Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams, Lover of loneliness, and wandering, Of upcast eye, and tender pondering! Thee must I praise above all other glories That smile us on to tell delightful stories. For what has made the sage or poet write But the fair paradise of Nature’s light?
— John Keats, I Stood Tip-Toe Upon a Little Hill (1816)
As I have noted here a number of times, my show at the Principle Gallery, this year titled Flow, is a mix of old and new work, a semi-retrospective. Gong through the available work and selecting which pieces would be included was a tough but wonderful task. It forced me to examine some pieces a bit closer with an eye that is somewhat different than when the work was painted. In a few cases, my whole perspective on the paintings had changed and the work now revealed insights and emotions I had missed before.
And in some, my original feelings were reinforced mightily.
Placid Pondering, shown above, falls in that category. I felt from the time it was painted in 2012 that this 24″ by 24″ canvas had a certain message and strength that came through clearly. Looking at it fourteen years later, that only seems to have strengthened for me.
The acrylic inks employed in this piece, which were the primary media in the first decade or so of my work, allow the white of the textured gesso surface come through and create a warm glow. It has a great depth in it that creates the feeling of being beneath and in the center of airy dome.
Apart and peaceful.
The perfect place for considering the world.
It is a painting that makes me happy though I am not sure at this moment that happy is the right word.
Maybe satisfied fits better?
Whenever I look at this painting, I find myself thinking that I would be very content in being that Red Tree in that place and time, apart yet connected to the world by that thin white ribbon of a path that runs to it.
Does that path might indicate that it is indeed my destination, that it is a place that can be one day reached?
I don’t know. But I hope so.
Just have to keep walking that ribbon, forever working towards it.
Here’s a song in sort of that vein of thought. It’s an acoustic version from U2 of their song Walk On. The song was originally on their 2000 album, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, a title I might have to consider for a future Archaeology painting.
Who knows? For now though, take the title of this song literally and walk on, okay?
Git.
This painting and many more are currently at the Principle Gallery for next week’s opening of Flow, my annual show there. Though the work is available now for previews and prebuys, the show opens officially with an Opening Reception on Friday, June 12, that runs from 6-8:30 PM.
When our universe is in harmony with man, the eternal, we know it as truth, we feel it as beauty.
–Rabindranath Tagore, The Religion of Man {1931)
When I finished this larger painting back in 2015, it was its feeling of peace and harmony that first hit me. That feeling in this piece hasn’t left me in the past decade.
I saw the Red Tree here as both an observer and a participant in the wonder of the harmony surrounding it, as though it was conductor before an orchestra who stands rapt by the music being produced which creates harmonies of color and form that whirl through its mind.
The rolls of the fields as well as their darker tones represent the beginning of harmony, as form and rhythm are found. These rolls transition, with the Red Tree’s guidance, into the warmer colors of the fields in the middle of this piece that then move towards a blank and distant horizon, representing the eternal nature of harmony.
The world is right. All is as one.
In that moment, the title that came to me was Concordia. Corncordia was the ancient Roman goddess of peace, harmony, and unity. It seemed like a fine fit then and it still feels right.
Concordia is, as I said a above a larger painting, measuring 36″ by 36″ on canvas. It is included in Flow, this year’s edition of my annual solo exhibit at the Principle Gallery. The Opening Reception for this exhibit, my 27th consecutive at the prominent Alexandria gallery, is next Friday, June 12, running from 6-8:30 PM.
I will be there, come Hell or high water. Over the past 27 years of shows, there have times of both and we’re still going. That wasn’t a sure thing just a few months ago when I was struggling with my treatment and my time at work suffered. But the show has come together extremely well.
The world contained within it is right and I find myself being pretty damn proud of it.
That might be a boldly foolish statement, but I am going with it, nonetheless.
Here’s a wonderful composition from Claude Debussy that is indicative of what I see in this piece. It is his Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faunfrom 1894. It runs about ten minutes but this performance from the Berliner Philharmoniker is worth a few extra minutes.
Maybe it will put your world into a state of peace and unity that you can carry into the rest of your day.
Maybe not. Who knows? Either way, it is a marvelous piece of music.
So, listen quietly and happily or get out before you screw up my little bit of oneness with the world.
You do know I am joking when I say stuff like that, right?
Everpresent (2003)- Coming to the Principle Gallery
Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.
–John Updike, Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989)
This painting, Everpresent, has lived with me for a long time now. It was painted in 2003, and I believe it was shown in a gallery setting only once before returning to me. It is a piece I have looked at thousands of times over the years. So often that after a while I was looking and not really even seeing it, if that makes any sense to you. I think it was a matter of me thinking that I had absorbed everything it had to offer, that it was completely within me.
I took for granted that it had nothing new to offer. And as it happens so often in those cases where we take something for granted, we are wrong. I realized my mistake one day a year or two ago with this painting. It was hanging in a bedroom here in the studio that serves as a library, with filled bookshelves lining two of the walls. It had hung in that spot for probably a decade or more. I stopped and looked at it. Really looked at it, trying to see if it had something that I had missed in the thousands of sometime cursory views I had given it over the years. I tried to see it with new and fresh eyes, not my old, tired ones.
Could it offer anything new?
For many years, as the title suggests, I viewed this as though the everpresent I referenced was a spiritual force. That perception made sense in my mind. Seemed natural.
But with new eyes looking at it, I perceived something quite different. I saw the Red Tree as being symbolic of those dreams we hold for ourselves and place before us as goals and destinations. The Red Roofed houses were assembled in this piece as being a sort of roadblock, a barrier that stood between the viewer and that distant dream as personified by the Red Tree. The same held true for the body of water standing between the viewer and the Red Tree– another barrier to be overcome.
The Everpresent I saw now was not some omniscient spiritual force. No, it was the dream, the aspiration, that one holds forever in their mind. Some of us stay forever separated from them by the roadblocks and barriers between us and our dreams. Some don’t even attempt to get past them. But the dream remains always though sometimes it fades into the distance for those that have given up hope of ever reaching their dream.
And the lucky few do reach that distant land where the dream in the form of the Red Tree dwells.
It was a much different reading of the painting than I was expecting. And this delighted me, even though I was happy with what the painting was expressing to me before this new view. It made me think that maybe the dreams we hold are a spiritual force of some sort.
They certainly might constitute a belief system– self-belief. It seems to me that the stronger one’s belief in their ability to reach their dream, the more likely it is achieved. But like any belief system, how we go about practicing it is our affair, something we must deal with on our own terms. There is no one way to go about it.
Everpresent is 11″ by 14″ on canvas and is included in Flow, the exhibit of my work that opens June 12 at the Principle Gallery.
Here’s the late Roy Orbison doing his Dream Baby backed by an all-star band from back in 1988.
Okay, got to get going. Much to do still and little time to waste on the likes of you. You do know I’m kidding, don’t you?
I won’t tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world’s voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose!
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)
I am including the painting at the top in my upcoming solo exhibit, Flow, at the Principle Gallery. As I have pointed out here, this year’s show, my 27th at the Principle, will be a hybrid retrospective, mixing both new and older work. This painting is titled The Choiceand is 18″ by 24″ on canvas. It was painted in 2017 and has long been a favorite of mine. This painting always hit hard with me, both in its visual pop, which it has in spades, and the meaning I take from it.
That meaning, which always jumps out at me when I stand before this piece, is that we all choose the path we take in this life. For some it is an unconscious choice but for others it is a deliberate decision.
We all too often walk through life on a path guided by the expectations and demands of others. Maybe it is family, friends, society– the whole world. We seldom if ever stray from that path, following their rules of the road and accepting their definitions of who and what we are.
And so it goes. We shuffle down the path and play the part. We don’t make waves, don’t step out of line, keep our heads down, and take what we’re given. And there is considerable pressure from others to do so. It is a heavy burden trying to live up to the expectations and opinions of others.
When we are young, most of us wants to be pointed out or be considered the odd one who is out of place. So, while we have the desire to break away, we often keep in place in the safe security of the crowded path.
We all want to be included, to be part of the club. We want to please others and not disappoint them by not living up to their expectations.
For some of us, this path continues throughout our lives and for many that is enough. And there is nothing wrong with that. How can anyone decry someone choosing to be safe and secure?
But for some, that is not nearly enough. The words at the top from Oscar Wilde‘s play, Lady Windermere’s Fan, perfectly capture this feeling.
For those folks there is a nagging thought, a strong desire to veer off that path and break free from the bonds of society and its imposed expectations. You want to stand apart, to live in the world in your own way, and be that person that you see yourself to be. To set aside the labels imposed on you so that you can begin defining yourself.
To be that person you know you are.
It sounds simple, even easy. Of course, it’s not. The pressure of pleasing the desires and expectations of others is replaced by other stresses created by the lack of the safety net that that one has when staying on the main road. But that is mostly overcome by the knowledge that you are on your own path, with as much freedom available as your dare to grab.
It can be hard going, not for the squeamish. But it is there for those of us who never felt at home in the crowd on that main road.
It is an always available choice.
Choose…
Here’s a tune whose chorus has lived rent-free in my head for nearly 50 years. Here’s David Bromberg from How Late’ll You Play Til?, his 1976 album. This is Get Up and Go. Here’s that chorus:
You’ve got a mind of your own Why don’t you use it? You know your way home or did you lose it? Well, you knew right where you were going When you walked up to that door And anytime you wanna leave Get up to go
Fine words to bear in mind if you’re at that spot on your path and have to choose which to follow. Whichever you choose, get up and go.
I think a lot of people have unreasonable expectations because they never stop to consider what life actually has to offer them. They’re always looking for some great epiphany from the skies. They never stop to consider the fact which human beings find hardest to recognize: “Maybe I’m not worthy of an epiphany.”
–Robertson Davies, Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)
The painting above, Epiphany, is another painting that will be heading to the Principle Gallery for my June show. It’s a painting that satisfies me on several levels. The contrast of the corona of light around the Red Tree against the underlying darkness of the black underpainting and the deep reds and yellows are right in my sweet spot. It also connects with me on a personal level, bringing to mind a very early painting that I might consider my one true experience with epiphany.
The word epiphany, of course, denotes someone experiencing a sudden and profound realization. A Eureka!moment. I never really thought about such things before. I mean who has time to seek something like epiphany when you’re just trying to get by in this world? And even if I had thought about it, I would have no doubt ascribed to the words above from the late Canadian man of letters, Robertson Davies, that you could waste your life seeking something that will never be available to you while the miracle of this world and our existence in it is in plain sight all the time. I am pretty sure I would not have seen myself as being worthy of an epiphany.
But you never know, do you? After my accidental fall from a ladder brought me to painting in late 1993, I began to spend several hours a day painting in between my job as waiter in a pancake house and working towards completing the construction of our home. I didn’t have any expectations at that point, never saw it doing anything other than providing an outlet for expressing pent up emotions in a constructive way. I would have been happy with that.
Well, I think would have been. It didn’t turn out that way so how can I really know what I would felt if that had been the case?
Anyway, as I worked in our back bedroom for several months, I began to feel that my painting had something more to offer me but I wasn’t seeing it. And to be honest, I had no idea what it might be or what it would even mean if I were to come across it. How would I know such a thing?
I tried to not think about such things and just focused on what the painting was giving me in the moment. Just seeing it develop and progress seemed to be enough.
One evening that summer, after doing my morning shift then working for a few hours on our house, I went home and sat down to paint. I was working on a small painting and suddenly it beckoned on me that what I was looking at was exactly that thing I was looking for. It suddenly had form and substance. More than that, I could see it in a flash that it instantaneously opened a path forward for me. I didn’t know where it would lead but I knew that it had to be followed.
I remember so distinctly that moment. I felt a giddy excitement that was a shock to me. The hair on the back of my neck was raised and my heart was racing. I didn’t know what to do. I mean, what do you do when something hits you like that? Nobody told me that something like this might happen. I needed to tell someone about this, but Cheri was still at work.
First View (1994)
I paced anxiously for a couple of hours, waiting for Cheri to return. I met her at the door and made her follow me into the back bedroom. I picked up the small piece of watercolor paper that held the painting. I can’t remember exactly how it was phrased but I said something like, “Look at this! Look at this!”
She looked then replied, “Yeah. It’s nice. What is it?”
“You don’t see it? That’s IT!”
“What’s it?
“This is what I have been looking for. This means something. I don’t know where or what, but this is going to take us somewhere.”
I told her how it came to be and my explosion of emotion when it appeared. I still am not sure she was impressed or convinced by what I was saying that night. In retrospect, I can understand that. It’s a quiet, simple little piece. It doesn’t yell or wave its arms to grab your attention.
But that didn’t matter to me. In my eyes that night– and even now– it set off explosions in me that blew down walls that had been hindering me from seeing the path that was now before me. It felt like it had opened up a whole new section of synapses in my brain that I had not been using up to that point.
I later titled it First View since it felt like I was looking at a newly discovered and unexplored vista. This unassuming little painting still retains its power for me. Every painting since this piece has been an attempt to recapture that explosive reaction that I felt on that summer night in 1994. There have been potent and wonderful moments from other paintings but none that came close to the feeling this painting provided.
Was that an epiphany? I don’t know. But if it wasn’t, maybe like Davies said, I wasn’t worthy of an epiphany and will probably never experience one. I don’t know that I could physically or mentally handle a real epiphany if that wasn’t one.
But epiphany or not, the painting above symbolizes and very well captures that moment from 1994. It is a direct descendant of First View and being so, carries elements from it that speak clearly to me, providing moments that recall that first epiphany, if that is indeed what it was. Letting me know that I was not mistaken in following the path I was given.
This day will never come again and anyone who fails to eat and drink and taste and smell it will never have it offered to him again in all eternity. The sun will never shine as it does today…But you must play your part and sing a song, one of your best.
—Herman Hesse, Klingsor’s Last Summer (1920)
Only Now, shown above, is a 24″ by 30″ painting from 2012. It is scheduled for inclusion in my June solo show at the Principle Gallery. It has long been a favorite of mine.
I don’t know that I can put a finger on any specific reason for that, but it remains one of those pieces that speaks directly to me. Maybe it is its combination of airiness and earthiness or perhaps it is its clarity of both expression and message for me.
I guess the reason doesn’t matter so much as the fact that it communicates and connects with me on an emotional level. That is the final arbiter for me in all things.
A coincidence occurred while I was looking for a short quote or passage to accompany this painting. I came across the passage above from a lesser-known Hermann Hesse novella that I felt was custom made for this painting. The coincidence came in that I had just purchased the book last week and it still sits unopened and unread on the counter by the backdoor to the studio.
Mere coincidence? Most likely. But it made me wonder about the convergences of things and whether they have meaning in our lives, themes that seem at home in Hesse’s writings. And in my paintings.
By the way, Klingsor’s Last Summer is about a middle-aged painter in the last summer of his life. There is no coincidence here. This will not be my last summer, not by a long shot. Too many paintings still unpainted. Nor am I a middle-aged hedonistic, hard drinking womanizer in Italy like Hesse’s title character.
That description makes my life sound pretty damn boring. But I guess how we experience life is not so important as simply experiencing each day with the understanding that is a once-in-a-lifetime event.
Life is like art– to each his own.
And sometimes the inverse holds true– art is life.
Here’s a song to that might seem at first blush to be an odd choice to go along with this painting. But if you’ve ever really listened closely to the lyrics, you will understand the connection.
Day after day, alone on a hill The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still But nobody wants to know him, they can see that he’s just a fool And he never gives an answer
But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down And the eyes in his head see the world spinning around
The song is, of course, the Beatles classic The Fool on the Hill from their 1967 album, Magical Mystery Tour. Though the Beatles’ original cannot be surpassed, I am sharing this version from Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 for the simple reason that I have always loved its sound and vibe.
And as you know, I am all about the vibe. Says the fool on his hill…
You got to ride lonesome You got to try to find the road You got to cry a river And follow it all the way home Alone
— Beck, Ride Lonesome (2026)
The painting at the top, Room to Breathe, has long been a favorite of mine. When it was painted in 2010, it seemed different than the work I was doing at the time, more like a throwback to my earlier work. It had that feel, painted as it was with the transparent inks that marked my early work. It also had that same airy solitariness with the Red Tree out and away from the other trees beneath a wide and deep sky.
But more than these other similarities, it had a simplicity that I was craving at the time. My early work was simple by design, meant to cut away the distraction of detail, allowing the few basic forms to hopefully dance and harmonize with one another. More than that, it allowed space for the viewer’s own feelings.
Room to Breathe felt like it was very much cut from the same cloth.
It is well traveled, having made the rounds of the galleries around the country through the years. Every piece does not immediately find a home and sometimes those pieces that I consider true gems are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, having a painting return to you is not uncommon. In fact, it’s a regular and expected thing for any artist, something taken it in stride.
But with some pieces, there is a sense of hurt attached to them when they return. Every piece I paint has an emotional investment, carrying with it some part of me. But some pieces seem to carry a bit more of me with them. Their return always feels like it is not only the painting that is being rejected. It feels like it is a personal rejection as well.
I know that this is not the case. But that feeling still lingers even after I have rationalized the why’s and how’s of it. I sometimes think it is like seeing something in your child that is not evident to everyone else and how deeply you feel at even the most minor of rejections they experience.
It is a disappointment that comes when others are somehow blind to the qualities that you love in your progeny.
I suppose that is how I feel about this painting. And maybe it also represents my own moments of rejection or exclusion, those times when I found myself not part of the in-crowd or even in the inner core of my smaller group of friends.
Like the Red Tree standing apart from the group of trees.
I have found that standing apart is not a bad thing. There is, as the title plainly states, room to breathe. Clear air and unobstructed views.
Room to think and grow in all directions.
I am still debating whether I will include this painting in my June show at the Principle Gallery. I am not sure I want to subject this child of mine– or myself– to yet another potential rejection.
But I tell myself that one of the lessons of this life is that though you may face disappointment and rejection, you have to keep getting up and going out to meet it head-on.
Who knows– it might be your lucky day.
Here’s a new song from Beck that initially sparked this entry. It’s called Ride Lonesome. Its chorus shown at the top pretty much sums up what I have tried to say here.
Now, get out of here and go back to the other trees. I want to be alone…
There is not one little blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice.
—John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
I was born into a world of color. Color is the basis for what I do and how I see and feel things. Color has an emotional power that triggers all kinds of responses in my mind.
Yes, I was born into color.
However, it didn’t always seem that way when I was a child. I was reared and learned much of what I knew from television. Well, from reading, too, but that isn’t part of this post. From life lessons and ethics to the value of goofiness and absurdity. My view of human behavior was greatly shaped, for better or worse, by the shows I saw on the television.
Black and white television.
We didn’t have a color television until 1973 so, the shows that defined my childhood were all seen in black and white. I took it on faith that Mr. Green Jeans on the Captain Kangaroo show really wore green pants. I am still not sure because my memory only remembers him in black and white. The gorgeous, deep colors of Warner Brothers and Disney cartoons did not exist in color for me except in those rare occasions when I saw one at a movie theatre.
The color in those rare sightings made color feel very luxurious then. I think it was the absence of color in my viewing diet at that time that developed my appreciation and desire for color, that made me see it as a rare and special thing. I found that color had the power to attract and hold my attention, to inspire me, to light a creative fuse.
A single color could, in itself and in combination with other colors and forms, provoke emotions of all sorts. It could lift me up or make me somber from one moment to the next. But primarily, it made me aware of our place in the natural world, that we were part of the colorful richness and beauty that is this world.
By extension, we humans, as part of this world, were also made from that same richness and beauty.
Yes, we were all born into color.
This begs for a much longer essay, one that I am not prepared to write this morning. Perhaps some time in the future, I will better address this. Or not. If I promise to do it, I will begin to feel it as a burden and, as a result, most likely will consciously avoid doing it.
That’s my modus operandi.
One of the things that make me who I am? I don’t know if that is being colorful or just a pain in the butt.
It makes me wonder about the origins of the term acolorful character and why and when they began to use it to describe certain people.
Hey, that should have been the end of this post. I should have asked if this appreciation and desire for color makes me a colorful character. That would have been a great parting line.
Guess I missed that opportunity. Oh, well, next time. Or not. Who knows?
Here’s a favorite song that is definitely on point this morning. It’s She’s a Rainbow from the Rolling Stones in 1967. Geez, hard to believe this song is almost 60 years old. Great song and a great richly colored video. Good stuff all the way around.
Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh. It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple.
–Leonard Cohen, The Favorite Game (1963)
I am not sure why I chose this passage from a Leonard Cohen novel to pair with this painting, Moment of Pride. Maybe it is because I just discovered, even though I have been a fan of his music for a very long time now, that Cohen had been a poet and novelist for ten years before finding his way into the world of music.
During that time in the 1950s up through the mid 60’s, he experienced a variety of ups and downs with varying degrees of success, as is the case with any artist. But he did have quite a bit of acclaim. In fact, in 1966, a critic for the Boston Globe in a review for his novel Beautiful Losers compared him favorably with James Joyce. There was even a 1965 film, Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen, produced by the National Film Board of Canada on the work and life of the author/poet, a couple of years before he set out for what was to be a legendary career as a singer/songwriter.
I was kind of surprised that I didn’t know this upon discovering it this morning. Adds a layer of interest to what was already an interesting and unique figure in the world of music. Coincidentally, a song of his just came on the station I listen to each morning.
But it was his words on a pimple that struck me and how we proudly display our wounds and scars but try our best to conceal our natural flaws., often viewing them with shame, fearing that we will be somehow judged on them. This observation resonated me personally, as it probably does for most of you, as well.
Been there. Done that.
As with everything, I immediately equated it with my work. After all, I do think of each piece as having a life of its own and like all living things, each has its fair share of imperfections. When I first began to paint, I viewed these little flaws in much the same way that each of us does our flaws, trying to hide them. To somehow deny that they were present and part of the painting.
But time taught me that these little flaws and glitches were the thing that made them unique, that gave them depth of flavor, to use a culinary term. After a while I began to celebrate these pimples in my work. Don’t get me wrong here. I don’t try to create them nor are they planned beforehand. It’s just that I know that sometimes burst through the surface, like pimples do, but do nothing to detract from what is beautiful in the painting.
If anything, they validate its humanity.
How this applies to this painting is kind of circumspect. Oh, it has little flaws throughout. I am sure I can find plenty if I want to concentrate on them. I like this piece as it is, no matter how many little blips I could find.
How it came about might apply. I don’t know, maybe it doesn’t. No matter. Consider this a pimple in this blog, okay? A couple of years ago, some friends and their daughter stopped in and I gave them a quick tour of the studio, something I seldom do. While they were here, I gave them a quick demo of my wet painting style. I opened the container of some sepia ink and its stench filled the space.
There’s a longer story about the ink but the short one is that I have been working off of a number of 5-gallon pails of ink for about the last 17 years now. Some have organic elements that cause them to almost ferment in the buckets. The black and sepia are most susceptible to this. When I open these buckets there is often a skim of mold on the top of the ink and along with it, a pungent stink that hits you in the face like a punch.
It’s not quite so bad when I open the smaller containers in which I keep the ink for use on my painting table but it still bites pretty hard sometimes. On this occasion it was enough that it caused their teenage daughter to immediately run from the room in revulsion. Laughing a bit, I proceeded to paint the top block of color as Ebba, the daughter, watched from a considerable distance. It started with sepia which I then diluted. I then removed most of the sepia and replaced it with a red that I washed down to the shade you see.
That ended the demo for that day. I set this little block of color aside for a long time, always chuckling at Ebba’s response to the smell of the sepia whenever I would pull it out to consider it. I didn’t know if it would ever be another other than an anecdote.
But there was some latent potential in it that spoke to me. Something well beyond a mere anecdote, though that is part of it now. I think it was the idea that the many elements that go into creating beauty often seem less than beautiful in themselves.
That is where the title, Moment of Pride, came from. The fact that it takes effort and stink, sweat and sometimes blood, to create something that transcends its parts and its inherent flaws is a point of pride for me. I sometimes stand in front of a piece, unshaven and unwashed in grubby, paint-covered clothes with the stench of acrid paint in the air and feel a sense of awe for what I am seeing. I sometimes wonder how something possessing even a small degree of such beauty can come from such a person as I. How can such a thing seem to dispel all my flaws, hide all my pimples?
I don’t really know. And to be honest, I don’t really care. So long as it keeps me with that small sense of pride and awe, I will live and die a happy man. Pimples and all.
Amen.
This piece, by the way, is included in the Little Gems show opening tonight at the West End Gallery. The Opening Reception is from 5-7 PM.
I guess we should have a Leonard Cohen song, right? The natural pick is Anthem, a song that I have shared here a few times. Let’s go with that. This is a live version from 2008 which opens with Cohen speaking the song’s famous lyrics which applies to this post: Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack, a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in
Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery. Negative silence blurs and confuses our identity, and we lapse into daydreams or diffuse anxieties. Positive silence pulls us together and makes us realize who we are, who we might be, and the distance between these two.
–Thomas Merton, Love and Living (1979)
I’ve had this passage from the late Trappist monk/poet/author Thomas Merton rolling around in my head for a while now. Silence and quiet have been themes in my work for a long time for a good reason. I have found peace and understanding at times in silence, in stilling my mind and just trying to be where and what I am at the moment.
It’s a good place to be.
On the other hand, I have also known the negative silences of which Merton writes. There is silence but not emptiness nor stillness–important distinctions. Even in this silence, there are things– worries, fears, regrets, grievances, despairs, etc.– occupying the space and in constant motion. They distract the mind and take its focus off its silence. The mind darts through the mind space from each of these things to the next.
The desired stillness is lost in what seems to be a cacophony of motion.
I don’t know that you can totally eradicate these negative silences. They are insidious, always ready to jump back onstage and do their little silent song and dance. Maybe you can if you’re monk or a total hermit far removed from the world in all ways.
I am neither of those nor are most folks.
I guess the best we can hope for is to keep trying to find silence and stillness when it is most needed. To not fall prey to the lures of the negative silences. To drop the curtain on them when they start their little act.
And to make the most of those times when we find ourselves in that positive silence. To heal. To appreciate. To be.
It’s easy to write this. Much harder to accomplish. I always felt that if I have many more moments in the positive silent space than in the chaotic negative space, I am doing okay. I’ve been doing this delicate balancing act for a long time now and it’s always difficult to maintain. But it has become get easier. As it is with anything, rehearsal, practice, and repetition are the key to getting where you want to go.
I don’t know that this makes any sense this morning to anyone outside the space in my head. I’d be surprised and glad if it does and can only say sorry if it doesn’t. Don’t want to waste your time.
In the spirit of saving time, let’s move on. The image at the top is of a new piece, Maintaining Balance, a 6″ by 12″ painting on canvas. Just a little bigger than a true Little Gem, it is now at the West End Gallery whose Little Gems show opens this coming Friday. I had the Merton passage in mind when I was painting and titling this piece.
For this Sunday Morning Music, I am going with a song originally sung by Dick Van Dyke in the 1968 movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It was written by the Sherman Brothers who produced more motion picture song scores than any other songwriting team in film history, including the many memorable songs from Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book. This performance is from a favorite of mine, Lisa Hannigan, and British musician Richard Hawley.
Just a lovely stillness and delicacy. Just what’s needed to maintain balance…
