scene

Today I saw an image; a scene from a studio I know well in Brooklyn.  The artist is a poet, warrior, friend.  His paintings have a physical presence, like someone standing behind you in a room at that moment before you fully realize it.  They are often dark, rough, imposing things with battled surfaces and gristly edges and yet, as of late, I catch a tenderness in them from time to time; a product of fatherhood no doubt, yet also the light of the soul.

NY is calling my name and has been all summer.  It's been too much of one kind of travel at the expense of the other.  Duties here, social and familial; things I don't mind, but still a part of me is always away.

This thing of going to a space and contending with surface and material and image, one wonders how one finds oneself in such a Way.  To listen to a visual thing, this is a strange and wonderful discipline indeed.  Tired hands and stained skin and then the attempt to wind down and catch up on the sleep that seems to always be two steps ahead of me, eluding me from day to day.

Whiskey stones and laundry are the remnants of this day; another day that did not stop, and finds me exhausted and unable to give in to sleep.

Today I saw a scene from Brooklyn.  A promise of another level, making me bring up my game to the next level, and so it goes and so it goes.  A picture of a studio wall that made me want to paint.  That's honor.  It's a glorious thing really.  So I raise my glass tonight to Brooklyn and all the lights on tonight in rooms with paint on the floors and at least a wall, and canvas and books and music and longing and sweat.

after

The opening went very well. Those in attendance were engaged, and the comments I encountered were thoughtful and positive. We stayed up late with one of the artists, his wife and the curator drinking wine into the night.

fastened down to oblivion, exhibition view

I can't speak positively enough about Ann Stoddard's curation of the show.  She brought together six wildly-different abstract artists and created not only a first class exhibition, but a teaching exhibition as well.  The show stays up for most the semester and I hope students will visit (and revisit) it.  It's a show that warrants multiple viewings.

Fortunately, there will be opportunity for multiple viewings.  The Spartanburg Art Museum will be picking up the show in January.  I'm very excited to be in the good creative company that I am with this show, and profoundly humbled to see the work hung in a museum.  

an awful rowing toward god, exhibition view

One of the most interesting exchanges of the evening was with the College's president.  After spending time with "an awful rowing.." he commented that it reminded him of the author's description of his encounter with the afterlife in Proof of Heaven, the story of a neurosurgeon who has a transcendent experience during a coma despite the fact that he intellectually rejected all such experiences prior to then.  I haven't read the book, but our conversation made me want to.  I found it interesting that he made such a connection.

I heard the word powerful a lot last night in reference to my work.  This was tremendously gratifying; both that it stood the test of physical inspection and that it often seemed that people were having a similar experience looking at and being with the work as I had painting it.  I feel I'm on my way.  

letting go

I drove over to the gallery tonight, foolishly thinking it would be empty.  Of course the director and her drones were busy with all the last-minute preparations; the space is alive and bright.  I have to say, the show looks really good.  I found the eclectic collection a bit jarring until I actually saw it hung, and I'm impressed with the curator's vision.

So now the funny part.

The large painting is hung upside down.  I must have wired it this way in my exhaustion last week.  The day job has been brutal for some time now and in my preparations I must have gotten disoriented.  What's interesting is that I didn't notice at first.  I have to say, I think I like it better the way it is hanging.

I've always believed one acts or one is acted upon.  Neither is, inherently, a "better" condition.  There are benefits to each.  In this case, I received one of those gentle wacks to the head from the universe letting me know that I need to let go for awhile and just allow myself to be taken away.  That's a really positive thing at this particular moment of time.

I think one has to keep a certain irreverence towards one's work.  It's easy to take yourself too seriously and something like this could have caused me crazy stress on the eve before a show.  But it honestly didn't.  I sort of feel that everything is right and how it needs to be.  It made me laugh and relaxed me, and now I go into a highly-charged situation (an opening) in a much lighter place.