Blog: Musings from the Studio

MARCH 2024

“Beauty”

I need beauty . . .

It is a word that seems to vaporize when I speak it. It is a word that melts into a hundred meanings and ideas. It melts my imagination into transcendence. Poetic harmonies are unlocked just for a fleeting moment and I swoon.

Beauty calls to my higher self. This is the part of me that finds goodness in my everyday world, that urges me to participate in this different reality and to let go of the “to do lists” which are the compass of everyday life. In this fashion, I sense the ineffable gestalt that underlies all creation. Seeing beauty is a way of going beyond the mundane, a peek beyond the burden of survival and its crushing demands.

As I walk along, a stripe of sunlight appears in a dark place. A green leaf with bright spots shakes my attention for an instant, and the veil is lifted. Beauty occurs the moment when I am surprised by the tiny waterfall that lies beyond the blind corner of the road. No human mind can make these moments happen by force or plan. Unearthly perfection and exquisite poetry appear in the ordinary world naively, without pretense and unbidden.

Beauty reminds my higher self to be awake to the existence of harmonies and goodness beyond the naked eye. Beauty and goodness welcome us to develop and evolve in ways heretofore unknown to us. In the same way that I don’t have to prove the earth exists to walk upon it, I don’t have to prove beauty exists or define it to feel its effects upon my being and evolution.

There is no glove soft enough to hold “beauty.” There are no instruments or tools to carefully dissect it or to discover its essence. Yet it is a word that inspires poets, artists of all inclinations and ordinary people, to aspire to its life-affirmative qualities.

And, most importantly, I need beauty to keep me humble.

SEPTEMBER 2023

"The Intimacy of Loneliness”

Intimacy, for me, means getting personal, not generalizing not assuming, but getting to know a person or situation on their terms, not just seeing them as an extension of my own ideals or wishes. It is daring the world to get up close. And it is me daring to get closer to the world. It is asking the question: “Tell me more about this situation, tell me more about you.”

The words “Intimacy of loneliness” reverberated in my mind until I had an “Aha!” I realized that this is not a topic about loneliness or intimacy at all but a way of living in the world and a primary quest of all individuals on their life journey. It asks the question, “How does one connect to become fully alive to life?”

Intimacy is a whole range of microscopic responses from the divine to the most crass. This is a full spectrum of nuances and a laboratory for endless experiments in communication. This occupation and endeavor is vital and urgent: “Don’t be presumptuous! After all how can you chop down a tree when it has confided its wishes and longings to you?” 

The atmosphere, the ether, is a tuning fork trembling with lives that cannot speak for themselves. The air is as full as a green forest on a dark night. And being alone in wide open spaces is different than being alone in a room. I grew up in rural, ranching California near the ocean and I gained comfort from long horizons where I was steeped in vastness. 

This landscape seemed lonely because of the lack of human interactions but it was filled by familiar elements of earth and sky. I was not lonely, but alone, and I learned to use my senses in different ways. Not rating, or calculating or planning, but taking in what was offered to me. These were feelings and waves of interchanges where my senses reached out and was melted into the non-human. This is the place where poets stretch their minds and hearts, where the universe offers itself with open palms and empathy reigns. 

With this in mind, I have asked questions of fish, clouds, frogs, the sky, and other life forms surrounding me. Then I wait patiently (or not) until impulses or thoughts arise in return. Surprisingly, they often come in snippets or images. Then, I assume a conversation is beginning. 

I assume these exchanges are meaningful and worthy and I practice empathy. After all, I would not want to be a contemptuous or disrespectful listener to the feelings of others as I know all too well that If I am not listened to, I rarely bother continuing the dialogue. Would you?

July 2023

"Fog and Sheep"

One of my collectors, Nancy H., wrote a very powerful message about her understanding of Pentecost and how it applied to my painting "Fog and Sheep." Her words perfectly articulated one of the themes that threads through many of my paintings. She has generously allowed me to share her words here, on my blog, with you all. 

“To me …

Pentecost is an Event that occurred and occurs repeatedly, infinitely.  It is the indwelling of personal connection with our entire unfolding Universe; it is boundless presence, that we can know, feel, identify with.

To me …

This event feels like an initial gift of the mantle of love manifested in so many ways.

It is the infusion, blanketing, imparting, sharing of spirit, soul, essence, sorrow, joy.

It converts all languages to one.  One small way of saying it may be Gestalt:  1+1= 3.

I experience it often in art, nature, and children.  I see it in your paintings...

For me, in Fog and Sheep, there is the spirit of anticipation, elation with the cool mantle of moving fog about to join and mingle with the warm earth and the living beings, the sheep, the configuration of whom is so perfect, so personal.  Everything is about to change.  And the dog is there to witness it all.  And it will ALL be OK.”

--Nancy H.

JULY 2023

“Sun Soaked Hills and Then the Fog Comes Rolling In.”

Last week I was intrigued by an impressionist painting I saw in my extensive collection of random images on my computer. “Wait a minute,” I said, before quickly backing up  to take a better look. I stopped, captivated by a painting of a bright wide sandy beach with two women under their beach umbrella. In the distance, and at the top of the painting, was a deep grey sky with the silhouette of darker grey trees against the horizon.

I lingered here fascinated. Out of nowhere, an artist from another century had captured a situation that I am very familiar with. Most summers in West Marin vacillate  between fog bound or sun bound.  The sky and bright yellow hills of the summer months bounce madly between  contrasts that are played out any time, sometimes several times daily, as the fog and the sun play between blinding brightness and replicating the dark evening grays of oncoming night. 

Over the many years I have lived here I have seen hundreds of variations of these two colors. Sometimes the fog is almost black as it hides the sky and other times it is iridescent as slices of sunlight pierce through and transform  yellow ochre fields into white gold. 

At these times I am exultant that I paint with oil paint. I am conscious that with oils I can move through tones and colors that, if not reflect, at least hint, at the fast and vast shades of colors with which the natural world resonates. Oil paint, for me, releases the perfume of deep sensuousness so that painting becomes a real life event. Even if the final result is a simple shape or form, something remains, as if a  beautiful woman passed, leaving a movement of air or whiff of perfume. The practice of painting is so rich and deep, that like poetry, it cannot be taken lightly or quickly, but is soul material that goes through metamorphosis slowly.

My small painting of the fog and hills captures for me a spark plug experience from the mind to the heart to the hand. These simple elements of hill and sky, yellow and black have become part of my life force language for so long, and now, I have the means to recognize them and  honor them in oil paint.

MARCH 2023

Twilight Came

“Twilight Came” is the title of a painting I completed in the thick of this last winter’s storms. I started the painting with the image of our darkening house in the late afternoon with the palm tree behind it. I liked the utter darkness of the house in the stormy late day, with the windows still shimmering with the dying sun amid clouds.

I worked on the painting until I thought I was finished with it. But then I realized I was not drawn to what I had painted. No emotional strings reeled me in to the image. Sometimes I have a feeling of remembrance as surefooted as fragrance when I paint. But there was no nostalgia that I could smell as the darkness crept forward on this canvas. Sometimes when painting, I can even sense a movement like the wind touching my skin. There are always other senses besides sight lurking in my subconsciousness that make a painting rich in meaning for me.

So I spent several days without touching the painting, neither ignoring it nor painting on it. I was waiting to see what would happen. Finally, I gingerly painted the suggestion, the hint of a figure, in the left-hand window behind the drapes. “Ah . . .” I said to myself “that was what was needed.” The action wasn’t premeditated or thought consciously about. It was a slight gesture of brush and hand that hinted in the smallest way that there might be a human in the room. Whether anyone else might resonate with this image is unimportant to me. What is important to me at this stage is that in the world of this painting, the painting feels completed and open at the same time.

Something will happen in the painting, although we don’t know what.

I am not solely interested in painting what I see; I am interested in painting the realities that lie in wait behind what I see. I am painting the feeling state that is rife with the subtle streams of breath; the hallmark of life itself.

“Twilight Came” is a perfect title for this little painting. Twilight becomes a sentient being, with its own volition. It is a surprising visitor, even though we know it well. It has many disguises, camouflaged subtly in robes of night, or even invisibly cloaked in fog from the sea. Twilight is often soft-spoken, gently rounding the forms that blare at noon. It is polite, yet filled with poetry, suggestive, and lingering.

Often when I paint, I have an illusion that reason will have the high ground to the hand, conspiring to make sense. I trust it to guide my highest artistic interests. But truthfully, this is not so. What really guides me is best looked out of the side of my peripheral vision. I must wait until the images come silently through the side gate or the backwoods and to have patience to see how they become a reality in the painting. Because inspiration comes in its own time, coming together, becoming. This then is how the painting arrives and this is how “Twilight Came.”

JANUARY 2023

The Path

“The Path” is a painting that uses the theme of a path. I have recycled  this motif for many years. In this particular painting, a meandering path is moving upwards as its ascent is discernible by a slight change of shape and color. A startling one hundred eighty degree view of the Pacific Ocean stretches out, yet underneath your feet, a shocking two hundred foot drop off looms. This intense vast spectacle confronts the viewer like a slap to the face. In contrast, a small modest bench and a three foot high fence is all the barrier there is separating the viewer from a plunge into the turbulent sea. 

For me, the theme of the path parallels the journey of flowing through time as a human being experiences their individual life. Space is indicative of the dimensional world we weave in and out of as we travel to our individual destinies. And our emotional and psychological life construes the meaning it has for us.

”The path” is always stretching ahead and backwards. It is a curious, interesting, beguiling force as it signals so much more than the obvious. Unlike a highway with road signs and clear markings, a path, on the other hand, can wander, lose us, or get us lost.

Often I need to have poorly marked paths, not roads, to proceed in life. “Take a chance!” The gambling voice calls! Or sometimes I choose a seemingly easy route only to finds it perilous or even lethal if I pursued it further. Then, on the only hand, I have thought, “What the hell!” “Let’s do something really brash or dangerous.” Only to discover I wasted time and energy and should have stayed home and watched television instead! (P.S. I don’t have a television, but, no matter.)

For instance, once I was intrigued by a gentle deer path that was behind the tiny Catholic church in Marshall, near Tomales Bay. I drove past it every day on my way to my studio on a ranch three miles away. Finally, thinking I must explore it, I pulled to the side of the road and meandered through high grass, sage brush and granite boulders enjoying the brilliant sun. But to my horror ,the trail disappeared on the edge of a sharp cliff. The momentum I had was enough to propel me into space, but I grabbed a bush before I went over. I thought I would have a heart attack. “Aha! I won’t do that again!” But guess what? I have done that again in other ways, and other times.

I have read accounts that often people at the end of life have regrets, remorse, and disappointment that they didn’t live an authentic existence and now it is too late. But I guess the people who lived their truest selves and made foolish mistakes or errors in judgement are dead and aren’t around to be interviewed. 

November 2022

The Sublime Ordinary

Thoughts about the “Sublime Ordinary,” the title of my November 2022 exhibition at Toby’s Feed Barn in Point Reyes Station

There are words that describe or delineate what is factual. Then there are words that evoke or blossom beyond the factual. These words point to the essence of meaning, that give life, and are like wisps of smoke or breath; they are permeable and alive.

The “ordinary” is the building blocks of our existence and reality, what we see when we open our eyes in the morning.

It is the food on our plates, the faces of family and friends, the backs of heads on the bus, the dripping faucet, the eternal kaleidoscope of sky, sidewalks, telephone poles, and so on, the very stuff of our lives and existence. 

And what is so “ordinary” is also the gateway to the sublime, the unknown disguised as the familiar. The sublime is the fascia and tissue that makes our lives living flesh and the consciousness that breathes spirituality into our being. 

The sublime, subtle as light, shadow, and the essence of feeling, is just out of reach, is camouflaged as the ordinary. It suggests larger realms and the exquisiteness and pain of life. 

It is beyond touch and senses, yet more familiar and foundational than breath.

This then is the abode of the "Sublime Ordinary." I don’t consciously aim for this in my art, but welcome this daily mysterious longing that makes life worthy of living. 

"King Tides and Personal Tides", August 2022

One recent morning I walked by Paper Mill Creek as a King Tide was coming in from the ocean. I was astonished by the speed and intensity with which it approached and traveled through the gentle meanderings of the creek. “How many roads would be flooded this afternoon?” I asked myself.

Other days, the tidal currents are almost invisible, camouflaged by breezes or creek life; otters playing, stray leaves, silent kayakers and birds. Yet the effect of the moon and its powerful symbiosis with the earth affects the invisible filaments and minuscule strings of life, whether or not we are aware of them.

I notice in my own creative endeavors, that I, too, am tugged by invisible pulls that resemble currents and tides. They appear and disappear reflecting their own delicate interactions with invisible forces.

Notes:

*King Tides occur when the orbits and alignment of the Earth, Moon, and Sun combine to produce the greatest tidal effects of the year. King Tides bring unusually high water levels, and they can cause local tidal flooding. Over time, sea level rise is raising the height of tidal systems.

*Longing for beauty is the magnet for my creativity.