“It All Turns On Affection”

04/30/2012

Our hero from Kentucky, Wendell Berry, recently delivered the 2012 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. I’d like to suggest you listen to or read his lecture entitled, “It All Turns On Affection“.  Thank you National Endowment for the Humanities.

“I will say, from my own belief and experience, that imagination thrives on contact, on tangible connection. For humans to have a responsible relationship to the world, they must imagine their places in it. To have a place, to live and belong in a place, to live from a place without destroying it, we must imagine it. By imagination we see it illuminated by its own unique character and by our love for it. By imagination we recognize with sympathy the fellow members, human and nonhuman, with whom we share our place. By that local experience we see the need to grant a sort of preemptive sympathy to all the fellow members, the neighbors, with whom we share the world. As imagination enables sympathy, sympathy enables affection. And it is in affection that we find the possibility of a neighborly, kind, and conserving economy.”  Wendell Berry

Nashville Art Crawl !

04/14/2012

Reception for Working Memory at Picture This on 5th – April 7, 2012

I love Nashville and the growing arts community is one of downtown Nashville’s best treasures. The monthly Art Crawl generates a festive crowd of over one thousand people, squeezing themselves into and out of galleries, looking at art and talking to artists, drinking wine out of paper cups and listening to musicians on the streets. I’m not accustomed to talking so much about what I do, but I thoroughly enjoyed the many conversations with folks that came to see my show….lots of great questions, observations, and sharing of stories. Thank you so much to my family and many friends, old and new, who showed up to share and contribute to the evening. And thank you to Matt Fischer and John Reed Of Picture This Gallery for making this show possible and for such a beautiful job of installing the work.

(photo – Ginka Wandzura Poole)

Covenant Recording

04/01/2012

Working Memory – Covenant Recording      mixed media on paper    30″x24″

The latest in the series Working Memory….another little hymn of hope from the heart of the huérfano and tribute to the home away from home…and to las tres hermanas, that sacred stretch of land that has captivated my imagination for over twenty years.

Reception for Working Memory, April 7

03/31/2012

April 7 is next Saturday ! I look forward to being back in Nashville – showing the work and sharing the time with family and friends. Thank you to Matt Fischer and John Reed of Picture This on 5th for this wonderful Art Crawl opportunity. Please join us if at all possible. (downtown on 5th, 44 Arcade)

To Err…and to Imagine…is Human

03/21/2012

“Artists have a vested interest in our believing in the flash of revelation, the so-called inspiration… shining down from heavens as a ray of grace. In reality, the imagination of the good artist or thinker produces continuously good, mediocre or bad things, but his judgment, trained and sharpened to a fine point, rejects, selects, connects… All great artists and thinkers are great workers, indefatigable not only in inventing, but also in rejecting, sifting, transforming, ordering.”  ( Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, Nietzsche, 1878 )

I don’t know about being indefatigable, but the writing methods of Bob Dylan, the drug habits of poets, the secret sauce of Pixar, and the unharnessing of the brain all seem worthy of a little attention. I haven’t yet read Jonah Lehrer’s latest book, Imagine : How Creativity Works, but I’ve added it to the list. Take a listen to the author discussing the book with NPR’s Robert Siegel – How Creativity Works – It’s All In Your Imagination

And even forgiveness must also require imagination.

Arts Walk Exhibit

03/01/2012

Flushlings Study, Resounding

I am very pleased to participate in the current  Arts Walk Exhibit  sponsored by the Williamson County Arts Council. I have eleven paintings on display, both from the series Working Memory  and Cloud Recordings, at Lehman & Lehman in Brentwood,Tennessee. The works of seven other artists will also be featured. The show is up through the month of April with an opening reception on March 20, 5 – 7:30 pm.

Thank you ACWC, The Arts Council of Williamson County is a non -profit service organization that exists to enrich the lives of Williamson County, Tennessee by bringing the arts and people together.

The Peace of Wild Things

02/12/2012

The National Endowment for the Humanities has named Wendell Berry – Kentucky poet, novelist, essayist, conservationist, farmer – as the 2012 Jefferson Lecturer. Berry will deliver the lecture, “It All Turns On Affection”, on April 23 in Washington. I was introduced to his work by artist and painting professor Robert Head at Murray State University, Kentucky. Bob had the wonderful habit of reading to his students. One day as class was ending he gifted me with a copy of Berry’s The Collected Poems, saying nothing but sticking his tongue out at me as he left.  Thank you Wendell, thank you Bob.

On Site Study – Old Maple at Waterfall - Image © 2006 by Robert William Head 

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Listening With Heart, Composer Philip Glass Turns 75

01/31/2012

Lift —mixed media on paper and wood panel—5′ x 9’3″ x 2″

Happy Birthday to Philip Glass, I heard today on NPR Morning Edition that he is celebrating his 75th year on the planet. And many parts of the planet will celebrate his music today with festivals and performances. Here at my point I will once again turn up the Glass, and tip a glass, while at work in the studio. It’s only fitting, I was drawing at age 20 when I first heard his music, Glassworks,  imposed upon the class by my instructor….thank you Dale Leys. The music of Philip Glass has ever since frequented my “music to work by” soundtrack. His music is often described as being minimalist, true no doubt, but I understand that he also describes himself  as a composer of “music with repetitive structures.”   I do enjoy contemplating structure. And I really do have a particular fondness for repetitive structure.

Thank you Philip Glass.