Gazing Into the Water

Again, with apologies to Will Rogers, I never metaphor I didn't like.

The dictionary gives us this:

Metaphor: Noun. A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable: “Life is just a bowl of cherries."

Oh, but they are so much more. Metaphors are to prose what haikus are to poetry - little gems of wisdom wrapped up in deceptively simple statements. One has been playing keep away from me for several days now. It is a visual concept, I can see it clearly, but just can't find the right words to find its metaphorical form. I may have to send the idea off to Dan C., my BBAM (brother by another mother) who is a true magician with words. Maybe he can polish it up. But regardless, let me give you what I see, what I am thinking.

The issue is our relationship with our past. It is something those of us in our seventh decade and beyond tend to muse about, or pester our muse about. I have talked about how one's perspective on life changes when there is more in the rearview mirror than out beyond the windshield. And that isn't intended to be morbid. I mean if those two vantage points revealed equal chronologies - as much before me as lies behind me - I would be looking at an actuarial expectancy of 152 years! No thanks!  I doubt that even the Silicone Valley "long life wannabes" want to tear that many pages off the calendar. Of course, I'd like to be able to sneak a peek through a cosmic wormhole and catch a glimpse of what life will look like in a hundred years or so, but I sure wouldn't want to live through the wild changes that will - fingers crossed - get us there.

But there I go again, nattering off the topic, which is, in case you followed me down that rabbit hole, "metaphors about life and thinking about the past." The problem with the rearview mirror metaphor is that rearview mirrors are - when compared the whole field of vision behind us - little itty bitty things, and if you get fixated on them, odds are you are going to get pancaked by a semi!

So I have this image of gazing into water. Crystal clear water - like, well, I'm not sure like what. Ponds are too small, streams move too quickly, rivers tend towards murky, and oceans are far too deep. Maybe a lagoon, or a perfectly calm bay. The point is you can see the bottom - which is your life - with incredible clarity. Every perfect pebble, glittering rock, swirl in the sand, every bent twig, each broken branch, tiny shell, maybe a lost fish hook, sunken golf ball or discarded bottle cap - everything you ever did, saw, experienced, loved, hated, anticipated or feared is gleaming there on the bottom. But you cannot touch it.

You can try reaching full arm's length, maybe even diving down, stroking mightily until your breath gives out and you thrash desperately back to the surface. gasping for a cleansing breath. You float again, gazing down at the untouched panorama below. And finally you come to peace with the notion that you can look all you want; but no touching, no corrections, no subtle restorations with brighter hues or erasures. Just looking.

And that is when we have to trot out the old maxim of "glass half full or half empty," or perhaps looking either through rose-colored glasses, or those with darker, more unsettling, tints. Think about it. If I cannot change my past, can I learn from it?

Back to gazing at, or into, the water and seeing clearly the tapestry of our life. There is a concept in philosophy called "situational ethics" which dwells in the grey area between truth and falsehood, good and bad, right and wrong. The idea is that seeming polar opposites actually sit on a sliding scale that is affected by the situation in which we confront decisions or evaluations.

Do you shoot Bambi? Of course not, unless you or your family is starving.

Do you drive 20 miles above the speed limit on a congested freeway? Of course not, unless your partner is in the midst of giving birth, or is gravely ill. What if your way is blocked by school buses filled with children?

Do you save a child thrashing helplessly in a flood tide? Of course you do, unless you yourself cannot swim and are the sole support for a partner, 2 infants, frail aging parents, and four puppies. No, you look for a long rope or something that floats to hurl to the kid.

Sliding scales.

So when we examine our all encompassing past shimmering there beneath the water, where on the sliding scale - good person versus bad person, exemplary life versus wasted life - do we focus?  It is probably a bad idea to obsess over either end of the scale. An email signature I often use is a pretty good indication of where I come down:

"Who we are is a quality of the moment. What we have done in the past cannot be undone, and what we have promised for the future remains but a promise. So, going forward, live each moment in the awareness that it defines you."

Still, that's a bit long for a pithy metaphor and way beyond a haiku. Gotta think. Waiting is, and all that, right? Any ideas?

 

A Blast From the Past

OK, I realize you don't usually get a couple of posts from me in a 24 hour period, but let me explain:

So the Old Dude post went out and I got a very quick response from one of y'all out there - way out there. She opined that for some reason the image reminded her of Chagall, and thought that an upside down violin would complete the image nicely.

Which naturally got me thinking. Violins, musical instruments, "Chagallesque" images. Hmmm. I've drawn that picture, haven't I? So I took myself down to my computer and opened up my trusty 4 terabyte hard drive and began to search old images.

There ought to be a law. I mean really. Too many years, thousands of images. Eventually the old grey matter shrugged a bit and I remember that I hadn't draw violins, I had drawn saxophones - and back before Christine and I were married. 

So I hopped back to the early 2000s and started searching for saxophones  🎷. And there it was "saxflight." But the image was in black and white ☹️. Search, search, search! Ah ha! "Saxflightclr!" March 11, 2004. And here it is with its full title: Flight of the Saxophones." Perhaps it was the two cellos down front that made me think of violins.

A more thorough "imageoctomy" leads me to think that the image was first drawn, hence the black and white versions I found. But then the effects on the colored image indicate that I then scanned the image into Photoshop and did the painting in the app. Sort of backwards from the process I use more often today where Photoshop allows me to erase parts of a photographic image to free up space where I can draw graphics and add color by hand.

Anyhow, a neat little "art voyage!" Thanks M!"

Portrait of The Artist as an Old Dude

 Well, this is how it turned out.

There are a couple of "backstory bits" I want to share: 

First, Da Vinci was renowned - some would say infamous - for leaving paintings "unfinished." He carried the Mona Lisa with him all his life, some say because he never thought it "finished." He would leave other commissions with some figures still in outlines. Friendlier explanations are that his restless genius called him to other tasks. An explanation that I prefer is "a painting is finished when the artist says it is finished." So . . . Old Dude is finished. Which in some ways tries to explain all the white left in the image. First, it seems that none of the colors were crying out to have another color right up next to them. Second, I began to think of white as a color in its own right, and not just an empty space that needed to be filled. And when I sat back and squinted my eyes, trying to imagine all the white painted in, the image began to fell claustrophobic. Maybe it was the slightly weird experience of staring at myself. Anyhow, as I said, the Old Dude is finished.

Second, I always listen to music when I am working on an image. Usually some mix of an artist - Lightfoot, Dylan, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchel, The Beatles - or decade 60s, 70s - music from the Old Dude's salad days. So you would think they would be perfect for working on this image. Think again grasshopper.

For the last several months I have been immersed in Estelle Ryan's Genevieve Lenard series. I am on book 14, and so obviously recommend the series. Take a look - each book is called The Something Connection in which "something" is the name of an artist whose works play a role in the plot. I will refrain from a more thorough explication, and skip to the aspect that plays a role in this image.

Genevieve, the narrator voice and primary protagonist, is on the spectrum. Her special autistic skill is interpreting non-verbal communication. She can sense moods by close observation of non-verbal cues and, most germane to many plot lines, tell whether someone is lying. However, when overwhelmed by stimuli from the "neurotypical world" she can be driven to a "shutdown" rendering her unconscious. She can fight off these shutdowns by - and this is the important part - writing, listening to, physically or in her head, the music of Mozart.

I'm assuming you may have seen this coming, but the Old Dude image has sprung to life exclusively while listening to Mozart. Delightful. I suggest you give that other old dude a listen.

*A hint, or reminder: Unless you are looking at the images on a giii-nornous screen, you are seeing the images smaller than intended. On most platforms, phones, tablets, etc. you can click on the image and it will pop out onto a new screen and you can pinch and pull the image to get a better idea of how it looks "in real life." Which in this case is 12"x18".

Here's Lookin' at Me Kid

Rembrandt is said to have painted around 80 self-portraits. I say "is said" because the art history folks want a little wiggle room. The issue is that Rembrandt used his self-portraits as exercises for his students, so it is hard to always determine which paintings are his and which might be the efforts of his more talented students. Still if it were 60 or 90 that is still a lot of self-portraits for one of the big names in the Dutch Golden age. The experts agree on that.

However, there is some disagreement as to why the big R was so into "selfies." Imagine him with an iPhone and a Facebook account. No, on second thought don't do that. Beyond creepy. Anyhow, some folks believe that, particularly for the early images - painted in his late 20s - the intent was advertising. "See what cool portraits I can paint! Wouldn't you like me to do yours?" Then in later years he seemed to be experimenting with various effects. Maybe examples for those students? And towards the end of his career, with bankruptcy nudging at his heels, a bit of what I have recently learned is called "self care." "Yeah, I may not be as popular as I once was, but I can still, by god, paint!"

I dunno. But it is enough for me to have one of the Old Masters confirm that it is alright to engage in this kind of image making. Yet, I face a couple of major obstacles in this endeavor. First there is the old biggie - I can't draw reality, you know like recognizable faces, people, pets, flowers, etc. Hence my obvious inclination to make things up. But I have one benefit that Rembrandt had to do without - photography. I assume he used a mirror. Look at the mirror, put paint on the canvas. Mirror, paint, canvas. Mirror, paint, canvas and so on like that. My process is different. Print out the picture on big sheet of paper. Look at self, make up stuff to go around me. Look at self, make up more stuff and so on until I came up with this image.

Which brings us to second obstacle between my image making and Rembrandt's. (See how I am subtly ignoring the whole issue of artistic quality and ability here? Shhhh.) Rembrandt apparently did a couple of self-portraits a year, giving him a rich chronological tapestry of his life. I almost never do selfies. So I sort of had to settle for this one which I call Portrait of the Artist as An Old Dude. And I'm only cheating a little bit, the picture was taken in December of '21. So do the math, still a legitimate representation of me in my seventh decade.

Obviously the next step is to add the color. I have begun that process - with a theory. The idea was to match parts of the photo with color bits that would spread out throughout graphic. Sort of putting the "self" in self-portrait. And I did that. But I forgot that the colors talk to each other - strongly suggesting that they partner with another color. Here and then there. And then over there. They have begun that dialogue, so I am slowly losing all control over the palette.

Who knows what they will come up with? I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I'll keep you posted. 

Secession From What?

 A couple of weeks ago I found myself in Belvedere Palace in Vienna, Austria looking at Judith, one of Gustav Klimt's famous paintings from his "gold period." It is a striking image, although like many works of art from a couple of centuries ago, you wanted to give it a good spritz of 409 and wipe away the dingy fog. Alas, we are the visual victims of hi-rez images and 60" flat screens.

Judith

You hear a lot about Gustav Klimt in Vienna, a local bachelor made good, leaving behind a raft of world class images and, less emphasized, a dozen or so illegitimate children. But from an art history perspective Klimt is also of note as the first president of a group of artists known as the Vienna Secession.

These artists, like those of the Berlin Secession and the Munich Secession, broke away from the traditional artistic elites of their cities to pave the way for the growing wave of expressionists, impressionists and other modernists of various stripes. The common motivating factor in these secessions was the continuing rejection of their more modern works by the established elites who controlled the standard-setting galleries and exhibitions.

It got me to thinking, "whither the secessionists of today?" Or something like that. And that was when it struck me: To be a secessionist you needed to have a dominant elite from which to secede. We have no such dominant artistic elite, an established group that determines what styles, subjects, underlying cultural norms are appropriate for fine, or high art.

Hitler's reich made a concerted effort to establish strict artistic norms by "shaming modern art" with the "Degenerate Art" exhibit in 1937 which displayed, and denigrated, the works of modernest artists. The Nazis also mounted a parallel exhibit of praiseworthy works in keeping with Hitler's perceptions of "wholesome, aryan, classical art. The fact that far more people attended the degenerate exhibition than the purist presentation might well be seen that, even in that repressive regime, people were curious about "forbidden artistic fruit."

Certain authoritarian regimes still attempt to exert such control over the arts within their borders, but the Internet has pretty well blown the doors off any attempts to corral art into nice, manageable units - good, bad, acceptable, questionable, "our art," "their art." Categories from the past. And at first blush that seems excellent and liberating. But not exclusively.

The Internet, like nature, abhors a vacuum. So it seems inevitable that in the absence of the elites of old, the Internet would enable some sort of contemporary parallel that attempts to differentiate between the "good stuff" and the "bad stuff." Ta da! Enter the "influencers," folks with no greater claim to legitimacy other than popularity, who seek to "influence" our perception of what is good, desirable, and valuable.

And it is that last category that gives me the greatest pause. Valuable. We need to remember that part of the secessionists' objections to the power of the elites was the control they exerted over access to the best galleries, clients, commissions. The secessionists were professional artists who needed access to monied audiences in order to make a living. The world of entities who could afford professional art in the age of the secessionists - the mid- to late-1800s was quite small - perhaps single digit percentages of the population.

The market for professional artists on the Internet is huge. Literally millions, if not billions of people who might be persuaded to purchase art in a staggering variety of forms - physical, digital, non-fungible, immersive. The central conundrum for the artists - and the potential client - remains the same: access and value.

The issue of access for contemporary artists is the opposite of that of the original secessionists. They have, theoretically, access to countless clients. The reality is that most of those potential customers have to be guided to the artists' offerings. Try it for yourself. Do a search on a variety of terms: art for sale, artists sites, painting for sale, music. Whatever. Or if you have a kind of art in mind, search that. Mind-boggling! Even worse for the artist trying to get their creations in front of the eyes of those who might wish to purchase the work, or the experience.

And then there is the issue of value. There is an established truism in the art world: a painting is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Van Gogh is a classic example. He sold one painting during his life - The Red Vineyard, sold in 1890 for less than 20 bucks. Were an original Van Gogh somehow make its way to auction today it would take many millions to secure it.

So how does the contemporary artist make a living in the new reality of the age of the Internet? I truly do not know. It is seemingly an exercise in which digital sophistication and marketing skills greatly outweigh the stunningly broad wealth of excellent work available in physical and digital galleries. Hence the forest of entities offering their - influence? guidance? assistance? to clients.

I, fortunately, have never had to count on selling my art as my occupation. Creating images has always been a source of relaxation and comfort to me. A hobby, an avocation if you will. I have sold pictures - and for more than $20.00 - but not for many years. 

Still I am willing to set a value on Masque, one of my favorites and offer her for sale. 

I will set the opening value at $1,000,000.00.

The bidding is now open.

Do I hear a million two? $1,500,000.00? You in the back? Anyone on the phones? Tokyo? Dubai?

Walking the Circle Path

When I open my iPad there is a little mosaic at the top - old stuff that lives somewhere in its memory. Pictures, notes, just a jumble of things. I have no idea how the genie in the Pad chooses them. Just now an image popped up, too small to read, but obviously a poem. I clicked on it and this came up. I do remember writing it, as the old song goes, “but I can’t remember where or when!”

I like it. Hope you do too 🥴

 Walking the Circle Path

Earliest beyond planning

Almost without awareness

Routes of exploration 

Sights and sounds

Within each precious moment

Until, quietly, sleep intrudes

And then waking sends one

Again to senses newly formed

Somehow down around 

A curve or corner

We discover the first faint

Awareness of a glimpse

Called destination

Perhaps maybe possibly 

Could be should be is

At least for awhile

Until concrete asphalt 

Highways byways

Bridges parking lots

Detours shortcuts

Cloverleafs round-abouts

And occasional dead ends

Guide us through the

May be could be

Might be should be

Would have been

Should not have been

Got right got wrong

Did over walked away

Turned around started again

That is life

When suddenly again

Beyond planning

At the reborn 

Corner of awareness 

The path turns

Soft and sandy

Bordered by nodding blossoms

No doubt once forgotten

Have been there all long

Now reassert their value

Sweetly requiring our

Attention appreciation

Kinship

Stop smell me

Implores a

Forgotten mantra

We would be wise

To listen to step aside

Off the harried highway

And return 

For a tranquil while

To that friendly path 

We traveled long ago.

The Ethical Billionaire

Hah! I thought maybe I could slip one by you, but probably not.  You realized that the phrase "the ethical billionaire" is an oxymoron.  Which is word I cannot write without the image of a large, dull, bovine flashing through my mind. But I'm talking about fat cats here, not fat cattle. So I'm talking about a term which is self-contradictory, or in other words, I am asserting that there ain't no such thing as an ethical billionaire.  It is a notion that is of increasing concern as it seems that every day we are informed of yet another of billionaire being named as a major player in the looming Trump administration. But first let me expand on my assertion that there is no such thing as an ethical billionaire.

You see, I do believe that there can be ethical millionaires of a variety of stripes. Not surprisingly many can be found in the world of the arts and entertainment. One can write a novel or a series of novels that sell millions of copies and morph into films, coffee cups, etc. Historically, Charles Dickens comes to mind.  Having worked in a bootblack factory to get his father out of debtor's prison, Dickens went on to become a internationally famous, and financially successful author who wrote, among other works, A Christmas Carol, the George C. Scott version of which I will watch at least once this season. Point is that the Dickens estate continued to generate millions of dollars from literary works long after the patriarch passed.

In a more contemporary example, Dickens's countrywoman, JK Rowling crafted the Harry Potter world which has also generated millions in hardback and digital versions, movies and other formats.  Peruse any sports or entertainment news sites and you will encounter millionaires who have profited from their talents packaged in a way that enriches them as they entertain us. And while some of those packages leave me more confused than entertained - I have no problem with the basic process. Different strokes and all that.  But the leap from millionaire to billionaire, as any episode of American Greed reveals, is fraught with ethical pitfalls.

It seems that once one has accumulated a million, or ten, or a hundred, from one's primary reason for remuneration - writing, singing, sports, whatever - the old Peggy Lee song, Is That All There Is?, begins to roll around in their head. If millions are cool, wouldn't billions be even more fun? But assuming they have maxed out their earning potential of their actual abilities, they become hungry for other opportunities - they begin to diversify. "If you liked me as a quarterback, you'll love my bitcoin options!" "Hmm. Maybe beef jerky is a good place to invest." How about diamonds in South Africa? No, I'm not sure where they come from . . . How about organic marijuana? Go ahead, make up your own. The point is that profit and the accumulation of enough millions to become a billionaire becomes the driving raison d'etre in their lives, and it really doesn't matter where or how they accomplish their ends.

I'm not sure why this seems to be a common track for previously rational folks, but I have an idea. Rembrant once said, "Chose only one mentor, nature." So let us look to nature for some mentoring here. Think grasshoppers, grasshopper. Normally, grasshoppers just hang out eating, well, grass, and leaping away from any predators who might stumble upon them. They just hang out in their own little grasshopper niche. But then something called density-dependent phenotypic plasticity rears its ugly head. What that means is that for reasons not very well understood, grasshoppers begin to gather into large groups - like millions - and they then morph in locusts - like billions - who then, like the biblical plague, swarm out and devour everything in their path. So I'm thinking that millionaires who hang out with lots and lots of other huge money types get this uncontrollable urge to become billionaires and they devour everything that stands in their way to that objective.

OK. It has been that way since the days of the great robber barons of the 1800s here in the States, longer than that across the pond in the Old World, the Hapsburgs, Rothschilds, and that crowd. But what I don't understand is - if the post election pundits are close to accurate - that lots of people voted for Trump because they believed his policies would have a positive impact on their paychecks, on their ability to meet expenses, pay the rent, groceries and all.  Maybe, were Trump a single grasshopper, that might make sense, but he seems to be gathering more and more and more similar critters around him. Grasshoppers who have fallen victim to "density-dependent phenotypic plasticity" and piled their millions into billions that they accumulated from, well, us. The bucks had to come from somewhere. So what do we call this cadre of monied folks who seem poised, locust-like, to further line their bulging pockets for the next four years? Cattle are a herd. Chickens are a flock. A school of fish, even a murder of crows. No, wait. I've got it:

A gluttony of billionaires.

Falling Leaves

 Here is the final version:

Falling Leaves

Version notes:

OK, I changed my mind about filling the moon spaces. A couple of dry runs on scrap paper convinced me I couldn't consistently produce the effect I wanted. So, one of the benefits of keeping my images close to me is I can wander among them looking for solutions to issues I find in new images.

I came across the "better idea" in this image from the past called "Muse."

Muse

You can see the pattern up there in her hair and below her chin.

In case you are curious, I realized that the corners of Falling Leaves use a pattern remarkably similar to the hair in this image I believe I called "Angry Dude."

Naming the images is sometimes easy, other time a challenge. Not nearly as hard as naming a child, but up there with naming a parakeet or goldfish.

Stuck Up a Tree

It is one of those experiences common to most childhoods. You see some "climbable" thing; wall, rocky cliff, sand dune - in my sister's case the tall windmill on our uncle's farm that ran the pump for the cattle watering trough - but that's a tale for another day. Anyhow, you climb it only to realize you can't get down. That is sort of where I am with this image.

It is obviously intended to be a sort of sister piece to Moontree that I posted not long ago. But there is a significant difference. As I explained when I posted Moontree, much of the work on that image was done in digital space. This image however is all hand-drawn. Paper and markers.

One of the main differences between digital and "by hand" is that in digital space you can, in most instances, simply "step back" or "undo" and make your previous line, color, whatever, go away. But in my "by hand" process once I put marker to paper that's it - finito! 

My problem with this - still nameless - image is the space that was occupied by the moon in Moontree. Here it is a circle that encloses blank spaces. I think I know how I want to fill those spaces - sort of free-form loops with some spaces filled with colors from the same palette as the rest of the image. [Brief note on that palette. I draw those colors from my "sunrise-sunset" notion. That notion asserts that we never critique a sunrise or a sunset as using the "wrong" colors. Hence whatever color feels right is the right color.] So they would look something like this:

Obviously small enough to fit in the blanks. Anyhow, I am not confident that the idea in my head will make it to my notoriously - and increasingly - shaky hands. 

A few more practice rounds. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, an additional issue. I have been wrestling with the issue of “marketing” my images. The problem is, as I have mentioned before, if I “sell” an image that presumes the image leaves my walls and goes away. I take great comfort in having them here in my company. But should you also wish to have them in your company, you may, with my blessing, copy them from the Wall/Canvas, pop them into a graphics program increase the resolution and size and print them out.

Distilled Harmony: A Reaffirmation

 I suppose I could react to the recent Presidential election by shuffling around in sackcloth humming "American Pie" aka "The Day the Music Died." But that would really be simply a meaningless waste of time and energy. Tried hard to get a gentle, compassionate and competent woman elected, but it seems that millions of my fellow Americans are living in a pretty dark place, and used the ballot box to express their anger, fears and anxiety. Rather than rail against that darkness, I instead choose to reaffirm and suggest my contrary view of everyday existence: Distilled Harmony.

The three primary tenets of Distilled Harmony have been scattered throughout these Wall posts from more than a dozen years, to more dozens of you distributed among 8 or 10 nations around the globe. But it seems a good time to clarify and reaffirm these positive existential guidelines which I espouse, but still struggle to manifest in my own life.

The tenets are hierarchical - tenet one, Foster Harmony, dominates, followed in importance by tenet two, Enable Beauty, then tenet three, Distill Complexity. Let me break them down for you again.

Foster Harmony . In its simplest form this tenet can be stated as "play nice with others," or the old stand-by "treat others as you would be treated by them." Golden rule stuff. It is deceptive in its simplicity. It stands in direct contradiction to the currently more popular "give 'em what they deserve!" It holds us to a more forgiving, more compassionate mandate. It is the first tenet because it is hardest. Fostering Harmony - opening your life to giving and receiving love, is one of the most challenging, yet most rewarding tasks of our lives.

Enable Beauty. We are, in large part, what we create - not what we consume. This one gets a little tricky because it is far easier to buy beauty than create it. Hence the palaces of the super rich in every era of human history from antiquity to today. This tenet asks that we become creators, not merely consumers. Complicating the tenet is the notion of talent, and of course genius.

I saw a little girl sing grand opera on TV the other night. Mozart composed symphonies before his age hit double digits. Genius is not our creative benchmark. "To perform to the best of our ability" is. We need to spend a healthy portion of our lives creating something that at least strives toward beauty. Sing, dance, act, draw, paint, sculpt, play an instrument, build edifices, design gardens, compose music, perform, cook, design interiors, plan events. Whatever! But do something, anything, that makes the world around you, and the space in which you live, a more beautiful place.

Then there is Distill Complexity.  Life often seems to have been constructed by Rube Goldberg. Every task - particularly those designed to be performed in a digital environment - seems to follow a path designed by a contortionist whose favorite saying is "You can't get there from here." Or, "Your call is very important to us, please press one for, press two for, press three for, all others please hang up and try next week."

Let me indulge in a brief, but related story. When arriving on NC State's campus back in 1980 one benefit I soon discovered was the guy who could fix everything technology-related on campus. Now remember this was 1981 - no internet, no world-wide-web, no computers on desks; rather big room sized things over in the "computer building" that were fed paper punch cards. After a few years I was able to secure a UNIX computer from the college of engineering, which ran an archaic version of Wordstar - a dinosaur word processing program. It stopped working. I called guru Everett san and explained my problem. 

He asked, "What floor is your office on?"

"The fourth," I replied.

"Does it have a window?"

"Yes."

"Can you open it?"

"Yes."

"Open the window. Unplug your computer. Carry it to the window. Make sure there is no one beneath you. Now throw the computer out. Something better will come along soon." And he hung up.

And my computer problems had vanished, to be solved, later, bit by bite, by PCs and then Macs.

When we allow ourselves to get caught up in, enmeshed by, angered and frustrated by, the swirling, often negative complexities of modern life it is easy to lose sight of what is truly important: Our lives, and the lives of those we care about, and what we can do to enrich those lives that truly touch us.

So distill. Put the chaos that is confronting you on the front burner of your mind, turn up the heat, and let it simmer. Whenever anything that you truly cannot fix, or smells off, bubbles up, grab a slotted spoon and skim it off, toss it in the trash - down the disposal! Repeat until only those items that you can whip up with love and caring remain to clarify into a pleasing sauce of Harmony and Beauty remain. Remove from heat and allow to cool before serving.

Not exactly sure where that came from, but I think I'll keep it in, and get back to trying to Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, and Distill Complexity in my own life. Still much work to be done there. Working on a sister piece to Moontree and am having trouble with leaves.

Little Tiny Wormholes

 I'm not talking about those little holes that appear in your yard after a summer rain, the ones made by actual worms. No, I'm talking about the wormholes that hook various points in spacetime together. Or as Wikipedia puts it:

"A wormhole is a hypothetical structure connecting disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations.^[1] A wormhole can be visualized as a tunnel with two ends at separate points in spacetime (i.e., different locations, different points in time, or both)."

OK, now that that is clear, a wormhole can zip things around the universe willy-nilly. One moment a thingy is here, the next it is somewhere and sometime else. So what does that have to do with you and me? Glad you asked. I have a theory. No, I have no training in theoretical physics, but if the richest man in the world, with no training in political science, can shrug off the bothersome chains of sanity to shill for another purported billionaire, I figure that opens the door for all sorts of idle speculation.

So here is my theory. Most speculation regarding wormholes is cosmic in nature - black holes at the center of galaxies, galaxies crashing into one another creating universe-wide gravity waves, mysterious entities light years away. Really huge Star Wars kinds of stuff. 

My theory brings the idea of wormholes into a much smaller conceptual space, like your house, garage, kitchen, etc. Let me cite an example.

Yesterday I was organizing stuff in the garage. Yeah, I know we moved months and months ago. Another year and we might get "moved in." Anyhow, I was moving a couple of items from one corner of the garage to another. I carried them in a plastic container, removed the items from the container and placed them on the shelf. Then I turned around and the plastic container had vanished. 

Now I am aware that another phenomenon could be in play here, the "where did I put my keys" issue. This occurs when we misplace an item that reappears minutes, hours or days later. "Ah ha! There you are!" This "missing keys" phenomenon occurs with increasing regularity as we move through our maturity. The "Tiny Little Wormhole" phenomenon, or TLW for short, is a completely different animal. Items that get sucked into a TLW are gone for good, never to be seen again. 

Think about it. You have your own examples, but were perhaps unaware of what was going on. That favorite sweater you looked for last week as the weather began to change. The flat head screwdriver you put on the bench. The Winnie the Pooh PJs with the footies. You name it - gone and never ever to be seen again.

There are some ramifications to TLWs that we may not have considered. When these things disappear from our place in spacetime they reappear somewhere else. There is a common trope in sci-fi literature that earth is in a sort of probationary period that will determine whether we are invited to join a highly sophisticated inter-galactic community. Most of these narratives do not end well for us, usually because of our tribe-like arrogance which culminates in violent genocide of some type or another.That may just be a cheap-shot plot device. 

There could be a more subtle reason for our exclusion: bad TLW management. That more advanced community has long learned to manage the TLWs. Things that disappear in the Greater Galactic Community (GGC) are actually funneled to specific regions of the universe in need of specific items: think recycling. We, however, just let things zip away. Think letting your dog off-leash to do its business wherever and making no effort to clean it up. By failing to understand and control our TLWs, we are trashing random parts of the universe.

That gets entered into the debit side of our galactic ledger, along with global warming, genocide, and the ever-increasing web of satellites we toss up blocking the communication paths of the galactic observers. Whew.

So what do we do to reverse this seemingly negative spiral? I think there is great potential benefit to addressing the issue at the TLW level. It seems logical (well, as logical as anything in this admittedly fanciful ramble) that TLWs are encouraged by our neglect. They snarf up random things to which we are not paying attention. So we need to keep our stuff better organized. Clean out the junk drawer. Put your tools, spices, clothes in planned spaces. This, I believe will thwart the TLWs and increase our chances of being accepted into the Greater Galactic Federation.

I must, however, admit to doing none of those things I advise above. I lean sharply toward the slovenly. Which is, no doubt, why TLWs swarm around me like mosquitoes on a summer evening. I suppose that, in order to increase earth's chances of GGF membership, I should clean up my act.

OK, I will. Starting tomorrow.

Lending the Sisters a Hand

The Image

Lending the Sisters a Hand

Story Behind the Images:

We watch a lot of BritBox mysteries. Sort of "popcorn mysteries." Plots pretty predictable, cast drawn from what we contend is a cluster of 25 to 50 actors who have lifetime contracts to appear in several movies each year. General "chill out" stuff. However there is one repeating aspect that makes us a bit crazy - the domiciles.

It seems that every home - unless a period manor - features floor to ceiling glass walls, wrap around vistas, isolated conversation nooks, glass coffee tables. Very hip, very what? 70s?

An inevitable result of dressing scenes in this manner is that there are virtually no walls upon which one can hang art. While our new abode does have decent wall space for art, it does not have anything like our previous home. As a result we have far more framed art than space to hang it. Add to that the fact that I keep creating more images. Very OCD, I know. But the situation demands that we reign in our inclination to hang art just where we felt it looked cool, and begin to think about what images informed each other - made a joint statement.

These variables came to result in the image above. You have seen all the images before. The steal from The Sistine Chapel debuted as Mike's Hands. The left hand image is "Masque" from several years ago, while the right hand image is the recently created "Pearl." While Hands was professionally framed, I framed the Sisters by deconstructing a couple of older professional frames and casting the Sisters in them. And the three images seemed to come together conceptually in a bit of vacant wall space across from the entrance to my bathroom. An added benefit is, obviously, a unique view from the throne.

Tangential Thoughts

About the whole OCD thing. I find comfort in Van Gogh's life. He too kept painting image after image throughout his life despite having sold only one inexpensive painting to a follow artist. Upon his death, a relatively short time after his lifelong champion, brother Theo, all of Vincent's paintings became the property of his sister-in-law Johanna Bonger. It was the largely unrecognized Johanna's insightful shepherding of Vincent's painting and letters that gave us the creative genius we enjoy today.

Although I have already tripled Vincent's lfetime sales figures - sold three during a one-man show in a coffeeshop back in the 90s. I have not figured out a way to market my images that would not detract unacceptably from the time that I wish to dedicate to creating them. Sigh.

 

Moontree

 [Schrag Canvas is how I have decided to designate posts that are exclusively visual. Apologies for some format glitches. I am dodging between platforms to get this post out to y’all!]

My history of image-making has had about as many different stops as the New York subway. OK maybe I exaggerate. I haven't changed visual emphasis 427 times, but sometimes it feels like it.

From doodles in library books (for which I was deservedly chastised), through photography and my undergraduate senior thesis film, into video and now digital media, always including some aspect of marks on paper - it has been a kaleidoscopic ride. Here is the most recent stop.

Moontree

Today's canvas blends a few of the stops along my visual subway. The tree began as my current standard: hand drawn and colored in a 14x21 inch format. 

But then I fed that image into my computer in a 21x28 format at 150 dpi. I went into that image in photoshop and "cleaned and brightened" the image at the 4 - 5 pixel level.

Next I added another layer and "borrowed" an image from NASA's collection of images of the "super moon" from several months ago. I then merged those two layers together and made everything except the tree and the moon transparent.

 

OK. Next I added another layer behind those two merged/transparent layers. I went back to a sunrise image I had created some 20 or 30 years ago for an image I called Tequila Sunrise. I cut out a piece of that sunrise that "felt right" and copied it into the Moonrise image third level so it floated behind the tree and the moon.

You will have do image that old image, it is two computers and a hard drive away from me right now 🥴

And that completed the composition. Only problem is that when I had the 21x28 image printed it came out huge! 21x28 covers a lot of real estate which quickly shoves the cost of "appropriate" framing into the "I don't think so!" level. So Moontree will live with a more prosaic backing for the time being.