The Tale of Budge

"The View Outside" 6" x 6" acrylic on Gessoed Hardboard, SOLD

Mewing.  There was mewing in the vicinity of our back door, a pleading chorus.

Where was it all coming from?  We didn't know.  It was a curiosity, nothing more.

But then we found them - a litter of newborn kittens in the shallow space beneath a cabinet in our garage.  We left the garage door open so that the mother could come and go freely. And eventually, one at a time, the mother removed the kittens from the garage.  The mewing lessened until only one voice remained.

The mewing of the remaining kitten was loud, desperate - needful.  But the mother did not return.

What to do?  My wife was very upset.  She lined a shoebox with papertowels, and then with hand towels.  We didn't know anything about cats.  She tried to feed him.  Nothing.

He was a beautiful black.  She named him Licorice.  He could fit on the palm of her hand.

She called her sister, who rushed over.  She and her niece brought Licorice to the Humane Society, where they were summarily informed that because there were too many strays, if they left him there he would be put down.

So my wife's sister brought Licorice home.  That name wouldn't do.  His name became Budge.  She and her husband brought him to the vet, who told them what they had to do.  He told them there was perhaps a 40% chance that Budge would survive.

But they were determined.  They bought cat supplies galore.

Her husband, my brother-in-law, stepped to the fore.  Around the clock, including all night, for days (weeks?), he had to feed Budge through a dropper every two hours.  But not only that.  He had to rub Budge's belly constantly.  It is not just for affection that a cat licks her kittens.  It teaches them to feed.

It was touch and go for a while.  There were times when Budge wouldn't eat.  There were other times he had to be rushed to the vet.

But against the odds, he survived.  And he lived the pampered life of a favored cat in their household for years.


One day I saw him sitting on the windowsill, and snapped the shot that the above painting is based upon.  I liked his silhouette against the lively background, and the shape of the large palm frond that seemed to shelter him.

And that is the story of Budge.

 

Critics.  There are always critics.

Concerning the Koi

6" x 6" acrylic on board "The Koi" Click HERE to purchase $100.00

Sitting at the edge
of the pond and
contemplating

the koi,

I am captured by
their color,
ensnarled in their
swirling.

I am calmed.

As I sit
in the massive
shopping mall
on the concrete
edge of the koi pond,

I feel frenetic
bodies
all about me:

sallying,
bullying and
stirring the air

Sometimes for gain,
they perform
the unthinkable.

7" x 7" watercolor on 140 lb. NOT paper. Click HERE to purchase $100.00

When koi are released
into the wild,
they lose their
spectacular color within

a few generations

and don the dull cloak
of the carp.

They stir the soil,
making their watery home
muddy and
unattractive
to everyone else.

Undrinkable.

Sometimes for gain,
they perform
the unthinkable.

Captivity
becomes
the koi.

*****************************************

Here's a photo for Shadow Shot Sunday:

Between a Rock and a Hard Place (And a Healthy Dose of Art Philosophy and a Shadow Shot too!)

6" x 6" acrylic on board.  "A Dog's World" Click here to purchase.  $100.00

In "Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee", Seinfeld's online series, which is just about the Best Thing Ever ( I like the episode with Michael Richards), Seinfeld asks Chris Rock who it is that he likes, and Rock responds, "I admire people that have breakdowns.  Because once you have a breakdown, you can clear the slate."


Try as I might, I am incapable of having a breakdown.  I can metaphorically break a leg (see the last post) and put my blog into virtual paralysis, but between down periods and angry spells and  confusion, my mood eventually buoys like a beach ball in water.  And that, I suppose, is a good thing.  Despite the fact that I will never have the admiration of Chris Rock.

But there has been this kind of inadvertant virtual summer sabbatical.  The precipitating event is not the worst thing that has ever happened to me, not by a long shot, but it was indeed traumatic and had elements that have called into question perspectives that I have held for nearly half a century.  I am not the same.  I will not write about it directly.  But my soul has been stirred - even my feelings about art.  And I consider this blog to be a reflection of my soul.

From my moleskine this month.

Also in my moleskine - true, isn't it?

Despite the pause in blogging, I have continued painting.  I touched up an older painting, yet to be posted, and have almost completed another series painting.  I have wrestled with another wolf painting - and the wolf appears to be winning.  But I will continue to try to tame the beast. 


And during this virtual absence I decided to emulate the daily painters.  I painted six small acrylic paintings in quick daily succession.  The first, of a dog, is above.  I will post them all as this blog continues.

But all of that is beside the point.

I was pleased with the results of each of these works.  But in a way, surprisingly, I was dissatisfied as well with each and every one of them.  My springboard for these, as with virtually all I have painted before, has been "every day matters" - my fascination with all I see around me.  But I have begun to seriously question the premise.  I think painting what you see may not be enough.  To show the reality of the everyday I am thinking a painting may need to include what lies behind - the unseen.  And how do you depict that?  That is the question.


I am wondering whether this is what modern painters are attempting to show, an internal sense that there is more to the world than what is being observed.

A Shadow shot for "Shadow Shot Sunday" - it's been a long time..

Periodically there have been times - uplifting, invigorating, happy times - that seemed to be of high velocity, but that have come to a sudden, shocking halt.  A human life can be like that when it is tragically cut short.  In a poem I wrote after my daughter's short life and dramatic death, I likened the experience to a "roof unmoored by hurricane winds."  There are also times that the apparent surface events conceals the reality.  And sometimes we are fooled, and shocked when the reality is revealed.  And how do you depict that? 

My drive to draw and paint is as strong as ever, but what and how I paint in the future may change.  I have outlined for myself elements to include in future works, devices for showing the unseen in the observed, the hidden, the profundity, and I have an idea for paintings in this regard.  Will they work? Again, I don't know.  It is a hard place to be in.  And I may not have the skills to do it.

These are my thoughts for what they are worth.  Again, I don't want to be a talker, I want to do.  I am too much of a talker.  In art, my drive is to do.  But I want to share my thoughts, even with the risk that none of it may ever materialize.

Prologue  - [Sigh, I can't stop] but for me, this is the most interesting part:

After I wrote the above, and then saving the post for a week as a draft - wondering if all of the above was premature to say - I was mulling over painting ideas and noted that one image was awfully like a Magritte.  It made me wonder about the philosophy behind his works (beyond that of his famous painting of the pipe).  Lo and behold, when contrasting his art with the pop artist's "mistake" of painting "the world as it is", he contrasted their attention to the passing moment with his concern for portraying "the feeling for the real, insofar as it is permanent."

This led me to the photographer Duane Michals, who was influenced by Magritte.  You can see much of his work here.  In 1987 he gave a lecture which is here.  (It is funny that in that year, because it was recorded by cassette tape, only half of the talk was recorded because they forgot to turn the tape over!).  Key phrases, for me, from this talk are:

When looking at a picture:  "I don't want to know what I know.  I want to know what I don't know!"

"People are not what they seem."  And he said, and it's true, that one can't even know one's own parents.  [Recent events, for me, have called into question the entire premise of my "At First Glance" series.  Fortunately the series is aptly titled, because the idea of capturing someone's soul is a fool's errand.]

And, significantly:

"The most important things in life are invisible."

And how do you portray that?!

At First Glance #6

5" x 7" ink and watercolor on Fabriano Artistico rough paper
(Click to view a larger image.)

It's got to be said.  You can be strolling along, the warmth of the sun on your face, a soft breeze blowing - everything right with the world.  Then you can step into a hole and break your ankle.

We lack control in this world.  We cannot control our environment.  We cannot control others.  Sometimes we cannot even control ourselves.

So what's a person to do?

Here's what I think: 

First you experience the pain.  Fully.  Good or bad, it is part of your story. 

Next, you wander, and you wonder.  Allow yourself to drift to the next place, and wonder at what you will see along the way. 

And don't look back.

*  *  *

This is the sixth in my At First Glance series of ink and watercolor drawings of folks I spot in Miami.  The others in the series are here, here, here, here, and  here.

And here's what they look like as a group:

(Click to enlarge.)

Crying Wolf, Laughing Man

10" x 10" Acrylic on canvas [Click to enlarge]

I painted this for my oldest son who has always liked wolves.  I hope he still does.

One honest fellow I showed this to expressed the opinion that he wouldn't want a wolf on his wall. And I guess those yellow eyes could be unnerving. I should've made them glow in the dark.

I've been told more than once that I should be a dog artist.  Folks have made statements like "Dogs are your talent."

But although I am taken each time by the depth of feeling the expression of a canine can show, and challenged each time by the nonhuman dimensions, I cannot limit myself.

One reason is my fascination with people, mostly the ordinary ones with everyday experiences. 

The other day I read a poem by Mark Strand, called "Not Dying" that began like this:

These wrinkles are nothing.
These gray hairs are nothing.
This stomach which sags
with old food, these bruised
and swollen ankles,
my darkening brain,
they are nothing.
I am the same boy
my mother used to kiss.

These lines blew me away!  As soon as I read them, I had to draw the old man:

8" x 10" Ink and watercolor on Daler-Rowney Langton Prestige NOT paper [Click to enlarge.]

I cannot begin to tell you how fun this was to do.   I was remembering the works of Wendy McNaughton, and thinking of Lisa Congdon and her Reconstructivist series that showcases amazing women.  With inspirations like these, and so many ways to draw and paint, how could I just paint dogs?

A Long Time Comin'

16" x 20" Acrylic on board [Click to enlarge]

Well..I tried a practice portrait before this.  It went through the mannequin stage, the zombie stage and finally, the space alien stage, before I chucked it in the corner.

So much for that.

But the idea of a portrait nagged at me.  My sister-in-law had been bugging me about doing a portrait of her literally for decades.  And finally I felt capable of painting it.

Did it look like her?  It did to me.  I did the small child test. Casually, showing little interest and yawning slightly, I pointed to the picture and asked a small child, "Who's that?"

I am pleased to say I passed the test.

My sister-in-law's reaction?  "Now you paint me - when I'm not young anymore?!"

Aw well.  She took it home anyway.

----

A book in my library that I've spent hours perusing over the years is "A Painterly Approach" by Mary Beth McKenzie.  I just love the way she paints.  But all that time reading her advice and viewing her wonderful paintings showed me nothing at all compared to a demonstration by the artist I found online at the Youtube channel of the Art Students League of New York.  There is just something about watching an artist work.  At the same channel, I found a demonstration by Sharon Sprung that was just as informative and inspiring.  I hope you find them as rewarding:

Mary Beth McKenzie:

 Sharon Sprung:

Thank you Art Students League, for providing this resource to we country folks (because everywhere outside of NYC is the country, right?)

A Special Mother's Day

Watercolor on 8" x 10" Daler-Rowney Langton Prestige NOT paper
Beneath the Bamboo with Dragonflies (Click to Enlarge)

Motherhood.  The word often brings to mind the comfort, joy and security of our own mothers.  And this is wonderful.  But it is more than that.

There are mothers that must face the loss of a child.  This is a loss that does not end.  There are mothers that must cope on a daily basis with extraordinary physical, mental, or behavioral needs of their child.

In both instances, there is a loss of expectations, of hopes and of dreams, but still these moms persevere and provide as they can.

This post is for them, and for my wife, among them, on Mother's Day.

So for you special mothers, for all of you, is a poem. And I hope you'll forgive me, but it was written by a man.  It is not peaceful, not even optimistic really, but defiant.  Because you must think of yourself too.

And whether or not you are a mother, or a parent, you must cope with life's challenges, and this poem can be for you too.



the laughing heart
by Charles Bukowski

your life is your life.
don't let it be clubbed into dank
submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the
darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you
chances.
know them, take them.
you can't beat death but
you can beat death
in life,
sometimes.
and the more often you
learn to do it,
the more light there will
be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have
it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in
you.


[Note:  I painted this watercolor at Fairchild Tropical Gardens, as a gift for my wife on Mother's Day.  She loves bamboo and dragonflies, as well she should.   Happy Mother's Day!]