Moment of Pride— At West End Gallery
Pictures must be miraculous: the instant one is completed, the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended.
—Mark Rothko
I came across the words above from the late painter Mark Rothko and found myself relating very much to their meaning. The process of creating a picture is ideally a period of intimacy, one where the maker ideally opens their inner self and exposes their totality to the surface. There is a transference of energy and thought in that moment that forms the new life taking place on that surface.
Each move, each change to the surface pulls bits from the inner stores of the creator and alters the new reality being formed. For a rare moment, the two entities– the maker and the surface–are locked together.
They are one.
But as the picture takes shape and form, beginning to express its own life force, it moves away from the maker. At completion, the painting takes on its own being and at that point is beyond the reach and influence of the maker.
As a maker of pictures, I can say that this moment is both wistfully sad and exhilarating. When that moment of completion is at hand, I immediately miss that time of transference when the air is still filled with excitement and possibility. But seeing the new picture, self-contained and speaking for itself, brings a kind of parental pride. I know that I will never be as close to that picture as I was in that moment. But that moment binds us forever, even if it will be always as a faint memory when I glimpse its image in the future.
I chose the piece at the top for this post- fittingly titled Moment of Pride– because it sums up the feeling felt when that transference has taken place and the piece stands apart, living and breathing on its own. I certainly felt the feeling depicted when completing this piece.
There was a definite moment of transference when this painting made the leap from being me to being it. It had its own story to tell that was then beyond me, speaking with its own voice, its own meaning that it will someday make known to someone other than me.
And they will hopefully experience their own rare moment….
This is a reworked post from 2016. It seemed to perfectly fit the painting at the top, Moment of Pride, which is now at the West End Gallery as part of their Deck the Walls exhibit, opening tomorrow. I’ve been adding songs to most every post lately and I’ll keep that going today.
Don’t think this song fits the painting here but it has a wistful feel much like that feeling felt when you realize that you’ve lost a closeness with someone or something that you will never be able to recapture, so it might. Whether it does or not, it’s a song that like a lot from an album that I like a lot and that’s good enough for me. It’s the title track from the Anodyne 1993 album, the last album from Uncle Tupelo before splitting up the next year as its members moved on separately to form the bands Son Volt and Wilco.
The tune and lyrics have a weary, disenchanted feel that seems to fit my own lately and probably a lot of others out there:
You threw out the past
When you threw out what was mine
Throughout the years
It was hard to make it lastAnodyne, anodyne
No sign of reconciliation
It’s a quarter past the end
Full moon from on high
Across the board, we lose again
Give a listen if you are so inclined. And don’t slam the door when you leave, okay?
Redtree Times 