I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
–Song of Myself 32, Walt Whitman
A little busy this morning but wanted to share a few lines from Uncle Walt. I find that it has a soothing effect much like the effect of watching the wild creatures that live around us. My current best animal friend is Howie the older tom turkey who sometimes runs down the path toward me when he sees me coming, gobbling loudly as he comes. I know it’s just because of the sunflower seeds I put out for him and his other bird friends but his evident joy in seeing me always makes me smile.
I think we all appreciate someone displaying a little bit of joy when they see us, even if it’s just an old tom.
I sure do.
Here’s a reading of an excerpt from Whitman’s Song of Myself from his eternal classic Leaves of Grass.
A few days back, I shared a video from composer Barnaby Martin that concerned the work of Wassily Kandinsky and how color related to music. I thought I’d share another of Martin’s videos this morning, this one again about the role of music and its relationship to painting, this time focusing on the work of Vincent Van Gogh.
This interests me because I have thought many times about how painting is related to music and how I often view my paintings as musical compositions. Many are simple tunes but some take on the grander aspects of a concerto or symphony.
I notice this more in recent years as many of the paintings take longer and longer to finish. I would have finished many of these paintings much sooner in earlier years but they would have remained simple tunes. And that’s fine. Who doesn’t love a simple that stays with you long after hearing it?
But time has shown that the once simple tune can often expand and deepen, growing into something that speaks to larger universal concepts. The extra time spent now on these paintings is used in deepening and expanding the range within itself. Finding extra rhythms and harmonies within the colors. Adding dissonance and consonance, small counterpoints and contrasts that may not even be noticed to the casual viewer.
It’s not something I intended to do with my work. It just evolved as I saw more and more room to grow within the work. A lot of that comes from working in the way this video describes the process of painter Eugene Delacroix who had an influence on Van Gogh. Much of Delacroix’s work dealt with repetitions of subject and form. This allowed him to focus on fully exploring color and its effects.
This is something that I understand very well. I have used similar compositions many times through the years and each is significantly different than the others. Differences in color, tone, shading, contrast, texture and other color qualities give each piece its own unique emotional feel and voice.
Every artist works a bit differently and has different aims for their work. They have their own reasons for doing what they do. To be honest, I don’t really know why I do things the way I do. Maybe I look at the works and writings of others with the hope of finding some illumination into my own motivation and rationale.
Maybe it’s just my way of making music in the only way I know. Who knows?
Anyway, hope you’ll take look at this video from Barnaby Martin. It’s worth a few minutes of your time.
Wassily Kandinsky- Sketch for Composition II- 1923
Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.
-Wassily Kandinsky
I came across a short film that I would like to share. It’s What Does Colour Sound Like? and was made by modern composer Barnaby Martin. This ten minute film discusses painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) as he tried to reconcile the connections between color, music, and emotion in his work throughout his career.
Kandinsky’s work and his writings have always struck chords with me. I know it influenced how I look at works of art, including my own. I often feel and describe paintings in terms of music and, like Kandinsky, view the colors and shapes within a painting as musical elements which are more vital to the work than the actual representation of any one object.
At this point in my preparation for a show, when there is an abundance of new work surrounding me in the studio, the importance of color and form as carriers of emotion becomes clear. Maybe that’s why this film and Kandinsky’s words speak so directly to me this morning.
If you have ten minutes to spare, I urge you to take a look. And a listen.
I have a lot on my plate this morning so let’s just listen to the late Shel Silverstein sing his song/poem, Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too, from his marvelous book of children’s verse, Where the Sidewalk Ends. Like most of Silverstein’s stuff for kids, it’s a blend of word rhythms and nonsense that just works. I have probably watched this short video a dozen or more times over the years and it always holds my interest
I love kids songs and literature. Don’t know what that says about my mental development but I am not going to worry about it. When I was putting this together I thought of another really simple kids song from Woody Guthrie that I am going to stick on here. It’s his Grassy Grass Grass. My thinking is that with our spring weather finally taking hold that anything that urges the grass to grow and things to green more is a good thing. Plus it has a nice drum rhythm to start the weekend.
So, give a listen to a couple of simple ditties for the kiddies this morning. What can it hurt? In the meantime, I’ll get to my day. Some new work coming in the next few days so check back in.
Living in the country, especially on the edge of the forest, makes one aware of their proximity to critters. There are deer and raccoons and squirrels and skunks and coyotes and bobcats and birds of all shapes and sizes.
But mainly living in the country makes you aware of the presence of mice in this world, how they live so closely to us, hovering nearby almost like little brown and gray shadows. Sometimes you hardly see them at all but they leaves traces that speak of their existence, often a hole chewed in a box or a bag in a closet or in the basement. Or those little hard nuggets on a shelf or table. I once had a mouse that had walked through a tray of wet paint that I had inadvertently left out overnight and walked across the edge of a piece I had been working on.
Little blue paw prints meandering around the edge of the surface. Hope they liked what they saw.
All these things occur here in the studio. At such times, I look over at Hobie, my studio cat who was once a known hunter of great renown, and ask her if she has been doing her job patrolling the mice population. She just looks away without an ounce of care for my concern.
I wonder if she has a secret pact with the mice now. After all, the gifts she once laid at my feet– poor mice, chipmunks, birds, and snakes– have ceased altogether.
They slowed considerably after she made the transition from stray cat to part-time outdoor cat to fulltime studio cat. But they did continue. I would sometimes come into the studio and there would sometimes be a sad prize waiting for me in front of my desk chair or at the base of my easel. Hobie would saunter over as if to proudly say, “See what I did for you while you were gone?”
But that doesn’t happen now. Actually, there are fewer traces of my little rodent housemates lately. Maybe the several feral cats who have taken up recent residency around our place have effectively shut down their runways in and out of our place. Maybe. But I doubt that even a terrible trio of hungry cats could completely stop the smart and versatile mice that I know so well. Their little brains work better than some folks I know.
I am sure they are still there. I don’t mind to be honest. Not that I am thrilled by the evidence they leave behind. So long as they don’t bother me, I can coexist with them.
Not everyone can. I used to work with a lady who proclaimed that her home had no mice at all. She lived in an old house near the river so I knew the idea that that critters somehow weren’t taking advantage of a warm place to live and eat was foolishness. I would just laugh at her and tell her that she might not see them but they were there.
She would let out a shiver and say that no, they were not there. I guess she had to say that for her own peace of mind but I know that somewhere in that old house, in the attic or basement, there is a meeting going on right now where all the mice are discussing the best places to eat in that house.
The reason I bring this up this morning is that I came across an animation of a poem by former Poet Laureate Billy Collins that is abut this subject. It’s called The Country. I never worried about my boxes of matches before but this has me wondering. Take a look.
Sometimes the horizon is defined by a wall behind which rises the noise of a disappearing train. The whole nostalgia of the infinite is revealed to us behind the geometrical precision of the square. We experience the most unforgettable movements when certain aspects of the world, whose existence we completely ignore, suddenly confront us with the revelation of mysteries lying all the time within our reach and which we cannot see because we are too short-sighted, and cannot feel because our senses are inadequately developed. Their dead voices speak to us from nearby, but they sound like voices from another planet.
–Giorgio de Chirico
***************
I am busy this morning but wanted to share a post from several years ago about painter Giorgio de Chirico. I thought I’d run it again today with the addition at the bottom of one of his more famous paintings and a short MoMA video about it. The idea that is presented about the metaphysics contained in dealing not with “perceived reality” but a “reality imagined” and of creating “a plausible representation of a believable and negotiable space” rang a bell for me as that is the space where I try to operate. Take a look.
A turning point for me when I was first stumbling around with my own painting was when I encountered the work of Giorgio de Chirico, an Italian painter of darkly toned metaphorical works. He lived from 1888 until 1978 but was primarily known for his early work from 1909-1919 which is called his Metaphysical Period. Metaphysics is devoted to the exploration of what is behind visible reality without relying on measurable data.
His work from this defining ten year period is very mystical.
De Chirico’s work after 1919 became much more based in reality and far more traditional. This later work was less colorful, less symbolic, less powerful and way more mundane. It is definitely the work from the earlier Metaphysical period that defines him as the artist as we know him today.
I was immediately drawn to that early work. It was full of high contrast, with sharp light and dark. The colors were bold, bright and vibrant, yet there was darkness implied in them. The compositions were full of interesting juxtapositions of forms and perspectives, all evoking a sense of mystery. It was a visual feast for me.
At that time in my own painting, I was still painting in a fairly traditional manner, especially with watercolors. That is to say that I was achieving light through the transparency of my paint, letting the underlying paper show through. It was pretty clean which was fine. But it wasn’t what I was looking for in my work.
Seeing de Chirico’s paintings made me realize what I wanted. It was that underlying darkness that his work possessed. It was a grittiness, a dark dose of the reality of our existence. I immediately began to experiment with different methods that would introduce a base of darkness that the light and color could play off. Plus, his ability to create a reality that seemed possible and recognizable but seemed filled with mystery was something aspired for in my own pieces.
Working with this in mind, my work began to change in short order and strides forward came much quicker as a result of simply sensing something in de Chirico’s work that wasn’t there in my own.
Got to be honest, this wasn’t the blog entry I thought I’d be writing this morning. Had something completely different in mind.
I was going to talk about an old piece from my earliest painting days. Not the one above, which is a pretty early painting from around 1996 or 1997 that is called Faust’s Guitar. I did several versions of this painting in the first few years that I was showing my work publicly. I’ll save the other older painting for another day.
I came into the studio early this morning, about 5:30 AM. Still dark outside. And cold, only 10º. After flipping on the computer and hooking up to the interwebs, I went to the YouTube to look for a song that might accompany the other older painting. As I scanned down the list of various titles their algorithm had selected for my viewing pleasure, one title jumped out at me:
Dracula Hates Killer Icicles.
I couldn’t resist. had to click on it. I mean, come on– it’s Dracula Hates Killer Icicles. If it was Dracula Loves Banana Bread, I most likely don’t watch. But this has Killer Icicles, folks” Killer Icicles!
I watched and laughed at the sheer goofiness of it. I decided that something that had me laughing aloud at 5:50 AM deserved a post of its own.
This song, Dracula Hates Killer Icicles, is from a surf band from St. Petersburg, Russia called Messer Chups. They play 1960’s style surf/ psychobilly instrumentals with a lineup that feature Igor Gitaracula (yeah, that rolls off the tongue) on the guitar and Zombierella on the bass. The drums are provided by Rockin Eugene who is not seen in the video.
They also have featured the theremin, that electronic device that made that weird sustained woo-ooh sound was a staple of old 1950’s horror films, in several of their songs. I wrote about the theremin here many years back. It fits their profile well.
All in all, it’s just goofy, stupid fun. Nothing more. And on a cold Monday morning, is there anything wrong with listening to a Russian surf band playing a kitschy tune?
So, without any further ado, here’s Dracula Hates Killer Icicles. Who doesn’t?
PS The video is from a video show Domino’s Batcave which is hosted by Domino Barbeau, a burlesque queen turned horror show host. That’s a career path every parent desires for their child, right?
Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and… stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to ‘walk about’ into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?
–Wassily Kandinsky
Still working on getting my creative engines revved up and ready to go. Normal for me at this point n the year. One thing that usually helps me in these times is turning to the words and works of Wassily Kandinsky.
Several years ago in a short post here, I shared the quote above and a great little film from Alfred Imageworks that features an animation of the elements from some of Kandinsky’s great paintings as well a film from 1926 of Kandinsky creating a drawing with these same elements.
These always seem to help me in some way that I can’t quantify. Maybe I should take Kandinsky’s advice and stop thinking on this.
Anyway, thought they’d be worth revisiting today before I get down to real work.
Take a look if you are so inclined and then have yourself a good day, again, if you are so inclined.
President-elect Joe Biden is on a path that will show him winning close to 51% of the votes with what will most likely be a margin of over6 million votes. It is, objectively speaking, the largest electoral rebuke of a sitting president since FDR unseated Hoover in 1932.
It seems that the people have clearly spoken. Even so, with a sitting administration that seems more hellbent on undermining our democracy than even pretending to address the pandemic that is now fully out of control across the country, it seems like a lot of folks need reassurance that the will of the people will be carried out. To that end, I felt that this post from a few years back, written at the time of the damaging government shutdown of early 2018, still applies.
Plus, I was needing to see some Rockwell Kent paintings this morning. That always does me some good.
Believe in reason and have a good day.
Rockwell Kent- The Trapper
Force against reason: reason, because it has the power of enlisting forces to fight for it, will win. From the recognition of that truth has come democracy.
-Rockwell Kent
There are a lot of things that could be said this morning, especially with a governmental shutdown taking effect overnight. This shutdown is the symbolic culmination of the political attitudes of the past twenty years that have led us away from compromise and reason as a means of governance. I am not going to go into my own grievances here.
I’ve done that enough.
But I will say that for all the anxiety this government produces as it tries to force itself closer and closer to some form of autocratic authoritarianism, I am somewhat optimistic. And that may be because I agree with the premise of the quote above from one of my favorite artists, Rockwell Kent.
I do feel that we are in struggle right now between force and reason, that the direction in which we are being directed via deception and fear-mongering– the force here–goes against the ideals and virtues that we have long professed as the basis for our democracy– reason. The idea that reason is enduring because it has the ability to enlist those who will fight for the truth of it is reassuring to me and seems to be backed by history.
What we are experiencing is reminiscent of the way other empires have ended, when the beliefs that grew these empires are set aside by rulers who see themselves as being above those ideals and virtues. But I believe we are still a nation with enough reasonable people to resist the forces of greed and nativism that have descended upon us.
And that gives me hope, even on these days that seem so dark.
So, thanks for reminding me of that, Mr. Kent. Here’s a video of some of Kent’s landscape work, primarily of some of my favorite landscapes from the Adirondacks, Vermont and Greenland. The format of the video is a little cutesy for my taste but it shows a lot of great work from Kent and features the music of Edgar Meyer and Joshua Bell. Can’t go wrong with that combo.
“Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra
I wasn’t planning on writing about angst this morning. I think most of us are all worn to nubs from the anxiety of this time so unless I have come up with some sort of therapy or special salve that will take it away, my words will have little effect.
Might even make it worse.
But an item popped up on my alerts that piqued my interest and it had to do with angst. Well, angst in the form of one of my paintings. I clicked on the link and there was YouTube music video with a painting that was very recognizable to me as the image illustrating it.
It was from Lithuanian-born musician/composer Žilvinas Smalys for a short composition of his called Growing Angst For 2 Bassoons. It was written and recorded on October 11, 2020 so it is most likely his take on the anxiety of this time in his part of the world.
Angst knows no boundaries.
I am not surprised that he chose this particular painting, The Angst, to accompany his composition. It is one of my personal pieces, a keeper, that has been with me for the past 25 years or so. Whenever I show it, it gets a lot of attention. It was even used in a college level textbook a few years back. It even shows up on the Google search for “angst paintings” right under Munch’s The Scream.
And it works well with this compsotion.
Žilvinas Smalys is a performer, teacher and composer who was, as I wrote, born and raised in Lithuania. His training as a classical musician throughout Europe has been extensive and he has played with orchestras around the globe. He currently resides in Santiago, Chile, serving since 2008 as the principal bassoonist at Teatro Municipal de Santiago as well as being a professor of bassoon and chamber music at Universidad Mayor de Santiago.
Smalys has a nice YouTube page that features many of his compositions. I urge you to take a look. His music is lovely. Below is Growing Angst and another short piece, Lament For 2 Bassoons.
Hopefully this will help free up your own angst and you can move on to have a good day.
A little busy this morning but wanted to share a few lines from Uncle Walt. I find that it has a soothing effect much like the effect of watching the wild creatures that live around us. My current best animal friend is Howie the older tom turkey who sometimes runs down the path toward me when he sees me coming, gobbling loudly as he comes. I know it’s just because of the sunflower seeds I put out for him and his other bird friends but his evident joy in seeing me always makes me smile.
Living in the country, especially on the edge of the forest, makes one aware of their proximity to critters. There are deer and raccoons and squirrels and skunks and coyotes and bobcats and birds of all shapes and sizes.
Redtree Times 