Serendipity

 Sometimes you start out doing one thing that turns into another. I started out to explore a background for Flight of the Cranes, as some of you suggested. I did that using a process that I have used before. You start with what Cezanne called "a terrible and wonderful thing;" a blank canvas. In this case just a 9x12 sheet from a drawing pad. Then you take a black marker and let it swirl over the sheet awhile until you satisfied. Then you fill in a few of the spaces of the swirl, again until you get an idea of whether or not you might use the idea.

I had forgotten about the meditative space to which the exercise could lead. So what started as just a quick "one off" turned into a nice few hours with calming lines and colors that I apparently needed after an enjoyable but exhausting fortnight in Italy. Here is the result:

So I decided to go with some version of Serendipity as a background for Cranes. I'm immersed in that now - which has taken me back to the words of Jock Gault, my sculpting mentor in Raleigh some 40 years ago. Jock was a purist. When we began to attempt a portrait bust he insisted we sculpt the skull first, "How are you going to know where the muscles that shape the face go without the skull?!"

Anyhow, he also taught me that in any creative process you go through stages of loving and hating that which you are creating. The idea is to stop when you are in a "loving it" phase. As Rembrandt is said to have said, "A picture is finished when the artist says it is finished."

I'll let you know when Cranes 2.0 is finished.

Spring Break in Florence

[Being Part 2 of the necessarily incomplete reflections on our recent sojourn in Italy.] 

So we packed up our two mega-suitcases and roll-along carryons and headed off to the train station in Venice. Departure was a normal "hurry up and wait" procedure, but soon we were heading south to Florence where we had spent a delightful time at Hotel Brunelleschi during our first trip to Italy together some seven or eight years ago. It is a neat location, set in a converted church and featuring a Byzantine tower dating from the 6th century. But our luck ran out a bit here. Our comfy little place had gone upscale - but rather unevenly.

The website features spacious rooms with luxe accommodations. Those were apparently all taken when we checked in. No doubt spoiled by our rather palatial digs in Venice we felt a bit let down when we were shown, by an unfailingly polite staff member - why did the quote from My Fair Lady, "oozing charm from every pore, he oiled his way across the floor," spring to mind? - to a clean, fresh room with almost enough room to swing a dead cat.

The room did feature a nice sized bed and a bathroom that could be defined as well-appointed. I waffle a bit on that description as the room and the hotel at large had apparently been redesigned by a bright young designer from one of Italy's hip design schools - the one's that turn out Lamborghinis, Paganis, Maseratis, etc. The problem was that the fixtures were so ultra hip that it was a challenge to figure out how to use them. For example, what do you think this is?

It is a faucet. You pull out the middle part, which is a lever, to turn on the water and then twist it clockwise or counter - I was never sure which - to adjust the temperature. The water then spills into this crystal-like container - manufactured I assume in the Italian equivalent to Rivendell.

The light switches were toggles that came in ranks of three which illuminated various sets of lights - seemingly in random order. 

 The elevators on the other hand were all glass, quite roomy, and moved smoothly from floor to floor. And the breakfasts were again excellent, lacking the egg cooker, but beating out Venice with a great selection of pancakes with maple syrup, and again a benign tolerance of my doing "carry out" to Christine. However, given the close quarters in our room, it should not strike you as odd that we came to spend much of our down time in the very pleasant bar before striking out to enjoy the city outside.

Timing had presented us with a few options during our trip. We had planned for Carnival in Venice and found the experience delightful. We had not planned for Spring Break in Florence and since there were no beaches to speak of, the kids, often of seeming middle school age and lead by teachers cum tour guides, flooded the streets. And these were streets that shared in a dance, strangely reminiscent of the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Their dance partners were motorcycles, cars, trucks and electric scooters, all seemingly very late for an appointment somewhere else. Shudder. Look both ways - no, look all ways.

Fortunately, we knew where we were going and Christine knew how to get there. Tho' I must add in my own defense, that when I bombed out and retreated to the hotel for a map, my trusty iPhone map got me there easily - some 80 to 90 percent of the time.

For me Florence is really about two things, art and meat. First the art. Historically, Michelangelo and Botticelli are the ones that pulls us back. It is naturally The David at the Accademia that draws the crowds and deservedly so, I mean the big guy is really impressive - 17 feet tall and made from a single flawed piece of marble - and all that by a guy who never did practice versions, just started hacking away at a huge stone to "free the statue lurking inside."

And over in the Uffizi Galleries Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera [aka Springtime] both make a visual bucket list and we did them both.

However, it is the more hidden workshops and galleries in Florence that I find attractive. There is one on a street that I can neither remember or spell that duplicates carousel horses. A big lathe that has a reference rod that passes over a finished pony that guides a couple of cutting blades that carve the new horse. Later that afternoon we were resting in a plaza where a carousel was being packed up to move, I assume to another location, and I wondered if those horses had sprung from that backstreet workshop.

But who am I kidding, Florence means meat to me. Two items in particular. First one that is ubiquitous, "bistecca alla fiorentina," is a T-bone steak made from Chianina beef, a breed of cattle native to Tuscany, and is cooked rare, many places refuse to cook it any other way. We get our fix at Il'Latini, a sort of hole in the wall, but with long lines out in the street. A few images - trigger warning for vegans and vegetarians:

Then there is La Giostra that we refer to as the Prince's place, because when we went there on our first trip to Italy, the owner was an actual Italian prince. He was the very essence of an attentive restaurant owner, poured our wine, hand-grated truffle on our pasta, cared for us without hovering. We just loved him. He has passed but the family still owns the restaurant and we had a lovely time reminiscing with his daughter. And, of course, went back twice to get the grilled goat chops. 

As with the Chianina beef, we spent significant time trying to decide how one would describe these flavors - and decided you simply cannot. Color to the blind, music to the deaf; one could make a sincere effort, but one doomed to fail.

The rains set in for our last couple of days in Florence, and growing tired from our extended travels, we pretty much cocooned in the hotel, hanging out with Spritzes in the bar. The rain was an omen. Made our flight late out of Florence into Munich, missed the connector to O'Hare, stayed in a strange little hotel provided by Lufthansa and headed off to O'Hare the next day.

Really neat Lufthansa plane, comfortable big seats in extended economy, contained so leaning back or forward didn't intrude on the space behind you. Free drinks. Airplane food served with real utensils, but even Lufthansa couldn't make a silk purse out of that particular sow's ear. Watched a lot of video on screen with real full-sized headphones.

Good times, but glad to be home. Exhausted, not quite as young as we used to be. 🙂 it will take awhile to transition to life in this hemisphere.

 

Venice in the Rearview Mirror

 [Being Part 1 of the necessarily incomplete reflections on our recent sojourn in Italy.]

I read, somewhat ironically in a book about Venice, that everything that could be written about Venice had already been written. So let me proceed.

Venice is a city of windows. Centuries ago they might have been stain glass windows in a myriad of churches and squolas  - ornate guild halls. Today they define the endless, gleaming, ranks of various commercial entities. High end luxury outlets nestle against Michelin-starred eateries, corner bars and walk-up sandwich shops. All strung together by mask shops, glass and art galleries and kitsch tourist traps. Windows, windows everywhere nourished by millions of eyes.

And there are some interesting distinguishing characteristics regarding those eyes, and the faces in which they are housed. The majority of our time in Venice fell during Carnival - a mixed blessing. First, I must point out that Carnival is a very different critter than Mandi Gras in New Orleans or the similarity named Carnival in Rio; both of which border on the bacchanalian.  In Venice, Carnival is a rather sophisticated costume affair. Elegantly dressed figures in full medieval costumes parade the streets - you may rent your own finery at any number of shops - and then greet the dawn, perhaps as a gondola slides homeward on sable dark canals. While I am compiling a full reel to provide to the family - which you can request by dropping me a note - Here are a few more edited selections of the endless shots we felt compelled to gather:

Yes, it is both gracious, and incredibly crowded. While Venice itself can only boost of a modest population of somewhere between 50 and 70K, it can swell by an additional 120,000 visitors during the busiest days. Carnival itself brings in 3 million a year. During these influxes the streets, all delightfully auto-free but often tiny, are packed with folks doing the Venice Shuffle, feet sliding along but rarely approaching what your phone or whatever devise would register as an actual "step." And here I must admit to having made some gender-based observations regarding the Venice Shuffle. Women are relatively unfazed by the Venice Shuffle, and will occasionally come to a full stop in front of a particularly attractive version of one of the aforementioned windows.

A metaphor might be helpful here. Consider, if you will, the impact of a log suddenly getting snagged on the banks of a flood-swollen waterway. Nothing as overwhelming as the Mississippi or the Nile. Some waterway that is normally just a fair to middlin' stream, but quite respectable come springtime. Well, that log brings that whole side of the stream to a dead standstill as other hunks of flotsam and jetsam jam up behind it trying to bust through or find away around.

Now imagine that stream is a Venetian street at Carnival with a woman suddenly entranced and frozen before such a window. Chaos ensues, but with typical Venetian subtlety. The flood halts momentarily, then surges around them, leaving eddies of various degrees. And caught up in those eddies will be any guy who is accompanying the blockage: "What the h'?" he mutters, but then quickly gloms onto the closest wall and lets the stream rush past, a force of nature and/or Carnival. The phenomenon can be further exacerbated when the aforementioned window-gazer sees, reflected in her window, an equally entrancing window in the wall behind her and sets forth fearlessly - crossing the flood to gaze stolidly at that window. Use your imagination and your grown-up words.

But enough of street fighting - let me move on to two of the three neatest things about our stay.

I am intentionally leaving out the art and the architecture - both stunning and available on numerous online sites. But I must mention going to The Marriage of Figaro at La Fenice, the historic opera house in town. It was truly stunning. Of course the building takes your breath away - but the voices, the staging, the silly but delightful story. Really one for the bucket list. Look for images online - more than my phone could capture!

More prosaic but delightful in their own way were our our hotel and the food. Christine found our hotel, The Palazzo Pisani online. It was a classic old Venetian building on the Grand Canal. Upon checking in we discovered that we had been upgraded to a sort of suite on the top floor. The good news was that we had three large marble-floored rooms and a full bath all to ourselves. The main room contained a huge queen/king-sized bed, a desk, coffee table, large screen TV, and a lounge, with four big windows with little balconies looking out over the Grand Canal. Then there was a reading room with an expresso machine, sofa and a couple of chairs, and, a second bedroom with a queen-sized bed. Here take a look, first the main room and then the view out the windows:

[I go into such detail about the accommodations partially to compare them to the "four star" facilities we found in Florence. But I also feel compelled to mention that the staff in both places were incredible! Kind, accommodating, gentle. Need to send a bunch of folks from our "service industry" over there for some lessons!]

And now the food. Venice sits on over a hundred little islands in what is called the Venetian Lagoon off the Adriatic Sea. It is absurd to order any land-based meals here. Beef will get its just deserts when we head up to Florence. Here if it swims eat it, usually on top of pasta. We had things that go by the same name at home - Sea Bass, crabs, scallops, clams, salmon, etc. But they just tasted different, fresher, a "just out of the lagoon" flavor that was wonderful. And, of course, gelato, as different from what we get by that name at home as were the swimming thingies. And then of course there was the wine which we felt obliged to sample. There were the traditional "black rooster" vintages which we did splurge on, but then there was this "mico-vinyard" which produced a very tiny number of bottles, each numbered and signed by the wine maker! Yummy!

And then there were the breakfasts - included naturally. Heavy on the pastries and a nifty little boil-your-own egg station with cool little nets into which you placed your egg - scooping it out after the duration of your choice into one of those neat little European egg cups. And, of course, fresh fruit and a cappuccino and some type of juice on the side. And the gentle staff were all very understanding as I hustled various portions back up to the room for sleeping beauty. I mean I was taking the stairs!

Which leads me to what would I change about our little sojourn by the lagoon? The stairs. There were 60 of them leading to our aerie above the Grand Canal. I counted them - every time. I mentioned the incredibly chivalrous staff, who, upon observing that we were people "of a certain age" did inquire if we wished to use the "lift." I ventured it once. 

You entered using a different door and key from the main entrance to the hotel which gave you access to what I can best describe as a mirrored phone booth, maybe a touch smaller. Upon pushing the button to your floor - for us the top - the doors closed and with no further sound or indications of floors or movement, and after what seemed a very long time, the doors opened to an alcove around the corner from a large sitting room leading eventually to our door.

I am a touch claustrophobic, and Christine's picture appears in most dictionaries that define the condition. Stairs are good for you. Great cardiovascular workout. Enough said.

Flight of the Cranes 1.0

 Hi All -

Well it turns out I did manage to find enough time to get the image finished🙂

You will noter it is called Flight of the Cranes 1.0  The 1.0 is because I have a couple of ideas as to how to do some background work that might result in versions 2.0 or whatnot.

But I kind of like this clean white background as well, which is going to see its own place in my "gallery.

Anyhow, here it is. 

Little Tiny Wall

 While I always told my students to simply do their best, and not waste time comparing their efforts to the G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Times), sometimes we should look to the goats for inspiration. History has it that Leonardo da Vinci tried to bring innovations, new ideas, to every project. Sometimes with mixed results when he would abandon "bad ideas" midstream. Which may explain why we have fewer than 20 paintings attributed to the brush of the master. 

For example, da Vinci received a commission for a mural commemorating The Battle of Anghiari, to glorify Florentine forces’ victory over Milanese troops in a 1440 battle. Well, one story is that Leonardo left the mural half-finished when he unsuccessfully tried to combine oil paint with the fresco technique and the whole thing sort of slumped down the wall like a child's finger painting with too much water. Well, nothing ventured nothing gained.

Which is an extended explanation of the new process I am exploring with the cranes image I showed you in the last post. My normal process is to do the complete black and white "cartoon" of the entire image and then add color, sometimes putting in a single color, red or yellow, whatever; everywhere it goes in the whole image.

I am trying a new style with cranes. I am going to treat each crane as a separate composition, with it's own internal design and painting. This is the first one. That leaves only five more to go. I doubt I'll share each one before completing the final version. Travel etc., will most likely disrupt the process, but hopefully I'll avoid Da Vinci's problem.

Forgetting What Came Naturally

 I write and draw between a couple of screens and a drawing table, surrounded by a couple dozen of favorite images on the walls. Favorite images that I created over another few dozen years. They are good company - mostly. I say mostly because recently they have come to display a disconcerting side. Let me explain.

When I am creating the black and white line drawings for a piece, if I get "stuck" for ideas I will often kick back and look at the images around me to jog my memory and get the juices flowing. It usually works, but recently I have begun to encounter a disconcerting glitch. I'll look at an image and realize "I don't know how I did that." 

Take this piece for example:

It is called Look Through any Window, it is 4x5 feet, and I did it back in '03.    Everything in the front portion of the image, the yellow wall and its windows and flowers, were hand drawn as black and white images, but all the "coloring" was done in Photoshop - the shading, fading, etc. In addition, the upper portion of the image is heavy on Photoshop. The outlines of the buildings and the openings for windows were hand drawn. The bricks, however, were sort of "Photoshop assisted." To avoid having to draw each one, I would draw a block of windows and then copy and paste to fill the walls.  The contents of the windows in that upper section were "cut and pasted" from photos I had taken previously, pasted again via Photoshop.

So, yes, I can explain how I did it, but now when I open the software to do something it has changed. I don't mean Photoshop has changed, but my hands don't know where to go. Let me explain again. The best analogy I can think of is one I regret never having availed myself of, except in the most modest sense - playing a musical instrument that requires two hands. I stumbled through adolescent attempts at both the piano and the guitar. I have no recollection of piano at all, and can recall but three chords on the guitar, C, D and G.

The point is that folks who are actually proficient on those instruments don't have to think "right hand does this and left hand does that." It just happens. Muscle memory flows smoothly hitting the right strings or keys at the appropriate time to make music. Photoshop used to be like that for me. I had a stylus in my right hand to interact directly with the screen and my left hand would do the alt-clicks and whatnot for color, shading, whatever. Point is I didn't have to think about it. It just happened. 

No more. Photoshop is an incredibly powerful piece of software, and if you don't know how to tickle it just right, it just sits there and stares at you. It is, of course, my fault. The old "use it or lose it " syndrome kicks in. For the last few years I have used the software pretty simplistically to help create outlines from my photographs - or when "borrowing" images from Vermeer or Michelanglo. My emphasis has been more on the "filling in the blanks" part. Remember my version of "Girl with the Pearl Earring?"

Soooo. Not sure which way to go. Recently I did some "cleaning up" lines - go over 3 pixel width drawn lines with a five pixel cursor to sharpen edges - on a self-portrait (which didn't really help - so that image will live in the "never mind" bin). Nonetheless, I felt a bit of a pull back to the old full-featured Photoshop. 

I have just started a new image based on cranes in flight. Given the nation's current cultural and political chaos, I felt a need for their timeless tranquility. There is space for Photoshop in there somewhere. I'll let you now how it turns out.

Living in a State of Lovingkindness

The California fires, and the seemingly insurmountable challenges looming in their aftermath, are but one of the most recent reasons I hesitate to open my news sources in the morning.  At least they are not examples of humankind killing each other off over some political, territorial, religious or philosophical spat. Still they serve as a devastating reminder of nature's ability to overwhelm our arrogant and ignorant attempts to ignore, or control, the forces of the natural world. In my old home state of North Carolina, folks would repeatedly insist on building lovely seaside homes despite centuries-long histories of storms that allowed the waves to gleefully tear them down. California's recent display of the awesome, unleashed forces of nature does nothing to lessen the frustrating impotent compassion we feel for those still in harms way.

In addition to shying away from tales of natures fury, I am dissuaded from clicking on my many news feeds because I have never felt a need to winter or summer in Greenland. My parents lived in Nova Scotia for a few years. It seemed part of a pleasant country, but surely Alaska would resent no longer being the largest state. And Panama? Cool hats, but really, what is that Trump guy smoking? 

I spent my younger days in the sixties listening to hazy riffs that began with, "Listen man, seriously, wouldn't it be cool if we could, like, fly, or walk through walls, and maybe, like, live forever. No wait, wait! Like, change into an animal of your choice? Not forever man, but, like, for a while? Like, maybe for a hunt?" 

Grow up. Musk has wandered across the line that separates genius from insanity, and Zuckerberg seems to be willing to let these ravings pass unfettered into the misty world of "could be, might be, may be true. But who knows what is true these days, so why try to figure it out?"

But as bizarre as these "news stories" are, I am even more alienated by the unceasing reporting on the drum beat of the wars that simmer unrelentingly across the globe. People killing each other - men, women, children - largely because other men, yes, sadly, largely, if not uniquely, men - have declared that some other man has insulted their omnipotence and so they, and all their kith and kin, must die. And we recently took a pass on electing a woman who might have introduced a different perspective.

How did hate and evil rise to such prominence? Is this really how our nation might encourage the world to become "great again"? There is a better way, enshrined in most, if not all, the predominant religions, faiths, and philosophies that surround us. 

Lovingkindness.

It is not terribly complicated. "Treat those around you as you would like to be treated." Ring a bell? Sure. So why has it seeming lost out to "Smite those around you, less they smite you first!" I think it is because lovingkindness is harder. Hitting is easier. But I would assert that loving is happier.

Lovingkindness is a naturally occurring existential sphere that, while potentially all encompassing, is, in may ways, fragile.  Let me ramble on a bit.

We seem to love in spheres. Ideally, the sphere encloses one's family - biological or emotional. We don't have much trouble defining this sphere - "these are our loved ones." But there are dynamics within that sphere. For each of us it seems that there is an anchor, a central locus - a person who is the nucleus of the sphere if you will.

It is the power of the anchor that begins to reveal the potential fragility of the lovingkindness sphere. Imagine that the all the members within the sphere are connected by lines that define valences - varying degrees of attachment if you will. Life tests those valences. The divorce rate in the US [between 10 and 20% according to the National Center for Family and Marriage Research, at Bowling Green State University] is one clear indication of the possibility of the sphere's fragility. 

A pair that may have provided an anchor for a sphere dissolves their particular valence - which sends shockwaves through the entire sphere as children, friends - anyone who was part of the previous sphere - reevaluates their ties to the now individual parts of a previous alliances. It is often a mess. I believe that is the correct psychological term.

Each member of the previous anchor pair tends to create a narrative that explains the reasons for the split. The narratives are usually widely divergent or the split would have been resolved, and sadly the members of the previous sphere, despite intentions to remain neutral, tend to accept one version of the competing narratives and reject the other.  Yeah, a mess.

OK, now take that explanation of fragility in the sphere of one "family," and expand it to the relationships among larger spheres - schools, states, political parties, and nations - and we can see how "smiting" gains the upper hand over "doing gently" unto other. Lovingkindness is just harder.

My son-in-law, Rabbi Samuel Rose of Temple of Israel, in Greenville, SC recently delivered the closing benediction at the South Carolina Commemoration of the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz in which he introduced me to a phrase I love, "the dignity of diversity." A concept apparently alien to the bouncing bevy of billionaire bullies currently attempting to rewrite both our form of government and our perception of reality. 

But the dignity of diversity in an important piece in the puzzle of lovingkindness. For how do we "treat those around you as you would like to be treated," if we randomly delete some of those around us simply because they are somehow different from us?

And yes, I am aware of the seeming contradiction in my advocacy of lovingkindness and the unkindness of my remarks regarding our current administration. Those remarks spring from despair as opposed to an exclusion from the possibility of a dialogue based on lovingkindness. 

Let us jump back to the idea of anchored spheres. Consider a sphere anchored by a set of parents which includes their children. Further consider the possibility of friction between the parents and a child that goes beyond the usual differences of opinion and lifestyle, into the darker realms of criminality or addiction. Lovingkindness declares the necessity of dialogue, not exclusion. So that friction must be addressed through dialogue, including a willingness to include professionals from outside the sphere to assist in the dialogue. All channels must be left open. 

I have no realistic expectation of dialogue with either the President or his proxies, so my criticisms of those in power are one side of an attempted dialogue that I anticipate will reach neither the ears or seats of those elites who currently hold sway in Washington.

But I am ready to listen, which is, after all, mandatory in any dialogue that seeks the difficult path of lovingkindness.

Gateway to Unrepentant Gentleness

 It was the end of some video we were watching - I forget which, but the father was sitting in a big stuffed armchair with a kid tucked in on each side. He was reading:

"The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms."

"Ah," I muttered, "I wonder if they'll let him get all the way to "‘Bother!’ and ‘O blow!’ and also ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’"

"What?" responded my better half - possessor of a university degree in English.

"Wind in the Willows," I replied. "I wonder if they will let him get to the 'Hand spring cleaning' bit."

"Don't know. Never heard of it."

We have a joke we share when appropriate in conversation:

"We have been married for almost 60 years" Folks look at us amazed, to which we respond: "Just not to each other!" Reactions vary from laughter to chuckles to "Us too!" depending on the company.

It is true, Christine and I lived very full lives before entering into second marriages. She out in the business world, I ensconced in the ivory tower of academia. And those experiences crafted very different realities, that are most often complimentary. This one, however, stuck with me for a few days. "Never heard of it." Amazing.

Christine chose to not have kids. A decision for which our over-populated planet thanks her, but may have contributed to her tendency to spoil her nieces and grandchildren. Probably no harm there.  I, on the other hand, have two delightful daughters with whom I shared many a night immersed in children's literature. It got me thinking, what was there in those seemingly simple stories that allowed me to recall big chunks of them half a century later? I have come to the conclusion that it has to do with the general notion of gentleness - even more so, a protective, unquestioning acceptance of the value of gentleness. Let me natter on a bit. 

There is something childlike about gentleness - remember that there is a significant difference between childlike and childish. Childlike is actual a rather adult concept that nonetheless has its roots in childhood. That assertion probably needs some clarification.

We often use language that paints an erroneous picture of childhood. Perhaps the most common example is the phrase "sleeping like a baby," to convey the idea of "a deep and peaceful sleep." Anyone who has actually been in the presence of a sleeping baby realizes the fantasy snuggled within this phrase. Babies rarely, if ever, sleep deep and peacefully. When they finally stop fussing and go to sleep [yes, my dear darling, sleep-resistant, daughters, I am talking about you] they wriggle about, toss and turn, need frequent drinks of water, need changing, make weird noises that often defy explanation, and so on. But we continue to say "sleeping like a baby" as if it were a good thing.*

Childhood can actually be a very stressful time for the little humans going through it. Changing realities, roles, expectations, physical and emotional evolutions that present them with the continually changing challenges of "growing up."  And sadly that often includes, as Corinthians 13:11 puts it: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." And too often one of the things "put away" is gentleness:  Grow up! Act your age! Put on your big boy pants! Don't be a sissy! Take care of business! All those exhortations favored by Trump's bevy of bouncing billionaire bullies.

I'm thinking that I took away from a subset of children's literature an inclination to occasionally withdraw into a childlike, as opposed to childish, state of unrepentant gentleness that blunts the haranguing of contemporary life both as portrayed by the media - online and off - where "if it bleeds it leads" still rings true, or as in the LA area where the current reality surpasses nightmares.

What defines that subset? There may well be contemporary examples but I naturally choose those examples that were prevalent either when I was a child or when I was "the reader" for my children. So here is my list:

Old Mother West Wind Stories by Thornton Burgess. These were published in the 19teens. 1916, 17, 18? Definitely read to me as a child, and maybe some "self read" when I was first learning to read. I include them, not because I can clearly remember them, but because there is something of the air of unrepentant gentleness about them. And they may have drawn inspiration from the grandparent immediately below.

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.  Published in 1908, but recast in several more contemporary versions. I favor the pre-Disney versions. If you haven't heard of it, go read it.

Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne. Illustrations by E. H. Shepard. First appeared by name in a children's story commissioned by London's Evening News for Christmas Eve 1925, so is the most recent of the trio. Again, redone by the Disney empire. But finding the original version is worth the effort.

So what is there about these works that constitutes what I call Unrepentant Gentleness? Primarily it is either the absence of evil, as in Winnie the Pooh and Mother West Wind, or the thwarting of somewhat muted evil as in Wind in the Willows. They define a safe place in which kindness, caring, and friendship, wrap their loving arms around you. Read them.

Is it a fantasy? Well, most certainly it is a fantasy that any adult recognizes as such. One that crumbles in the face of any extended brush with "reality" as reported in the media or present for any number of reasons in your own life. It is a fantasy and I cannot advise trying to live there. But who among us can say they do not seek an occasional respite from that reality? A glass of something? A taste of now legal weed? An exhausting run or workout? Smashing the ball of your choice, golf, soccer, tennis, pickle?

This is simply another, perhaps more gentle, option.

___________________________________

* For those of you who may - regularly or occasionally - be currently responsible for getting small humans to sleep, I share a strategy I used with my younger sleep-resistant daughter who actually did sleep in a trundle, albeit one painted to resemble a formula 1 race car. It worked oh, 30 or 40% of the time.

First, find a spot close to, but not shared with, the small human. I lay on the floor next to said trundle. The idea is for you to be able to slide out of the room when small human falls asleep.

Next, you make up a soft tune that fits with this little ditty:

Bundle o'baby

Baby's a bundle

Can't sleep in a big bed

You sleep in a trundle.

Finally you lie down in your spot and softly sing the ditty over and over and over and over again until either you or the small human falls asleep. Either way, mission accomplished.

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.