guy who just rolled out of bed and hasn’t even combed his hair or washed his face. Maybe I won’t even bother today. Maybe I will just focus on sharpening those wits. Mine have been dulled down lately and do need a touch up.

The painting at the top, Betwixt and Between, very much relates to the words of Phillpotts and the song below from Dave Brubeck. It is Sixth Sense from his 1964 album, Jazz Impressions of New York.

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Henry Miller/ The Eternal Here and Now

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 29, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Wakening Light— At Principle Gallery

Strange as it may seem today to say, the aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. In this state of god-like awareness one sings; in this realm the world exists as poem. No why or wherefore, no direction, no goal, no striving, no evolving. Like the enigmatic Chinaman, one is rapt by the everchanging spectacle of passing phenomena. This is the sublime, the a-moral state of the artist, he who lives only in the moment, the visionary moment of utter, far-seeing lucidity. Such clear icy sanity that it seems like madness. By the force and power of the artist’s vision the static, synthetic whole which is called the world is destroyed. The artist gives back to us a vital, singing universe, alive in all is parts.

In a way the artist is always acting against the time-destiny movement. He is always a-historical. He accepts Time absolutely, as Whitman says, in the sense that any way he rolls (with tail in mouth) is direction; in the sense that any moment, every moment, may be the all; for the artist there is nothing but the present, the eternal here and now, the expanding infinite moment which is flame and song. And when he succeeds in establishing this criterion of passionate experience (which is what Lawrence meant by ‘obeying the Holy Ghost’) then, and only then, is he asserting his humanness. Then only does he live out his pattern as Man. Obedient to every urge — without distinction of morality, ethics, law, custom, etc.

— Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart, 1941

I’ve had this passage from Henry Miller sitting in a draft file for a long time now. Maybe it was his use of the dated stereotype of the enigmatic Chinaman that kept me from using it. It sounds cringey, yes. Definitely not the preferred nomenclature today, as Walter from The Big Lebowski would be quick to point out.

But I understand that his reference is not a slur as he was referring to the wise and stoic sages such as Confucius and Lao Tzu. It was about artists acquiring a similar Zenlike state in their work one that transports them to the eternal here and now, as Miller put it.

The expanding infinite moment which is flame and song…

That is what struck me about this passage. It is something I understand and maybe the main reason I am a painter today. More so than any reasons based on practicality or talent.

It is that moment that comes while working on a painting when I am no longer in the studio on that particular day but instead find myself in the place and time of the painting on which I am working–the eternal here and now. 

 A different reality has taken hold then and its feeling is palpable. It is both liberating from and unifying with the world in which I live. Liberating in that the world outside my studio with its lies, hatred, corruption, and stupidity seems like a distant planet in that time and place. Unifying in that this act of creation, this other time and place, allows me to express a connection with humanity that I sometimes struggle to find on the outer world. Asserting my humanness, as Miller wrote.

Of course, this does not happen here in the studio every time I stand before my easel. No, it is a rare gem that is buried deep and has to be excavated. The world impinges further into the studio on some days and in recent weeks I have lacked the energy and mental clarity to be transported fully to that other place and time– the eternal here and now— for any extended visits.

But it’s getting better every day. Yesterday I was able to once again find that place and time for a spell and it was like a trip to a spa for me. As free and easy a day in the studio as I have had in well over a month. It didn’t last long but it felt good for the time I was there and not here.

I hope to find that place and time again today. And to stay a little longer. 

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The Search for Communion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Finis Terrae (Land’s End) — At Principle Gallery

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature – if that word can be used in reference to man, who has ‘invented’ himself by saying ‘no’ to nature – consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.

–-Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950)

I employed this passage from Octavio Paz a few years back but felt that it conveyed the search for communion that I see in this painting, Finis Terrae (Land’s End). Currently at the Principle Gallery, it is one of those pieces that haunts me, lingering with me in a way that is always close at hand.

It was that way while I was painting it and in the short time I spent with it in the studio before made its way to the gallery. I couldn’t stop looking at it. It seemed to represent a search for something beyond that which one could experience with the five senses.

I struggled to identify what that thing might be and realized that the thing being sought was a sense of communion, a uniting with all from which we are comprised.

In this realization, I recognized that it presented a duality.  I could see in this painting the ache that comes in the search, the desire to know that which is unknowable, while at the same time feeling a sense of peace.

That comes from understanding that the search is both a question asked in futility and its own answer.

It’s this duality that keeps me coming back to this painting in my mind.

It is both question and answer. And neither. A communion of both.

Don’t know if that will make sense to anyone but me this morning. Can’t tell if this is evidence of my mind getting sharper in response the antibiotics or evidence that it is still a bit lost in the fog.

Here’s a bit of music that I shared along with the words from Paz in that earlier post. It is a short classical violin piece from contemporary composer John Harbison. This is Song 2 from his 1985 work, Songs of Solitude. It seems to work for me as I look once more at this painting.

A needed communion…

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Between Yes and No

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

The Pacifying Light– At Principle Gallery

 

A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover through the detours of art those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

–-Albert Camus

These lines above are from an early essay, Between Yes and No, written by the French Nobel Prize-winning writer Albert Camus. It basically states, in sometimes grim detail, his belief that art “exalts and denies simultaneously.” In short, truth is generally somewhere in the middle, never absolutely in yes or no.

Yes or no is generally an oversimplified view, the extreme ends of the pendulum’s arc on which we swing.

While I may not fully understand all the subtleties of Camus’ essay, I do fully agree with the premise as I see it in my own simplified way. I think that art communicates best when it contains both the yes and the no— those polar oppositions that create a tension to which we react on an emotional level. For example, I think my best work has come when it contains opposing elements such as the light of hope or optimism tinged with the darkness of fear or remorse.

The Yes and The No of things. The certainty and uncertainty of all things.

Beyond that, I find this line about the artist’s effort to rediscover those few simple images that somehow first stirred something within their heart and soul intriguing. I certainly recognize it within my own work. I had no idea what I was trying to find when I first began to paint those many years ago. But the idea that there were some inner images that needed to be expressed nagged at me, even though I wasn’t fully aware of what those images were. They were slowly revealed to me and though I often didn’t fully understand their meaning, they somehow made sense and began to fill an emptiness.

That continues to this day. It is, as Camus, says, a slow trek. I still don’t know what to expect when I begin to paint and still have the nagging feeling that there is still an image out there– or in there– that eludes me. But I have some small degree of certainty, for whatever that is worth, that it is there waiting to be discovered. I just have to keep moving towards it.

Here’s a favorite song from a favorite artist, Rhiannon Giddens.  The song is the folk classic Wayfaring Stranger. It’s one of those songs that has been covered by a multitude of singers and is such a strong tune that every incarnation is equally wonderful.

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