I live Among People Who Say they Want to Kill Me. I Choose Not to Believe Them.

I live in a tiny village in rural South Carolina, and absolutely love it here. Let’s get that straight.

This past Halloween evening I was sitting out on my front porch, the light on,` with my friend Dean and a big bag of candy. The village kids were OUT, and it was such a compete joy to see them. There is no sweeter music in the world than the sound of happy children.

One neighbor, a man I don’t know, climbed the stairs on to the porch with a darling pre-teen girl dressed as an astronaut. As a big NASA fan, I greeted her warmly. The man kinda smiled, spoke much louder than necessary, and said he wanted her to take the President of the United States to the moon and leave him there to die. When I managed to catch my breath, I said “no political talk here.” He responded, still too loudly, '“Let me just say one thing!”.

At that point I did something somewhat out of character for me. I stood up in front of him as tall as I could, and I said quietly, “No! This is my house.” It’s hard to know sometimes how to turn the other cheek. “My House” was the best I could come up with at the moment. It may have worked. He smiled brightly and said, “You’re the artist, aren’t you?” I said yes and invited them in to see the paintings and the studio. He was polite and gracious. We shook hands. The girl never spoke, not one word, but she smiled at me.

Still, from time to time I hear from my neighbors that they want to kill people like me. That they want the shooting to start. Maybe it’s because when they put out their confederate and Trump flags, I put out my Tibetan prayer flags. Maybe it’s because I’m an outsider. Who knows. I’ve been shoved in the post office, by a large man …. probably for wearing a mask. Bumped hard in my back by carts in the grocery store, always by men, presumably for the same. Would physical gestures like that turn to murder? Again, who knows.

But I’m going to keep turning the other cheek as best I can. Seeing the kindness in my neighbors. Taking care of my home. Doing what I can to support the village. And leaving my prayer flags in place … who knows … maybe they are keeping me safe.

We Will See I Guess

My friend and mentor Michael Kampen-O’Riley always said that he knew I was about to do my best work because I cut my hair off first. Quirky, and maybe TMI, but he may be on to something. Here we go.

Santa Knows 2021

A film business friend once explained to me that a genre has run its course when the parody movies are made. Think Blazing Saddles signaling the end of the Western. To laugh at a thing renders it powerless. To celebrate the humor in something horrifying and dangerous not only banishes the fear, it allows us to reclaim our own power. We can literally laugh the monster out of existence. In that way (and so many others) laughter is a gift — an amazing, soul-deep Santa, who Knows how to set things right.

So it will be with this year’s Santa Knows. I’ve actually been fretting for months now …. who will it be? And thankfully the gift of laughter stepped in. Not going to say who it is of course, but I can say this: it’s someone we will all recognize, and at some point we will come together to share a good long laugh.

Prep sketch for Janet and Beau

This is a tiny painting. 14x11 inches. Never tried a face rendering less than 1 inch high. Happily, all the compositional problems worked out during the dress rehearsal. So the larger piece will be a breeze.

Studio Buddy

Back to work in the studio, with a new challenge: three equestrian paintings. This is an area I’ve always to develop, and to do it well, the artist really has to know the soul of the subject. I grew up around horses, and loved to ride, but it’s been a long time … and I’m working to get back to that place. So … lots of drawing and sketching. I’m so lucky to have a good friend in the studio with me.

Tears Of Gratitude

Been thinking a lot lately about Santa Knows 2021. The series is intended to be joyous … certainly not political, at least not overtly so. For me, always better to be moral than political. Better to be grateful than angry. Better to be expanding than contracting. But no painting is powerful without emotional underpinnings. Never forget this when you look at art — if the artist didn’t feel something, you won’t either. In this emotionally charged time … a year like no other in my life … well … I’ve been waiting for something to blast through the newly established emotional event horizon, and give me the gift of Santa Knows.

When I saw these guys this week, I felt what they went through to save my freedom. And when Adam Kinzinger wept, saying, “You guys won that day … you held the line,” I wept too …. tears of gratitude beyond measure. Not sure if it’s sensible to reshape the Santa Knows series with many heroes instead of one. But I can tell you one thing for certain: if emotion is artistic currency, then I should try to find a way.

Longitudinal Self Portrait

Can’t remember for sure. It was either my 39th or 40th birthday … when I started painting. Prior to that … nada. Unless you count some drawing in high school. Oddly, the first two paintings I did were pretty decent — both portraits. The third was a … sort of landscape. And for several years afterwards, I rendered this image constantly … Lord knows how many times. This is the first one, and the only version I still have. It’s painted on the first canvas I ever stretched.

At the time I thought of it less as a landscape, and more as an autobiography. A longitudinal self portrait … with the three phases of my adult life. First, new in the world of adulthood — working in broadcasting and research. Next, morphing out of that world, and learning to paint. And (although I’m still learning to paint) I think of myself in the third phase now — living as an artist. As I predicted all those years ago, this is the brightest phase of my life. Scarier than the previous incarnations, but vastly more rewarding.

Sunrise Gate

Found this fabulous old door and cleaned it up yesterday. It’s for the pantry … perfect fit. Plus, it was actually made in my little village … as I scraped and sanded the ancient flakes of paint, a faded stamp “Monarch Mills Lockhart SC” appeared, stained with dark ink deep into the wood. So this morning over coffee, the door leaning against the kitchen wall since I don’t have the hardware to hang it yet … and as I was admiring it properly …. and designing architectural forms with some rusty metal finds while the quiche bakes … well, you know … a Sunrise Gate was born. Isn’t it the perfect wayfinding icon for heading due east!

Perfect Day

How often do you get to say that … perfect day? Started the large commission, Azalea Allee today. The client approved the second sketch (not posted) with the drive centered in the middle of the canvas foreground. Predictable… I know. But not boring in this case thanks to the riotous branch architecture. And the heart in the sky. This was just the first day …. but LOVE the energetic movement. If the underpainting doesn’t feel alive, the finished picture won’t. That’s why i get to say “perfect day”!

Azalea Allee sketch

Just finished this first little sketch, and on to the next one.

Landscapes In Progress

Here are the two small landscapes after the second day of work. With the tangled limb architecture established, the compositions are taking shape. Walking through the allee, you feel like you are in a vaulted interior space … the canopy creates a living cathedral of sorts. So that’s the feeling I’m working to create. It’s a bit of a stretch on these small canvases (16x12), but hopefully the idea will play out better on a larger board.

Starting Some Landscapes

This is the first session work on a pair of small landscape sketches. Different perspectives on the same location — a dreamy azalea and live oak lined allee in Charleston. I love this early stage of the work … at the beginning you paint what you see in order to render the scene somewhat realistically. Gradually, toward the end of the session you begin to paint what you feel … squinting at the subject to flatten and simplify the forms, and then rendering them in patches of color. So! Much! Fun!

Flowers

I’m very fond of these colors. Now to move on to the large landscape commission. Perfect warm-up project …

Flower Progress

Ok … almost done with this and then on to the large landscape. Good warm-up for that project I guess. Looking forward to finishing this over coffee tomorrow morning.

Still Flowering

Sometimes you have to let something burn itself out. I made the mistake of looking at the calendar yesterday, leading to the realization that I have to finish three paintings in the next four weeks … a lot of work, but doable. So … what do you think … perfect time to ignore all that and go off on a flower-fest? At least I should finish this tomorrow or the next day … and then back to the calendar.

Flower Painting

Off to a good start. Hope it will be dry enough in the wee hours to advance, but probably not. The nocturn feeling was definitely the right way to go …

Flower Painting In Spring

What a glorious way to start the week — buttery orange and white roses and poppies. It’s not as if other project deadlines aren’t bearing down on me … but how can we not paint flowers in spring! This composition might actually be more dramatic at night. Easy enough to sketch it today, and finish over the next few evenings. I’m moving into one of those phases I call “losing time” anyway … it’s actually very peaceful to start the day at 2:00 in the morning. Gandharva Veda music, Gyokuro Konacha tea, sunrise over the race in my little Brigadoon. I’m a bit sad to know this splendid isolation is slipping away — developers at the gate. I seem to have a knack for escaping to places on the verge of discovery, gentrification, and true to our time — zoom village potential. But for now, the real world is way out there on the other side of the fog … whispering to me, “I’m on my way back to you”.

Every Artist Has A Secret

Been working for days on “Window” after weeks out of the studio. It was hard to get back to it. This is the last of the pandemic paintings. Lots of hidden numbers and meanings … and hopefully, if I do my job properly, you will react to the image and not its codified secrets. This painting is about the totality of the time. Patriotism … in all its incarnations, our central-beautiful symbol, red white and blue, innocent and believing. Stuck inside with the sky and the earth (blue and green) as interiors … and outside …. is this yellow strangeness. I have not added yet the prayer flags, dragons in flight… a personally loving symbol that my South Carolina mill village neighbors call China Flags. Still working … the idea is fixed, but the execution is likely to evolve.

The Moment That Never Ends

I don’t want to brag, but I’m an excellent sleeper. Nobody ever had to tell me to go to bed as a kid. I love to sleep. My ex says that if sleeping were an olympic sport, I’d be a gold medalist. And on top of that, these threshold pandemic times have brought along with them all sorts of sleepy dream adventures.

Last night, heavily blanketed against the early spring cold with my sweet little tribe, I woke around 3:00 from a dream, set in Southpark mall, of toddlers surfing on escalators and golden retrievers riding horses. So we rested on …  arranged in our nest:  I’m on right my side holding Alia Atredes in my arms like a kid with a teddy bear. Purring and breathing a whisper-song.  Duncan Idaho, with forever troublesome sinuses, curled against me, snoring softly. Poppy, quite content with the cold, rolls over on his back, paws up, and sighs. Feeling so cozy, so safe. And all I can think is — I never want this moment to end. 

So I rest in the Vitruvian beauty of it … feeling such peace, bathing in an oceanic visitor of perception as it gradually expands to all those I love, and have ever loved. The top of my head seems to open up with the radiance of epiphany:  this is it! 

This. Is. It. The promise of Easter, of life everlasting.

This is the actual Truth of it. This moment. This feeling. This energy. Energy that cannot be created or destroyed, only borrowed and shared. This is the resurrection — the part of us that never dies. This enormous shared peace is the moment that never ends, and all I have to do to summon it is to know it. This is the gift of eternal life, completely outside of time  — the moment that never ends.

Ahhh ... spring

The light today was nourishing. Advancing shadows on Window … it will take several sessions to underlay dozens of colors … only to mostly obscure them later. The studio gets west light, so late afternoon is not workable. But Duncan Idaho loves the light.